Mind Flex - Rabbi Akiva's Journey with Rabbi Yonasan Shippel

[Music] good evening friends and a happy L to each one of you wherever you find yourselves around the world it's a great privilege once again to join the mindflex team of project Inspire V Tor to participate and to share words of reflection on this very speci special day of lagba om the 33rd day of the OM together with you have you ever wondered what did we do in Jewish weddings at the conclusion of Jewish weddings prior to the destruction of the temple I'm sure you just like me wait at the conclusion of every Jewish wedding for that break of the glass when the groom breaks the glass the Rabbi says those mortal words of my friends we know Sim no Jewish celebration this complete while Jerusalem still lies in Ruins and as a result we break this gloss at the climax of our joy to remember that although we're celebrating Jerusalem is not complete and everyone screams out maslov and we pray and with that maslov we pray pray and we wish and we hope that this new Jewish Home that's now being formed will be a link in the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of our Temple but think about it from a historical perspective the Jews came out of Egypt in the Hebrew year 2448 we then spent 40 years in the desert after those 40 years in the desert 50 days after we left Egypt obviously we all know we received the Torah at sin and then following that there were 40 years in the desert following those 40 years in the desert we were in the land of Israel for 440 years during which time theas the distribution of the land took place among the 12 tribes once again we had to reestablish ourselves the rebuilding of agrarian society and of course rebuilding of our or the building of our first permanent temple in Jerusalem that took 440 years the first temple stood for 410 years it's only after therefore 40 + 440 + 410 890 years after receiving the touret SI the Jews experienced the loss of our Holy Temple for for the first time so does that mean my friends that for the first 890 years of Jewish history at the end of every single wedding ceremony that we didn't break a gloss or perhaps we did this is a question that always perturbed me because breaking a glass we all know is associated so much with the Jewish wedding ceremony and I looked and I looked and if you look in the some of the classic commentaries they explain that indeed the breaking of the glass which today recalls the destruction of the temple was not a new invention it's actually from the very beginning of Jewish history once we received the Torah in Mount Si that we started to break a gloss you see prior to the destruction of the Temple there was another break and that was the break that when we received the Torah on the 6th of Sian in 24485 days after we left Egypt Moses then went up for 40 days and he came back down on the 17th of tamuz holding those first set of tablets and he held those first set of tablets but remember we know the story that the Jews has had miscalculated the days they've forgotten that the Jewish day begins at Sunset and ends at Sunset and so mosha appeared to be late the Jews were foror and as a result we have the whole incident of the golden cough and when Moshe sees when Moses sees that golden cough he takes those two luos those two tablets and he breaks them and God is furious with the Jewish people so to speak because the Jewish people have created this golden cough and God really wants to destroy the Jewish people and mosha Moses our great teacher he pleads with God on behalf of the Jewish people so much does he plead that he's willing to say God you can erase my name from this book just give your people and another chance and God relents and he gives us a second chance and Moshe goes up again ones on the first day of el the Hebrew month of L the sixth month of the year and he comes back down 40 Days Later on yum Kipper on the day of atonement with a second set of tablets and that day becomes known as the day of atonement or the day of Second Chances and mosha takes those second tablets and just like the first tablets which were broken he puts them into the holy Ark which as we know since the destruction of the temple is buried somewhere underneath the temple mounts according to to our tradition so we broke a gloss at the end of the wedding for those first 890 years not to remember the destruction of the temple but to remember the destruction of the first tablets and the fact that God gave us a second opportunity and in Breaking that glass the couple is publicly testifying so to speak that just like we remember the break of the first tablets where God gave the Jewish people a second chance in all of our relationships we too have to have the capability and the capacity to Grant each other a second chance after all we all know my friends that if you're not able to give a second chance marriage is not going to last very long at least from my perspective someone who definitely is very far from perfect thank God my wife gives me a second a third and even a fourth chance but this philosophy of giving Second Chances is really taught to us at the very beginning of the Torah after all the medish tells us that even was even God himself built many worlds and destroyed them till he got it perfect and if you look at the first word of the Torah bious and you divide it into two words bet b the letter Bas which is numerical value too and rious which means beginning the first word in the Torah is reminding us that b Rous there's always a second beginning there's always a second chance and no matter how much a person has strayed or how much a person has been challenged God always grants us the second chance if he could give us a second chance all the more so we have to give each other a second chance this concept of a second chance brings us to the journey of RAB AKA that we're discussing and celebrating today like this great holiday of the 33rd day of the OM is a great day of sim and there are many reasons why we celebrate the great joy of L om some say that the great celebration of L is because the man the in the desert started to fall on like so it's an auspicious day says the for parasa for livelihood and to put in that special prayer for livelihood it's also the day that we all know of the H the yite of the author of the Z the day in which he left his cave after 13 years of hiding out and learning with his son rebelar in the cave in spite of the Forbidden nature of their learning because the Roman authorities at the time forbidden learning miraculously they were able to survive and learn and they came out of that cave and we know that today hundreds of thousands of Jews and after last year when there were just dozens or perhaps hundreds who are in meon in the North of Israel once again we're also excited that once again this year with the slow coming to an end of Corona thank God may it be erased very quickly that many tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Jews are once again Ascend to mount meon and to celebrate the Legacy in the life of rimai who himself was a man of Second Chances but then there's another aspect of life bmer and that's what I'd like to focus on and that is we all know that during this period of History 24,000 students of RAB Akiva of that Great Sage rabi AKA whom himself lived a life of Second Chances let's just look for a moment to the life of RAB AA the great Raba who said love your neighbors yourself for this is the most important rule in the Torah r y who was born in the year 50 and passed away in the year 135 of the Common Era at 85 years old y himself was a man of Second Chances he did not come from any great Noble home he didn't come from aristocracy he lacked pedigree so to speak he came from the simple home of a Shepherd more than that Rika we all know the story for the first 40 Years of his life was a wonderful Shepherd but he was uneducated he was unlettered and then that famous story happened that when rabika was 40 years old one day he was out posturing his flock and he sees a little Oasis and in this Oasis my friends he sees in this Oasis he sees a rock that slowly but surely over the years the water has dripped on one drop after another drop after another drop after another drop and eventually with the Persistence of the rock of the flow of one drop after another that water which is so soft has pierced a whole through this Boulder through this rock of granite that is so hard and Raba makes that famous line and he says that if water can tear a stone then surely I too can become a scholar if that which is so soft can impact that which is so hard then there's the power of transformation within every single one of us and he begins the process made the rabbis teach us a person who embarrass will never learn and can you imagine Rika the shepherd The Story Goes that at 40 years old he signs up for first grade so to speak and he goes into class with youngsters and he learns the AL one letter of the alphabet after another and he learns the basics the shim the verbs and the nouns of the Hebrew language and slowly but surely he starts to learn he marries his wife Rael and Rael knows that he needs to learn and she encourages him to go away that's a whole another story which we don't have time for this evening and he goes back and he learns for 24 years and he comes back with thousands of students after which he said those famous lines of that which is theirs and that which is mine is yours rael's because you get the honor you get the you have the merits of all the Torah that we have learned and all the Torah that we have created but then my friends a great Calamity happens and the Calamity that happens is the rabbis tell us and that's why the first 32 days of the OM become a time of national mourning straight after pesak after we start counting the Omare the special Bley offering that we brought in the Holy Temple we start counting it on the second night of passover of pesak and straight off the pesak is over we're in a state of national morning because this was a time in history when 24,000 students a RAB AA passed away and can you imagine pesak is seven or eight days long in the diaspora there okay they were living in Israel was 7 days long 32 - 7 is 25 in 25 days wherea had to attend the funeral of 24,000 students can you imagine I know what it is to be a community Rabbi during this time of Corona and the amount of tragedies we've had to deal with but that's nothing I'm not God forbid minimizing it but you can't compare that to 24,000 students and we know he had a relationship with each one what he had to give 24,000 eulogies and attend the funerals of 24,000 students I mean imagine the Melancholy and theen the broken state of mind thato would find himself in and then all of a sudden a miracle happened and on the 33rd day of the OM on the 33rd day of the OM the plague stopped and the rabbis tell us why did they die sh covered because it was a lack of respect one for another these were great Torah Giants but the greater a person is the more is expected of them and because they did not interact with one another on the highest level of the proper etiquette and manners and tolerance and respect they passed away you see T requires a CLE a vessel of men of human dignity in order for it to Lost has to come first and that for whatever reason was lacking and think about poor old 24,000 funerals in 25 days it's more than a thousand basically a th000 funerals a day that he went to frightening and then the plague stops but then we see something miraculous happen and that is the Rika starts all over you see at the end of the day rebi Kiva was a talmid he was a student one of his great teachers during the course of his life the rabbis teach us was ISU was the Great Sage of the mishna who was called ish Gamu the man of Gamu because he always would say Gamu everything is for the best and he was able to recognize that at the end of the day the almighty is infinite we are finite and if we don't understand something we have to know the G it is still for our good this is the reason my friends when the famous story is told that many of you I'm sure are familiar with when they came up onto the temple Mountain Jerusalem lay in its ruins and foxes were running around and all of the other sages were completely broken the r Bea his response was laugh and they all looked at him Rika and they said why are you laughing it's inappropriate that you're laughing in such a situation Raba said the same Prophet the prophet prop ized that Jerusalem would be destroyed also prophe that Jerusalem would one day be rebuilt so I'm laughing because if stage one of the prophecy came true stage two of the prophecy too will come true he was the ultimate Optimist and so what did he do on that faithful lagba om Rabbi AKA who himself had started over so many times in his life RAB AA who started in very humble beginnings and Rose to the greatest Heights in the prominence of Jewish scholarship rabba who perhaps is one of the two or three most well-known sages of the mission to all of the Jewish World rabika said it's time to start over and he took five students among them who would go on to be the great author of The zoh Whose y site itself is on the day of the anniversary of his death is itself un like and with among them R started to rebuild Torah rebuild his Academy and most of the Torah that we have today my friends is from those five students and the rebuilding of Jewish life is the day the letters lag if you turn them around make the Hebrew word gal which means to reveal like is a day of revealing the hidden secret within every single one of us to start over but I want you to know something it's very easy for me to talk about starting over and it's very easy to preach but we all know that it's not as easy to actually put into practice so I want to share with you something that has inspired me and I think can also inspire you you know when my wife and I were living in Israel soon after we got married we had a neighbor who lived next door to us his name wasar Simer he was a very man of very short stature and raron Simer one day was very very short in physical height but very very great I'm sorry in stat many great rabbis would come and visit him we watched as great people came to visit rabar serer and different rabbis and government ministers and all sorts of people would come to visit raar serer of blessed memory and one day a few days after living there all of a sudden there's a knock on our door and we go to our door my wife was just expecting our first daughter and she living me well at the time and R Aaron's at the door and he's holding a little plastic bag and he looks at me and he says to me in Hebrew Yan can I borrow your shyish can I borrow your granite countertop for the next 24 hours and I said to him rown with pleasure and he shuffled into my kitchen and he looked at me and I'm looking on and he says please give me some privacy my wife and I went in our bedroom and we peeed through the crevice in the door to see what was going on and there RAB Aon took out a bunch of yite candles of candles Memorial candles he arrang them around one at the center and others around it on our excuse me if I get emotional on our granite countert and as he lit each one he was mumbling and he was saying and he opened a book of Psalms and sometimes his tears extinguished the one he had lit and he had to Rel lighted and after about half an hour 45 minutes when all of these yoursite candles are lit he turns to us and he calls yonatan Adina and we come out and he says please will you look after my family for the next 25 hours and I looked at him I said raron what do you mean and he looked at me and he said before the War I had a wife and children and I had a family but they were all unfortunately murdered Al kesem sanctifying God's name he says I remarried Mrs serer in the DP Camp straight after the war he says I cannot light these candles in my new home but I know that this is the date when my wife and first children were unfortunately killed he said it would be too painful for Mrs serer to know that I still have a place for them in my heart and that I still spend this day remembering them after all both Mrs serer and I lost our lives and we had to rebuild a new life such sensitivity such care he says please can you look off to my family for the next 25 hours my friends Aaron serer not only blessed memory Not only was he a Jew who survived the war and went on to help build the Jewish community in Sunderland in northern England and not only did he arrive in the land of Israel and once again become a very proud GID who would rebuild the land he was responsible for bringing the machines that bu built the coastal Road between Nat and K but he was a man who had the ability to start all over again this is the legacy of RAB aka the legacy of RAB AA that he put into the DNA of a Jew that we could start all over but I know you're still thinking to yourselves this is a beautiful idea but it's still difficult and my friends each one of us has to start over I shared with you the last time I spoke on Project Inspire how challenging this year of Co has been for each one of us around the world and for I'm just reflecting on my own life and my own family but we have to start over and how do we do that well there's a famous statement in the Torah where Moshe is frustrated and he turns to God and he says to God Show Me Your Glory and God responds to him and he says to him I will show you my back but I won't show you my front and we all know that Moses's question was not a question for one time in history but a question for all of history and God's response also was a response for all of history because we all have moments in our lives I can't say all but at least I have moments in my life where things don't go the way that you expected them to go and you turn to God and you say I'm trying my best but please just I Show Me Your Glory God where are you and the greater who we mentioned earlier the great Rabbi of austr Hungarian jeury he has his own explanation to moshe's to God's response to Moshe he says When God says to Moshe I'll show you my back but I won't show you my front what he's saying is different than most commentaries interpret it most commentar saying that what God's saying is my friends retroactively you'll be able to see in the future you'll be able to see that as everything God does is for our good s but that's great from a future perspective looking backwards retroactively but what about me now struggling in the process to accomplish said the to that individual to Moshe God said when he said I'll show you my bank but I won't show you my front you know what he meant he meant Misha turn around Look Backwards right now look at your life can you see me can you see the hand of God my friends when each one of us is trying to take advantage of this energy of yum Kipper of sorry of to start again like R started on or like came out of the cave un like Bowman and if you're finding it difficult listen to the words of the Torah and the interpretation of the Look Backwards I'm sure just like me every one of you can look backwards at your life and see that the hand of God very clearly in your life until now what God is telling us my friends is if you can look backwards and see me then die don't be worried because even though you can't see me right now just I was like I was with you in the past I'm holding your hand as you step into the future may the Journey of Raba a life of Second Chances Inspire each one of us as we take this La Bomer this day of Revelation and make it a day in which we hook hook into the energy and the DNA of Second Chances and may what we are all about to embark on accomplishing be 10 and 100 and a thousand times greater than anything we've accomplished until now happy like [Music]