Light Up Your Life with Rabbi Hajioff, Dr. Lieberman, Rabbi Bensoussan, Rabbi Meirov, Rabbi Farhi

if someone were to offer you any gift that you want for 2021 what would you choose a new car a new home maybe a great marriage partner friends i'm going to tell you what the greatest gift that you need to be asking for for this upcoming year and that is the greatest gift of clarity because so much pain and difficulty comes from not knowing what our mission is what we should be doing with our lives and our lack of acceptance of our situations let me explain the word in hebrew for doubt is suffic and there is no greater enemy to happiness than being in doubt than being in suffic you know the hebrew word suffec doubt has the gematria the numerical value of 240 and it's no coincidence that the enemy of all the jewish people and actually the entire world is encapsulated in amalek this nation that lives inside each and every one of us as well as out there in the world is trying to bring doubt into our lives and that's why the word amalek has the same gomatria as suffec 240 because my friends doubt is the enemy of happiness of simcha and what is the happiness for example that a person feels at a wedding not just your wedding but any wedding you attend is it a great music that helps is it a good feud the food helps as well my friends the real feeling of happiness is knowing that this khatam this groom and this color this bride have finally found their life partner they know who where and obviously when as well and that feeling of removing all doubt from their lives brings us tremendous joy and happiness and that is one of the main reasons we are celebrating at a wedding acceptance accepting our situations that's been a big challenge over the past year i spoke to one of my advisers recently more about him in a moment and i was talking about the challenges that i was going through my family and my many students that have bombarded me with questions and challenges over the past year and he stopped everything and he pulled a sedoor off of his shelf and he opened it up and on the inside of his door there was a piece of paper that was taped inside and on it were the words that he told me he reads every single day at the end of the amidah before he steps back before he leaves god's presence he asks for acceptance that he can accept what gods want from him and i'm going to tell you that prayer it's a very famous prayer it actually comes from the alcoholics anonymous big book but listen to these very very important words that are found inside us the door elsewhere but they're encapsulated within these words and we pray that god should allow us to accept and answer all of our problems today because when i'm disturbed it's because i find some person place thing or situation some fact of my life unacceptable to me and i can find no serenity until i accept that person place thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment nothing my friends absolutely nothing happens in god's world by mistake until we accept all of our challenges all of our problems and in this case alcoholism i could not stay sober unless i accept life completely on life's terms i cannot be happy you know one of the things my friends we are told to do in the famous mishna in pirika is assa rav what do those words mean there's two ways to understand that directive number one appoint a rabbi for yourself everyone needs spiritual clarity everyone needs guidance especially during dark and challenging times we build up that relationship when things are good so that when things go sour and challenging like we've been dealing with over the past year we have someone to go to but there's another interpretation another very famous one means make yourself into a rabbi understand yourself what you need to do look inside yourself at challenging and difficult times in order to figure out where you need to be and what you need to do with your life in order to continue the vision you have for yourself you know the purim story tells the story between the first and second peter mikdash of the famous amalekite haman who wanted to wipe out all the jewish people throughout the world and people think that's the real problem the jewish people had to face at that time but the rabbis tell us there was a much worse problem that the jewish people had to deal with and that problem is even told to us in the torah itself it says that the sport of the god sometimes in history hides himself i hide my face what does it mean i hide my face how does god mask himself and the answer is he puts us into darkness he puts us in doubt and he gives us no light to find a way out we've got to dig deep inside of ourselves in order to figure out what needs to be done in order to get ourselves out of this situation and of course purim is all about the time of putting a mask on and unmasking god's hiddenness in this world and that is exactly what mcgill at esther is about to reveal hester the hiddenness of god in this world the rambam tells us something unbelievable and that is when mashiach comes all the books of nas of the naveen the prophets and ketuvim the writings are going to disappear we won't need them anymore who needs those books that predict and foretell the coming of mashiach once meshiach arrives and so they won't be needed we're gonna just need the torah because that's where the mitzvah and that's it but there's one more book one other sefer from all of the prophets and all the writings that is going to be with us even after moshiach comes and that my friends says the rambam is megillat esther the book of esther will always be with us forever why what's inside this book that we're going to even need after mashiach comes and the answer is the way the redemption happens and our remembrance of the final redemption of let me explain you see when we want things to get better in our lives we want that improvement to happen quickly in the blink of an eye but that's not usually the way it happens usually takes time effort thought there's a process like a large ship turning around in the ocean it doesn't just turn on a dime it's got to slowly move around in order to reverse course to find a new direction and that's how most things happen in this world little sprouts don't just come up out of the ground and turn into beautiful fruit trees nights doesn't just become day it's early morning it's dusk and then eventually by midday the sun is at its highest point and that's really how life works most of the time change comes but it comes slowly not in our time but it's god's time however the purim story tells us something unbelievable that things can just go on and on and on in darkness and challenge and difficulty and then yeshua hashem kaherif iron things can turn around in an instant one minute god masks himself and weave the past year almost are under our own masks and then suddenly the mass comes off and god reveals himself just like in the purim story nobody knew except morocco that esther was a jew and not only a jews but a great prophetess and she was gonna be the answer she was gonna unlock the door of our galut of our challenge and bring us survival and bring us redemption and that's what she did and it happened for a long time the jewish people sat in darkness that's physical and metaphorical darkness and then came along esther and said i'm a jews and then it all turned around in a single instant when meshiach comes and my friends were getting very very close the rabbis tell us there's going to be a lot of darkness in this world and the masks are going to be on people won't be able to express themselves it's going to be hard to know who to turn to the truth it's going to be neder it's going to be hidden away who do we go to in these dark times and the mishnah in sota tells us we have no one to rely upon ella avinu shabbat shamayim god himself is going to be the only place we can go to because nobody else can be trusted just like in the purim story the redemption can only come from god when we're in absolute darkness and challenge it can turn around an instant when god takes the controls and we accept our situations and let go and let god and that my friends is where we are right now and that's what we're going to with god willing moving into a place of absolute redemption of clarity of light to the jewish people there was aura the jewish people there was light and there was happiness and there was joy but notice the order before the simcha came there needed to be light and light comes from receiving great guidance from great people who are steeped and are full of torah because torah the or is the torah and then we get to the simcha and that's when the redemption happens so maybe that's one of the reasons we say these words in the megillah which i just told you during abdullah because at the end of shabbat when we're in darkness and shabbat leaves us we turn on this fiery torch the avoca the abdullah candle and we bring out light in darkness and we only get to that light through shabbat and we only get to simha through aura to the light of torah find for yourself a spiritual advisor and make yourself into a source of great decision making as well my bracha to each and every one of you this year is that god should bless you with absolute light and clarity and you should know what your future holds for you and you should make a path for yourselves using torah and great guidance that is available to you in order to bring bracha and clarity and remove remove suffix from your lives thank you all very much bracha the hello everybody and welcome okay what i'd like to share with you the next 10 minutes or so are some strategies that i use strategies i think are pretty effective in terms of being able to maximize our goals and make this year different now i will confess that i have perfectionist tendencies i don't want to label myself a perfectionist but i can be a perfectionist now i know any of you watching these videos this one included can say this guy must have a very poor standard of perfectionism if he considers this to be perfect uh i don't mean by these videos even though i try to make them uh good uh i mean more perfectionism in other areas particularly with my writing which is why as i said about and the uh moti shabbos talks that you know which are pretty much unedited and uh i don't know the questions in advance and it comes out the way it does i think there's a rawness to it there's a there's a natural flow to it which is nice um but that's something that i would never been comfortable with i'm still not comfortable with quite frankly but i do think that it's it's it's necessary otherwise it just wouldn't get done and in fact it's only because of their pleasant persistence that we end up uh having it done uh but by my writing it's you know i i um i can get a little bit stuck in the weeds i'm gonna share with you just a a brief interaction i had with one of my uh sons and uh he asked me how my book was coming along i'm working on a new book and it's i you know for the past six months i said you know almost there almost almost there actually the first year i said almost almost there and i really thought i was almost there almost there and so on and i've written a dozen books so i kind of know what i'm doing and yet sometimes i can get just sort of stuck in the mud and he said to me something so profound he said you know the race is already over you're just standing around the finish line and i thought i first i asked him you know where did you read that instead of nowhere i was very insightful and it's true it's pretty much it's the book is largely done but it's those dieting their eye dieting the eyes and crossing the t's and just making everything just so that can really hang people up and one of the biggest obstacles to um to being successful is procrastination obviously comes as no surprise but the henchmen of procrastination is perfectionism is trying to get it just so i remember years ago we had someone at our shabbos table a lovely lovely lovely couple probably in their i don't know 80s maybe and he said that you know he himself was working on a book and um i don't know probably for the past 20 years or so and you know after you know we were just talking schmoozing and you know towards the end of the suitor you know he wasn't at the table and his wife said you know what that manuscript is gonna die in his desk drawer um and uh i don't know if she's right or not i don't know what happened to it but you know we certainly do find that sometimes we can get caught up in trying to make it just so now nobody wants to go to a dentist that's okay with 70 no one wants to go to an attorney that's like ah we'll get it close enough you know there are some disciplines some professions and and some areas of our life that we do want to shoot for excellence perfectionism perfectionism is a moving target right i mean there's nothing that's perfect in our finite world hashem is perfect but we shoot for excellence that's good other areas you want to finish it before it finishes you because it's like this imagine working for a boss who you tell an idea to they get really excited they say fine go ahead and do it but they'd never ever let you complete it you'd find yourself frustrated infuriated just uh you know feeling just burnt out and that's what it's like when you're a perfectionist is you just get burnt out from spinning your wheels so a couple of ways to help overcome that first off is interesting is that um first off is my third first off uh is that in the in the u.s marines it's something called the 70 percent rule which basically see when you're when you're in the field either the marines are special forces different uh areas of uh the military is you know you're acting in real time and even though we see things or i don't know other people see things in the movies we don't but uh you read about things you hear things you know that you know you know seeing in real time uh it's it's not always so clear it's a little bit fuzzy about when and how to take action so um there's something called 70 rule which basically says if you have 70 percent of the intel you have a 70 chance of mission success and 70 70 percent of the equipment and men and or women and materials that you need then you go ahead they don't go for 75 80 99 percent and this is the us marines which are among the best of the best basically they found that by waiting for just the perfect moment waiting for just star all the stars to line up waiting for all the intel by the time everything happened they missed their window of opportunity so then a couple of things that i think may be effective in terms of helping to uh to move us forward number one is this you know picture a person who is on fire literally just person's on fire they're they're on fire they don't sit down with a day planner they don't write goals they don't get color-coded photo of you know folders i love going to staples by the way office depot is still around in the middle of the day you see a lot of people pushing carts who would rather do anything other than be at work you know working in their home office so they get their colorful and being organized having structure is fundamentally necessary but when ninety percent of your time is spent on getting ready uh you know and working on the packaging working on the graphics working on the logo and there's nothing going into creating the machine what the essence of what you're doing you're just spinning your wheels and the reason we're spinning wheels of course perfectionism is built on a fear of failure is you know the ability to be able to reframe falling down as feedback rather than failure by the way by kids by adults by everyone is really uh necessary in order to keep moving forward because if somebody views uh falling down as a failure then they're going to stop because no one wants to fail but if you view it as feedback for this is more information i have in order to pivot in a more responsible healthy direction uh then you'll continue to go because there's no such thing as failing so just that mind mind shift mindset shift is very important yeah once again it's uh are you here you're all thinking wow lieberman really kicked his uh perfectionism habit nicely yes thank you so i purposely messed up just so you can see how far i've come all right um so uh included in this whole zoc in this whole thing in terms of perfectionism is to be able to focus clearly on the goal focus on the outcome focus on what it is that you want um and recognize too that you know as i'll say a tonic full seven times gets up seven times doesn't mean literally seven times it means seven is because it's um representative of of nature of you know in this world we will continue to fall and get back up and no one can achieve anything great by not failing if you are not failing if you are not uncomfortable if you're not doing something that moves you out of your comfort zone then you're not growing uh and by definition then you're you're decaying so first is to to understand that there is only feedback there's not failure there is um learning from our mistakes and getting it right the next time as you know as they say thomas edison who invented the incandescent light bulb tried 999 different times before he hit on the 10 000 time every time that he quote unquote failed they said why didn't you stop he said how could i was one step closer to getting it right and when you view it like that particularly by children by the way you know when they say you know i i failed i didn't do well no you know exactly what you need to do next time in order to get you that much closer to your goal so uh number one number two is you need a deadline you know the the world is built on deadlines we see by april 15th when taxes are due other than when corona they extend it you know 90 years but there's a line draped around the post office is because people wait the human nation's the last minute anyone running any type of organization recognizes people sign up at the last minute last minute last minute last minute we are by definition procrastinators we all have different streaks in us but many people procrastinate which is why if you don't have a deadline for yourself uh before as you may deadline for the object deadline for yourself you know a deadline for the objective it will just continue to stretch out and schlep out like we know this by by chavez right in the summer when you've got an extra maybe two hours two and a half hours uh before shikiya before sundown and bashabas begins you know we're still somehow well not you i'll speak for me running up until last minute um or the old me not the new me and um in the winter when you've got a couple hours less you never you know are going into shabbos by two hours you're also running up into the end because there's something called parkinson's law which basically says a task will expand or contract depending on how much time you allow for it so then you know coupons of expiration dates for a reason you know wouldn't you think that these multi-billion dollar companies would say we're spending all this money in advertising all this money and getting the product out why don't we just tell people at the bottom rather than you know valid until 2000 whatever whenever you get around to using the coupon great enjoy your product they don't do it because human nature is will never ever do it so we don't run the world but we do run our own thoughts our own lives to the degree that we can make goals and set plans and set deadlines give your objective a definitive deadline something that's reasonable something that you can hit and something that you can divide into doable segments and then each way each at each point along the way celebrate those small victories um acknowledge it and then fine-tune what you need to do and keep on moving forward because for the procrastinator the objective is to get done um because even if it's not what you want as a finished product you will still have a win in your column because you still have accomplished something much more than if you never got there one is you'll be able to do something else now two is it might give you some degree of return on your investment and three is you have begun to develop that muscle of moving forward now on the flip side there are those who put out product who put out goals have goals objectives whatever which are complete slop and i mean i know people like this and i i marvel at them um and maybe you do too because you know they're okay with complete mediocrity and i don't think anyone here really wants mediocrity and so again on the flip side of procrastination and and perfectionism being sort of that uh that driving force are those that are just okay with things just being okay and just um you know fine with uh you know not getting it you know not shooting for excellence and not getting things closer to being right so whether you're that kind of person or the previous kind of person is real change happens when we've said i'm done when we're no longer willing to tolerate whatever it is we've been putting up with now again we could be putting up with schlepping things out until they never get done or been putting up with complete mediocrity but whenever it is that you know i started selling a metaphor before i'm sorry um was talking about a man on fire is that he doesn't get a day planner he doesn't you know sit down and write goals and i got into a staple uh metaphor um he does whatever he can or to put out the flames in other words when a person has that burning passion that and i'm just rethreading to the to the to the finale here um i know you're probably okay anyway um and no i i had zero eggnog uh so um you know up until we reach a point where we are uh just no longer willing to settle for how things are when we're no longer willing to accept um we're no longer really to accept i wrote it down so nicely here where it is yeah thank you we're no longer willing to tolerate something in our lives that's when things change we just said you know what i'm done then we have on our shama our soul and our yetzer ego moving in the same direction because all of us is fed up but until that point we're never really going to be able to fly and be successful because if it's just about you in a shaman just about your soul and you're one of those elevated people amazing but our fears are yet to horror creeps in and holds us back and it's just about the ego needs a then you may be running in sort of a erroneous direction and you're neshamar your soul is not really fueled and fed and so you know you've got this gap between who you are and what you're doing and that doesn't really work but when you neshama and and you know your all of you all of our hearts are combined in this one force of saying i'm done i want to be better i want to be more i want to be somebody that i'm not yet but destined to become that's when we move forward we really have to be done fed up tired of how things are so in order to do that in order to get that fuel cause i'll talk about the importance of this thousands of years ago and the research shows today that a person should visualize exactly where they're going to be if they continue on the same trajectory the pain of what that's going to be like what their life is going to look like how they're going to feel what they're going to do what the cost will be and become immersed and meshed just completely wrapped up in the visceral real pain of what our lives will look like if we continue on this trajectory versus the possibility on the other side the possibility of doing more being more of actually transforming ourselves into something else and get very real and again visualize imagine what our life will look like what we would appreciate what we would gain what we would get that we'd be missing out on and you really just sort of create this gap that you just become spreads wider and wider and so you have to pick a side and hopefully it's a side where you go forward and the end of the day is what charges our fuel tank what gives us energy is simcha you can't move forward without energy and the only thing that energizes us is really joy is to get excited about what is we're doing and i got to tell you if there's one silver bullet in in being successful it is in reminding yourself immersing yourself in all of the good that you'll be able to do all the good you'll be able to accomplish all the good that will come with you moving forward and we'll end this the same way and um some a number of my talks as well as uh one of my books is the power that the quality of our lives comes down to the quality of our choices if we accept responsibility for who we can become nothing can stop us if we don't nothing will ever move us the jewish new year rosh hashanah is quite different from the uh you know regular outside secular new year ours isn't about uh drinking and about for virality it's about contemplation it's about reflection it's about doing a uh fish it's about doing an accounting of the soul to see where we are who we are how we are and where we want to move forward how we want to move forward what we want to be but at the end of the day nothing happens without the power of decision you know any plan that starts tomorrow never starts your ability to be someone different requires you to take massive swift action now to make a decision and to do something concrete in the world that says i am going to be this person because if you just stays in the thoughts if you just have that inspiration it will fade unless you create a clear vessel for it in this world so i encourage you if you want to make this year different you have to use the power of decision and decide now and take concrete specific action to move yourself forward in that direction with that i wish you very good things and thank you for watching hey everybody okay happy new year huh here you go so really i i i what you're doing is is that you are sitting and watching some tire happen while maybe the rest of the world is celebrating something as empty as a new year what is it exactly you know what what would rosh hashanah be without rosh hashanah i guess i'm saying you know what would a new year be without the conviction without the feeling of being told that you're becoming brand new right now i was so lucky to be here then no we're so lucky to have this ability just stop a minute and really think about that think about the fact that my father would always say this to us growing up and we would walk with my father on friday night to show my father would come running home from work before we walked with him come running in from the q train and if he got unlucky and he had to take the local it was the d train back then was the q and the d not the key on the b going into uh going into brooklyn he'd come running from east 16th street to east 13th street where we lived and he'd come running down and my father was an accountant so he had these heavy heavy like big antache cases of of all the client work he'd come running down the street come running up especially by one shabbat came in early run upstairs and shower you know hear him shaving in the shower like ab i don't know if that's so come out and come down steps guys you're ready we're ready for like 20 minutes we'll go welcome my father and we would see a certain calm come over my father and he would say guys there's nothing like shabbos there's nothing like hurry y'all see there's nothing like shabbos and then he would say to us i don't know what the game do without chambers i i don't know what they have so i don't know what the golem have inside a new year you know how do you have a new year without it being a rosh hashanah so i want to talk about for us for a moment because le mans said there is a feeling of new there's a feeling of new that that's look we're brought up beside this calendar as well and it comes to january 1st there is a certain feeling of getting rid of the old and in with the new and it can't be that that's just happenstance it can't be that that just happened by mistake there's a value to that and if there is a value to it you know there is some khmer the game have is it rosh hashanah of course not but is there something that we can tap into something of the new i i would like to think that there is and it's quite interesting because this year just about their new year enjoyed them come into the same place show them the concept of shuvu returning to hashem there's no idea of doing tishuma from shamas we know that shaivam is the time shavim literally stands for returning all wayward children it's returned to hashem but him is also the rashid we know and that's a time of renewal for the jew but srivivim or chuva only works when you believe and this is really the point that hashemi came to listen to and i don't want to take too much of your time but something that i want you to really focus on in value teshuva only works when we can leave the past behind when we can leave it all where it's meant to be which is in the past you know there's a beautiful vart that miles biederman brings over here and parses by egash that he says don't be sad don't be depressed joseph says to them and now meaning and now if you think about the present moment if you think about just now if you think about picking up and moving from here al tatsu so then you're never going to be sad if you should decide to focus in on the right now not on the past not on anything that was from beforehand but rather you decide to focus on the from here on it brings over here something quite fascinating that there was once a bachelor who came to to the to the late summer of gar and he said to him reba i committed mamesh of varys of virus that you can't imagine how many are various i've done over and over again i did all these averages and i knew i shouldn't and i cried about it and i promised hashem that i wouldn't but then again and again i did them and then i said i'm sorry and it's been years and years as abba was an alta bachr and he said to him what should i do and listen to the left simply he said to him the ramban tells us yaakov never asked yosef how did you end up in mitzrayim jaakov never asked joseph and joseph never told his father yaakov how he ended up there this means yaakov avinu never found out that his children sold the ice of the metroid meaning can you can you believe that joseph felt that he lived by the words viata he lived by the words of and now what happened in the past is so irrelevant it's so non-consequential to what my future is it's so honestly forgotten a little bit deeper the ramban is telling us that a yid there is no past he doesn't have that yaakov said it doesn't make a difference joseph said it doesn't make a difference it doesn't make a difference hashem put a concept of chuva into this world adam was shocked by it adam sees kaine and amnam says to kind how are you still alive well after you did what you did that kind said i did this crazy thing called truvan can you believe it worked when adam heard that he composed miz mashir leon shabbat was was wowed by this other one said it could take a b that you can go and you could have ran and the answer is yes because that's in the past it's something that it's up to hashem that hashem owns you see if we live by the past then we're only ever going to be reactionary if we live by what we once were so then what i'm doing now is a reaction to what was then you never have a free-willed choice in that because part of what i'm choosing is from what happened in the past whereas if i am actionary if i am able to shut down what was and instead i can decide from this moment on i'm making a decision of now to be this not necessarily even because the past was something but because right now i am this you are making a free will choice it's not based on what was it's based on the here and now and going forward there's so much depth in that because that makes us like hashem creates hashem is not reactionary hashem takes action we have to understand that for us to really tap into the reality of who we are to take action that's only from a ve atta that's only from and now alta atsu don't allow depression to kick in and there's so many reasons to be depressed i know the world itself it's nuts right now but there are so many reasons for hope baruch hashem there's so many reasons for hope rebel ty we're going to be soon enough we're going to be looking over our shoulder and calling what we're going through now in the past it's going to happen and because that's going to happen what we decide on now to say that i'm going to get a jumpstart of saying what is over behind me over my shoulder the past and that's where i'm going to keep it don't you want to do that don't you want to feel that don't you want to say that the corona is in the past don't you want to say it was something that i lived and existed through and now i'm going to begin living for real you can start that with your life right now you can do that it's possible but step one is you have to forgive yourself hashem is ready to forgive you the shadows are you ready to forgive you can you allow for that to go can you allow yourself to just take responsibility for what you've done in the past enough to say look i did what i did and am i going to allow that to keep on echoing into my future all the time am i going to allow that to go and to say you see taka i'm that same small person so i have to continue are you going to allow that to be you if you do then guess what it's not upset that you were that and now you're continuing you're not continuing you're actually going backwards you're remaining in what was you're not growing you're not improving is that what hashem wants is hashem saying oh he did that alvaro you know what i want him to do now i want him to wallow in that of there and i want him to convince himself that that's all he is and i want him to really keep his face down in the mud of that of era so that he'll come back and continue that availa come on of course that is what hashem wants of course what hashem wants is that the atta al-atsufu of course what hashem wants us only wants to say look i'm willing to let you go on this and you don't even have to have a full-on forgiveness from this that's the beauty of it hashem will take care of you no matter what the reason why hashem tells us allah shalom the reason why hashem keeps on saying to the hidden that i'm the one who took you out of my triumph why why always isha we and all the young taiwan always always always look at him it's right what shot let's see if asham says something so beautiful he tells us hashem is letting us know do you remember what level you were on aim i don't get it why are you saving the jews the jews didn't avoid the zero the graham that avoided zara and yet you're killing out them it's real you're saving the yiddin i don't understand that hashem saying those don't you remember don't you remember where you were holding it's not that you did chuva it's not that all of a sudden you weren't in the 49th level of tomah we say that the yiddin had to go out mamish and such an upheaval and such a rush that they hidden had to run out from there because if it wasn't a rush if the hidden didn't run out so quick then they would have gotten sucked into the 50th level and that's it yeah the filming game says there's no such thing as but okay there is a fiftieth level of trauma they would they would have gotten sucked into the fiftieth level and that's it they would have been gone and hashem said and what i do i did the greatest miracles in the world i took you out al can't finish sharim i made the night look like day and i loved you and then i split the red sea for you and i brought you to i brought you to harsinai and you didn't have to do a thing except believe that now you could be different how amazing is that hashem constantly is reminding us i don't care what you're holding don't you remember i took you out of mitzrayim when you're in the 59th level of tomah i'm able to look past it guys this isn't just simple talk even if you can't understand it even if we're such small people that we remember the evil that other people did to us and we can't get past people but god's a lot bigger than we are we know that so when it comes to this concept of a new year if taka hashem put this into the world because hashem gave us a certain feeling of new something something new yeah come to january first i'm gonna say 2021 yeah you're gonna say that and if you say that it's gonna come across with this feeling of the atta and now and now i'm new and now itaka could leave the past behind you know and and now i could forgive myself enough it's a chauvinism i could be shuv i could return to hashem i could allow for that to be back there and for me to keep on growing hashem taka to take the inanimate rhyme when they're in such a small terrible place and so he'll take me out of my place too and he loves me and he loves me he loves me how am i ready for burkwood so i'll leave off with this river of burqa what's my brother you also just reminded me berkowitz would always say to us i certainly believe that if the rambam was writing because yud gimli karim today of emunah if the rambam was writing his 13 principles of faith certainly he would have added into it he would have added into one of the 13 principles maybe a 14th principle who knows would have been anima i believe that hashem loves me loves you he loves you so much he loves you so much that he just wants you to recognize the atta is ata the atta of right now is atta it is you go and make that happen thank you so much to tor anytime thank you so much to khazakh with the queue kazakh with the k happened tonight i'm sure the other speakers will say it also hashem and this is happening you know at the end of parashat it's so interesting ladies and gentlemen new year's is a very festive time of the year for millions of people around the world and especially here in new york there is a certain excitement where you have hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of people gather together in times square they're waiting for lila for midnight so they could be mikayam the mitzvah they could fulfill their obligation of watching and witnessing how the ball drops and you have people standing there in the cold in the rain you name it they're counting ten nine eight and when they reach zero they all jump in joy now we all know that this year with the pandemic still raging around the world the festivities are not going to be the same in fact times square will be closed for the public and they're only going to have a select few people there so they can keep the tradition of having the ball drop alive and well they're going to still have his minogue they're going to keep having this tradition even this year of the ball dropping and instead of having people you know crowded and together everyone's going to watch it online or on television but it has a tremendous lesson here for us here we have this custom that is basically uh uh with no reason no value to it just a ball dropping no tradition no torah no no okay some guy thought of a good idea about to get people together together but they're not going to drop them in hug they're going to keep it going even this year they're going to drop it they're going to have the countdown you can learn so much from this that yes maybe you cannot go to school in the whatever city you live in or you don't have the shielding that you used to in your local neighborhood oh hashem today with technology we could have online over the phone there's no reason why we should stop this real the real purpose of of life i you know as one that's very involved with kazakh here in queens in new york i'm very very impressed to see so many public school students kids that have no background in the hadoop the way we have that during their early times of the pandemic every day they will learn online through zoom and even now when hashem here in new york things opened up and we have programs in person we still have teachers that offer zoom classes several times a day and you have dozens upon dozens upon dozens of of children and teenagers joining the different classes so they can learn some torah yes it may not be the same for them but those kids that don't come to the programs are motivated to learn and they're using technology for their advantage to think that teenagers how many billions of things you can do on the computer on the phones and they say no i'm going to learn every single day how much more so us adults yes in certain places you still can't learn torah with your rabbi in person you can't go to the school in certain communities but the screen is still there touring your time is still around all these beautiful websites that offer torah is still there there's no reason why we should stop we shouldn't be wasting our time and all these different shows and videos online this is an opportunity for people to really grow you have an opportunity to grow with torah that's available in so many different languages and the beautiful part of am islam is the most beautiful part is that you have people that are doing that for me or they're doing what they're doing israel and you have everyone around the world learning the same exact topic the same exact page every single day and you could watch this you online listen to them on the phone it's so beautiful but do we take advantage of it you know if the golem are going to be particular to have the ball drop and to watch it we should in particular every single day to spend our time wisely with a computer screen with our phones lived every single day of his life every day of his life he utilize every single day tells us and it was the days of yaakov the years of his life our sages tell us that he didn't just live years he lived days every single day of his life had fruit had purpose had meaning to it and this is what we have to strive for i urge anyone that has this look at that very powerful things about what a day of a person's life is how it's being judged in charmaine what we have to do is we have to count our days count every second ten nine eight every second is very valuable every single moment of life every breath that we can take let's value every moment of life make sure that we're particular about torah means learning every single day every single day complimenting someone every single day don't let a single day go by without it if you have a little fight with someone hold the grudge try to fix it up that day let's make sure our days are complete if you learn how to appreciate every moment of life and bizarre hashem just like the abdullah gleim don't stop them in a game because of this pandemic we're not gonna stop anything we're to keep going strong with only going strong with our triloth going strong with all the areas of jewish life and yeah this pandemic should really be behind us we should be success in person not the ball drop but we should see with the hazelnuts we should see with rather shame the building libertarian it should be done speeding in our days amen good evening ladies and gentlemen it is a wonderful honor and a privilege to be addressing you tonight and i'm sure some of you are wondering why we are running a program on new year's eve it's not a jewish holiday and why are we even mentioning the fact that this is taking place on a day which has zero jewish significance and in fact has many negative connotations throughout history and i'd like to answer by a way of a very beautiful abudram he writes in his siddur that on minha before we take out the torah we sing hashem to you oh my god etrazzon it is a time of ratzon of desire where you desire me where you appreciate me where you love me elokim god birov with your abundant mercy please answer me in truth bring me my salvation the midrash says that david used to say um the nations of the world kisha shotim um when they drink and they get drunk they sit yoshivim nagnim they sing songs they put dance music they go to a club they get crazy they're taking drugs and maskirin they don't mention there's no praying of the shema in the middle of this you know the the booze and alcohol and drugs the fuel by desire all those things that are going on in the nations of the world on their holidays but for us [Music] even though i eat and i drink on shabbat afternoon we've had a fantastic meal the night before we've eaten to excess on friday night on shabbat lunch after the kidus after the kiddish club after everything still after all that anibali hit pale fanaka i come to pray in front of you and i ask from you therefore i ask for you for a time of ratzon that this should be a good time an advantageous time to bring forgiveness to the entire world if that is the case by minha where we show what we do on our day off uh versus what they do then perhaps there's no greater time than this evening to be able to show what it is that we are doing on new year's eve versus what's going on out there at least on a normal year and to note and to bring to god's attention the heavenly court the difference between our new year our rosh hashanah which is spent in the synagogue in prayer into shiva in te fila versus their new year and what's going on then a ball is dropping and people are going crazy people strangers kissing each other in the streets that's what a new year is supposed to look like on this evening spending it in torah in kedusa and learning we bring ourselves an unbelievable itrazon into our lives where we illustrate how we spend the time that we are given we see in our parasha we sit between two great occurrences between the parasha which we are about to read and the parashat follows it the parasha of shemot it's not just two different books that we are going to say which is some iteration of what's happening here tonight in this partnership but rather something i think much more powerful it is a uh story of two different times of two different modes that am israel is in the mode of a people in galut versus the mode of a people in geulah and i think that we are learning some tremendous lessons from this week's parashiyot and how it teaches us how to act when we are no longer the uh the writers of our own destiny sitting in our own land under our own government following our own torah laws but underneath unfortunately a very different set of laws a very different set of values and a very different set of priorities our pasuk begins points out why is this prasha closed what does he mean if you open the torah you will see that there's no space in the torah which allows you to find the first words of the parasha if you look down the page it's in middle of the column it's almost as if we're in middle of one chapter we haven't delineated the difference between what came before and this this is hidden almost and what does that come to tell you rashid gives two explanations and i'd like to focus with you on the second one should be kesley attempted to reveal the end to express to them when mashiach would finally come when the galut would finally achieve its bitter end that we would return to edit israel to the beta mcdash with the coming of masjid speedily in our days he wanted to tell them when it was going to be the problem was in that moment nistam mimenu it was closed off from him so to illustrate that our parashah begins with stuma an element which is closed words that seem to be hidden my friends i'd like to share with you i think the tremendous lesson that we find um in this specific idea in the unknowing nature of the time of mashiach ya'akov calls his sons around his bedside calls to his sons and he says what's going to happen end of days what an unbelievable class that would be i'm sure torah anytime would get a million a million a billion a trillion views if ya'akov gave a class about what was going to happen in the end of days come he covered covets gather round vishim ubene akov listen and then ya'akov begins to give them each one of his children take a look at rasheed she says on the spot something fascinating rasheed says like we started he tried to reveal the end venesta menu it distanced itself from him it disappeared and he started to say other things this rashi bothered me for a very long time i tried to understand what this means you call everyone around the bed it's your final moments on this earth and how did ya'akov choose to spend those moments gather round i'm going to tell you what's going to happen in the end i'm going to tell you about the mashiach about what's going to bring my sheikh what time le gallote and suddenly for whatever reason god didn't allow him to reveal it yakov decides to start speaking right she says other things now if it was me i'd gathered everyone around to tell them that when mashiach is going to come and all of a sudden i couldn't remember it could you imagine okay guys instead of when nashiak's going to come let's learn the halachot of boren you're going to get that what is going on here now if rashid would just tell me he tried he couldn't remember so what happened nothing he didn't tell them he moved on to the next level the next thing on the agenda but my friends i don't think that's what rashid is telling us i think rasheed is saying because he could not do what he wanted he couldn't tell them when mashach was coming yaakov says if i can't tell you when at least let me tell you how the dwarim were not different in terms of their purpose they were different in terms of their derek of their root rabbotai i can't tell you the year the day it's gone from me so let me tell you how you bring him ya'akov then proceeds to give them he proceeds to tell each one of his children a special blessing now what is the nature of this blessing right back in the beginning of our torah rashid asks the question why does the torah begin with the letter bet bereshit and he answers that the letter bet represents the concept of barakah of blessing asks ibn ezra i don't understand what you're talking about rashi you're telling me that bets the word that starts baracha bed is also the letter that starts the word an animal it also is the letter that starts the word botsea a thief what does it have to do that it has one word in the in the words that start with letter b which is explained something very powerful he says that even ezra did not understand what rasheed was trying to say he wasn't saying that bet randomly starts the word baracha but rather that bet is the essence it is at the root of the word if one was to take a look at this source the shores the root of the word it is the word which means to bless bet interestingly enough those three letters are all the number two bet is the two in this one columns right in the singles one two resh is the two in the hundred columns two hundred and half is the two in the ten columns so the word it is at its essence a concept of doubling something of taking something that is there and replicating it so that there is more of what was once there rasheed therefore communicates something very beautiful the essence of bereshit is the essence of baraka so we chose bet to communicate it because in bereshit there was more of something that was there before perhaps the greatest trick of the letter bit beginning the word bereshit is telling you in the beginning god created there was someone there there was something there before the world was created it was god who brought the world into existence that is hidden in the letters but my friends there's something fascinating about the word baracha itself and i noticed this a little while ago and i found it so interesting let's take those root letters of the word each one of those letters if you spell them out bet is bet you'd taf so the inner letters the hidden letters if you will the hidden dimension of the word to bless has the letters you'd taf bet those second letters you'd shin the second letter is in and pe the last letter in half the numerical value of those numbers put together is exactly 800. and i thought that there's something magnificent about that because the numerical value of 800 you want to know what is a biracha my friends in judaism the nature of a baracha is to find something that is there already and magnify it and bring it out in fact when elisha comes to give a barakah to the to this woman who had hid the prophets and fed them when their lives were at risk he asks her ma yesh babait what do you have in your house because i can only bless you on something that you already have you see in judaism magnifying what is there is a birah bringing something else which isn't there into your equation that's not a baracha that's a kilala that's a curse and i saw the most amazing hidush then according to this idea the nature of ibaraka is to find what is already there and bring it out if you were to introduce something else in that's not a barakah that's a kill allah let's look at those letters again inside the letters numerical value 800 which is the gematria of the word shorish the root of something so you know what's inside the barakah what's under the hood the root that was already there maybe growing under the ground unseen but the process of baraka is to find the root and then magnify it what is the root rabutai of the word kelala is kalel right kuf lamid lamid let's look at what's underneath the hood of the lettuce kuflam islamic curse is right lamin is it and again lamin memdal so we're left with 86 mem dalit 44 and mehmed 44 again 86 44 and 44 gives us a numerical value rabbotai of 174 which is the gematria my friends of the word you want to know what's underneath introducing something that isn't you bringing in amida which is not yours being someone else is not a barakah even if you do it to great effect that mimicry is a curse not just to you but in the loss of who you could have been to the entire world look at the barrack that ya'akov gives to his children and everyone asks the same questions what do you mean then it starts off he says to real then look at the bear hut again yes says to his son that he that he acted impetuously but look what he says first you're my first only my strength the first of my efforts you had so much inside of you but that impetuous nature the fact that you act so quickly it can be a tremendous disadvantage if you keep your first place in line therefore i don't want you to be first a person who marches first into battle if they are methodical if they are strategic then they don't get killed but if you're sending you a son into battle and they are impetuous do you want them first or second ya'akov is explaining to his son rauven who are you what is at your core shimon and levi seems to be the same he tells them you know it sounds like he's cursing them no but this is it and these are the blessings that yakov gave to his sons what does it say here he says to shimonen levi is your anger most people translate trains like that ki as the word because because it is brazen and their and their furyki kashata what is what do these words actually mean my friends the word ki can also mean when cursed is their anger ki kias when it is too harsh right their their rage and their wrath when it is too harsh when it is too and how do i know that yaakov is only trying to guide this principle in each one of his kids and he's not trying to curse them at all is because the end of the pasuk says i will divide them amongst yaakov israel and disperse them amongst israel says [Music] there are no poor people but there are also no scribes people that write the sephirah torah the mezuzot the te feeling there are no milam deity no people who teach young children how to learn torah only from the tribe of shimon does that sound like he's cursing them like he's telling him that they are nobodies does that sound like he's banishing them from his kingdom levi also they couldn't be together so where did levi go he was dispersed how was he dispersed by getting the mat he got the tiruma all these wonderful gifts he became the most pure and pious amongst all the jewish people you can't eat before the quran goes the fir first person to the torah kohen levi unbelievable it's clear that he was blessing them but what did yaakov take umbrage with clerc you went to war you used that anger but you stole it from my brother that was isabes bracha you steal someone else's bracha by them it's you it's a curse i'm taking it back i'm protecting you prabhutai ya'akov was communicating to his kids how we bring the mashiach when we return each one of us to our shoresh that's a bit and not to davar hitsoni to some external thing that i looked at that person and tried to be him or tried to be her that's not a barakah at all and that's not how we bring the ultimate guillotine the ultimate mashiach my friends i need to share with you something that i found incredibly powerful there was a rebbi siddish rebbe his name was rabshiman of shkaranovic he guided us with tremendous amount of love and devotion and one day a man comes knocking at his door and he's crying and crying he can barely get any words out of his mouth and the redmi rib shimon says to him my my student what's the matter how can i help he says rebbe you know i live in a far off city there's not a big jewish community there and my sons they all turned out okay but my daughters they had no one to hang out with and i have a daughter she started hanging out with the wrong crowd before i knew it she'd become friends with some of the non-jewish kids in the town she fell in love with one of the non-jewish boys and in two weeks time she's supposed to marry him she's run away from home and she's now in the monastery in my town going through the process of conversion to christianity what's going to be with my daughter rebbe what's going to be what should i do and the rebbe says don't worry give me the name of the town i'll take care of it the father his heart is suddenly healed lifted his holy rebbe is going to take care of him he goes home with a heart that's filled with the tiniest bit of hope if shimon turns to his gabay and he says prepare the horses and the wagon we're going on a journey and that thursday night they rumbled up into this god forsaken town with one jewish family in crisis and they pull up in front of the monastery of shimon and his gabay the hasidis rebbe looks and he sees running past him as a non-jewish boy and he says boy come here i have this letter here and there's a jewish girl inside that building take this letter and give it to her the boy's like but before he can walk away the rebbe reaches in his pocket and he pulls out a large sum of money he says if you give it to her this is yours easiest money he's ever made he grabs the letter he runs away runs inside hours go by nothing they spend the night the next morning slowly but surely time passes and they don't know what to do but after two days pass and three days pass the gaba says to the rebbe he says rebbe what's going on what did you write in the letter we don't even know if the kid delivered it to this girl and the rebbe said i wrote in the letter that shimon from skarnevich and his gabae are sitting outside in a wagon and whenever you're ready to come out we'll be waiting for you the review says we've sent the letter now all we can do is our part to wait four days go by it's raining it's snowing it's freezing five days six days finally on thursday when the gaba is about to ask his rebbe if he's gonna miss a second shabbat with his family they've been sitting in the same spot in the snow and in the cold for a week waiting the door of the monastery opens and this girl comes walking up to them and she says i'm ready to go take me home she gets in the carriage and in the quiet she finally breaks the silence and says you know when i first got the letter it kind of said exactly what i thought it would say that my father wanted me back that he was sending someone else to do his business and i told myself then that no matter what i'm gonna stay here i'm gonna marry this boy i'm gonna be okay i'm gonna convert to christianity it won't make a difference anyway it doesn't matter anyway i'm not connected anyway but when i saw you three days and four days and five days i started thinking to myself this guy's never gonna leave he's gonna wait for me as long as it takes he must care about me and if he cares about me as the emissary of my own father then my father and my family must care about me they must be devastated they must love me and that love brought me back to the carriage and that love saved my life my friends yaakov avinu is saying to his kids even after they've made a mistake real then you're still in the gang maybe not in the front but you are still part of us shimon levi you've made a mistake but shimon don't think that you're rubbish that you're a terrible person i want you teaching the children you're a fantastic example of what passion looks like yes it was misguided once but there's a place for you here and we are waiting for you to shine levi don't go hard on yourself you have inside of you the ability to be the quranim the living that guide these people that bring tremendous kedusha to our people whatever you've done there's a place for you here with us my friends this is the question that the generation of mashiach has to ask itself who are we at our root yaakov helped each one of them see that special uniqueness and because they could see it they knew yaakov knew that they would ultimately bring that giulia that redemption it is fascinating to note that we begin the parashat shemot the elect israel these are the names of the binay israel they descend into galut with those names the names that they learned from their father and it is those names that at the end of their sojourn in egypt they are taken out with those names shalom they did not change those names not just not change those names to be others egyptians to be essavs but to be other people other than themselves you know mashiach is right around the corner he can't help but come so long as we each play our part and bring by looking into our own shoresh and finding what it is that we bring to the world to be the puzzle piece that brings it all together and the minute we're looking at someone else and another person and another type and thinking that we want to be them even if it's not in davar gashmi even if it's not a car or close even if it's something holy to not be who you are is to be missing a piece for the perfection of the world to come ya'akov tried to tell them when mashiach was going to come but nist al-qash god took that ability away from him and ya'akov said if i can't tell you when he'll come i'll show you how you can bring him may we be to be be in the lives of all we meet and to achieve the ultimate blessing with the coming of mashiach amen