MindFlex - Rabbi Aryeh Royde: The Deeper Meaning of Lag Ba'Omer

[Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] do [Music] hello everyone and happy lag if that's the correct thing to say today i thank project inspired inspire for giving me the opportunity to share some words with you and to talk to you about this wonderful day so those of you who know like ome is a very exciting day especially if you were lucky enough ever to be in for the day and even if not there's all over the world in jewish communities all over the world we have we like to bonfire in the evening and we have singing and dancing live music it's a very festive day i remember when i was when i was in israel years ago when i started in yeshiva there me growing on like like tens of thousands of people all might and the first year i went what was about um 20 21 or 22 years ago i thought i knew about it and i thought that we way too many people and i like it when there's a lot of people but maybe i want some time to dive and also out to every shimon's cover and i thought you know what i'm gonna go one in the morning i think it was two in the morning like quieter time and boy was i shocked there's no such thing as a quiet time in me wrong actually i'll be shimon unlike what oh my 24 hours thousands tens of thousands of people were there all night all day and it's absolutely magnificent sight to watch jews from all backgrounds all all colors very colorful place and just celebrating together singing and dancing now my son is actually now in israel and he sees the preparation everyone's talking and getting exciting and he says tati you think your day is tens of thousands this is it's way way bigger nowadays the question is what's it all about what's the celebration about why are we dancing why are we so happy what's the similar on this very day and many many many explanations and many ideas and i'll give you the correct one i'm kidding there's plenty to talk about on on this day so some people focus more on this is the day that the talmudim the students of rabbi akiva stopped dying as if a familiar rabbi akiva had twenty four thousand tommy them and all of them died in this period from pesach up until chivalrous but this very day nobody died so some say that it wasn't until chavos it was from pesach only up until this day and that's when they stopped dying the problem though is there was 24 000 students and all of them died so the fact that they stopped dying is because there's nobody left to die and it was pretty sad all of his students were wiped out but today yeah let's celebrate there's nobody left to die no more no more funerals of course not there's nobody around to bury anyway what's the happiness oh there's plenty to talk about that too why what the celebration of the of the students stopped dying i'd like to shift the attention to a different part of the story which we know and i mentioned before you be shimon rabbi ben he passed away in this day this very day the day he died and he wasn't one of those students of the twenty four thousand that died as i mentioned none of them died that day we achieved that 24 thousand through medium but then after they all died he found new ones and rabbi shimon was one of them so you know many years later he passed away and this very day now once again what's the celebration when one passes away on the country sometimes you know the the actual day is a sad day obviously but the your side a year later we have these conflicting messages messages in the torah sometimes it's a sad day it's a fast day when someone passes away and sometimes as we see now in lagoma it's an exciting day what is it about the day about rabbi schumann which everyone goes wild so the story of rabbi shimon's life may be familiar to many i quickly run over a part of it which is he was he was hiding in a cave for many years the the government was running after him he was they tried to kill him they wanted to kill him and he escaped from the from the king and ended up with his son hiding in a cave with the mountains in israel hiding there in a cave miraculously a carob tree grew just suddenly grew out of the earth out of the ground there so that he should have something to eat i guess carobs was the thing back in those days i don't think we would survive with a carrot tree i guess we would have a sushi and pizza tree but he was fine with carob and miraculously a spring of water sprouted out and he had what to drink and we went to eat and he survived how long was he there says the gemara says the talmud he was there for 12 years now that's a pretty long time to be hiding in a cave it goes even further to say that he didn't they they didn't have a spare pair of clothing they didn't bring with suitcases so he would actually undress and sit in the sand up and tell his neck they were they were they were buried in the sand because they didn't they didn't have other sets of clothing and they would already come out for davening and shabbos they were they would don the clothing and gummer says when he came out later he was full of scars and um sores from being in the sand so long now what were they doing for 12 years they didn't take with their cell phones there was no service back then they didn't take with their board games either i don't know how many books they took along but they were studying obviously they were learning they were learning the deep secrets of the torah as it's commonly known today as kabbalah in fact rabbi shimon was the one which was revealed to him the entire secrets of the thor the kabbalistic ideas the mystical ideas of the torah that's what they were doing for 12 years now could you imagine just him and his son just sitting there for 12 years delving in the mystics of the torah for him it was the ultimate vacation it couldn't have been a better time for him he was learning spending time with hashem amazing after 12 years 12 years he gets a heavenly message grabby shimon it's time to leave the ones that are chasing you the ones that seek your life are no longer alive anymore you may leave the cave and go back to regular life that's good news released from jail he gets out of the cave walks out of there with his son and he sees people for the first time and he sees people being busy they're running around doing their thing one guy is building a building the other guy is is fixing your car someone's plumbing whatever business they were busy with they were busy and rabieshima couldn't have fathomed such a concept why are you busy with the mundane with the physical world and the gemara says he was so holy he was so powerful he would just stare at them and with his glare they would burst into flames because rabbi shimon said how could you leave the ultimate leave the infinite of hashem's world and be busy with the finite be busy with the mundane be busy with materialistic world and he killed people by staring at them angrily and they just burst into flames says the talmud the same heavenly voice came out again which had told him to leave and the heavenly voice came as i came out again and says rabbi shimon did you leave the cave to destroy my world get back there go back to where you came from so rabbi shimon goes back and spends more time there now the obvious question is why was he so shocked when he saw people working why was he so shocked when people were busy plumbing and be busy planting and sewing and harvesting what bothered him obviously because he was busy for 12 years learning torah that's all he was doing connection to hashem seeing the depth of life and he couldn't fathom such a concept people should be busy with a mundane so when hashem says go back that's not going to help he'll just learn even more and become even holier what's that going to help if he doesn't understand human beings sent him to florida for a couple of months he'll pick up what life is about he'll start understanding what you know our world is about why send it back in the cave for more time and i once heard a beautiful idea from whereby leaf and he said if you could look down at another year no matter what they're doing if you could see something bad in another june your fellow jew you're not close enough to god you need to go back for another 12 months not years another 12 months come even closer to hashem and then you'll see there's no such thing as a bad jew there's nobody that would do anything bad and even if seemingly the mundane now he's a holy jew how could you look down at him so he goes back for 12 months comes even closer to hashem understands even more the depth of judaism the depth of hashem and then this heavenly voice comes out and says shimon you're ready to leave he goes back out and he sees once again jews are busy one of them is running to the street holding two branches of hadassim it's one of the four species which we use on sukkot bringing them home and he stops him and says excuse me what are you doing he says where should he come for shabbos he says why what these branches he says oh the covert shabbos in honor of shabbos i'm bringing them home he says beautiful why two why isn't one sufficient so the man replies one for zakhar and one for shamur which means there are two verses in the torah when hashem says god the shabbos another verse it says remember the shabbos so he says in honor of both verses the guarding and the remembering one oneness to guard the shabbos one is to remember the shabbos and rabbi shimon says oh my look at these holy jews whatever they do always brings it back to hashem whatever they do they bring everything back to hashem and it's really holiness whatever they do what happens what did he learn there in the cave what changed his mindset and this is also the secret of who every shimon was and what's the happiness and what do we have to learn from that on a daily basis to live our lives rabbi shimon learned as i mentioned kabbalah he revealed kabbalah what's kabbalah about kabbalah is things are not the way they seem whatever you learn in the torah and we read a book we read the bible we read the tourist stories and we say hmm why did you do that why did the brothers sell yosef why did yaakov marry this girl instead of this girl rochelle why the killings why and we think they're just human beings sibling gravely not getting along jews are set up moshe in the desert we have all those questions on the torah and the zohar kabbalah teaches us no no that's so much deeper than what the eye meets everything there's unbelievable depth to everything he studied that he revealed that and it taught him a lesson than everything in the world there's something deeper whatever we see it's not the mundane it's not what the eye sees it's deepen just like in the torah when you learn a verse you share a story it's not what you see go to the depth of it you'll say wow wow that is absolutely amazing so he took every year it's like every jew and he says what i could see a human being flesh and bones but it's much deeper than that now besides for the fact what we should learn that's certainly not about the color of the skin that is well skin deep but even deeper than that it's not the skin it's not even the actions we all have a nishama we all have a soul and we have a shim and started looking at yiddin that way he said if this is what i've i've been learning about the depth of the torah all the more so this is the depth of a jew and if i see someone it's not what my eye sees and even someone who is acting in a way that shouldn't be acting that's not who they are they made a mistake but there's someone so much there's someone so much deeper behind that mistake someone marvelous beautiful and you try to get that message through and we'll be shimmering all over the tour in the talmud is known for the one always sticking up for the jews and gabby shimon says i could really find an excuse for all our all the jewish mistakes he was the loving rabbi who said every year is so holy i don't care by actions now it doesn't mean to say we shouldn't care about our actions on an individual level we keep the torah meticulously we have to make sure we do everything right but that's for yourself when you see a fellow yet making a mistake it doesn't define them we're not defined by our mistakes we're not defined by our skin color we're not defined by how we look we're not defined even by our actions our actions we're defined by who we really are our essence and our essence is our shaman our essence is our soul and there is nobody that could soil their own soil soul it's as holy as it gets our job is to peel away all those rotten onion peels over our soul and find that beautiful soul you meet another jew in the street and that's so kosher i like to say that's why we call jewish because even if you're only jewish you're still a jew you're a real jew and you meet that yet and we say that's why i don't know what what are you doing you're you're acting like you don't even look like it what are you talking about here's another shaman what's the difference how he acts how he directs our dresses how he talks he's in the shama he's a yidd that's what rabbi shimon saw when he came out of the cave the second time he says if everything is so deep the more i learned about judaism the more i see how everything is so deep the more i see that this yid is so holy because i'm not looking at the external of this yet i'm looking at who he really is who she really is they are absolutely awesome when we learn to do that we will be so much happier people we're happier because we'll stop judging each other whoever we see will recognize that there's so much greater than that where we know weinberg of blessed memory always used to say that it doesn't mean we should be blinded and people say love is blind that's not true at all infatuation is blind lust is blind but love you could see very well someone else's setbacks their failures in fact you can view them with a magnifying glass you know them very well yet you still could love them just as parents love the children and who knows our faults the most and manages to rub them in at every opportunity our parents our parents know our faults our setbacks our failures they know them very well yet they choose to focus with our with our mindless with our good parts with our good traits and because we are we are identified by the good traits that's why they love us we love our children and my children know how to climb under my skin trust me i have teenagers at home i love them dearly because i know they're good traits do i know they're better absolutely that's not who they are they can make mistakes that's not the essence but the essence the good parts to them if we as parents would begin viewing our children like that we would have such a better relationship with our children if we as spouses view our spouse with their good parts and say no it's okay people make mistakes that's not who you are we label all the time you are this and you are there we do it to our parents we do it to our spouse we do it to our children we do it to our friends and no wonder there's so much fighting going on we peel off all of that junk and we say who are you and try to do it to yourself too who am i have i made mistakes absolutely should i get better absolutely but you know what god created me in the image of god what does that mean in the image of god i thought hashem is infinite a short i thought hashem doesn't have any shape or design what does it mean in his image it means he's perfect we were created with that possibility to be perfect we were created within the sharma that's part of hashem it's absolutely amazing with no faults to it and has no ability to get dirty we cannot soil our soul but we have layers on top of it and we start labeling ourselves and we label others and when we peel all of that away and we find as it's known in your dish the penta layered which means the spark of godliness within boy will you see the world in a different light everyone has the power everyone could be absolutely amazing it depends how we view them that was rabbi shimon's message rabbi shimon saw it in the zohar he saw how deep the torah is and he took that to the jewish people and said every single one is deep and beautiful now i'd like to take this one step further if i may and this gets a little heavy but truthfully that's where happiness comes from when we delve into things really deep working ourselves and then we're happy there's another thing which we have to look beyond and not see it with the way it seems and that's everything that's going on in the world regarding to with with problems and setbacks and financial setbacks medical issues raising children and we tend to say oh what's going on why is god doing this to us why why why why why and we spend our days asking why if only things will get better and that challenge is also our beliefs and does hashem really love me does god really believe in us does he really love us we know that the only reason god created the world was not for himself he's fine he's perfectly okay and he doesn't need us to serve him and the only reason god created the world was for our pleasure it's our pleasure he wants us to have a good old time we are pleasure not to be busy with a low level of pleasure i mean every two year olds will say that jelly beans taste way better than steak i hope we're old enough to recognize that steak is so much better much more meaningful so on the two-year-old level they say oh jelly beans you get a little older and your taste buds are more developed you say come on jelly beans a steak and god says the same i want you to get pleasure but the real pleasure don't get stuck on the low levels of pleasure the real deal meaning being a good person deep relationships creativity and connection to hashem it's real pleasures everybody know hormec used to say this in the famous line of kennedy ask not what you could do for your government that's what the government could do for sorry astronauts what the government would do for you that's what you could do for the government this is a great line it's a great line in you know any community instead of saying oh what are they doing you want something to happen roll up your sleeves and get it done great lines whoever you know one big used to say with judaism with life it's just the opposite you would say ask not what you could do for god ask what would you allow god to do for you god the almighty is absolutely fine ask not what mitzvah can i do for you how can i praise you again so i'll make you feel good how can i appease the gods with sacrifices ask not what you could do for god ask what would you allow god to do for you what does hashem want from us what does god want from us to open up your hands and receive his love receive his blessing he wants us to have a beautiful life that's the only reason he created us he was absolutely fine before creation he created the world so that we should have this pleasure now if that's the case where's the pleasure okay we have bits and pieces of pleasure some have more some have less but if we're smart and we think about it we think about life and we truly understand that god wants our pleasure we will recognize that even in our hardships not just god knows what he's doing and you know one day things will get better deeper than that it was for my favor it was it was a stepping stone for me to become greater in fact looking back i appreciate it now for the most part we forget for the most part we forget that we were in a problem how many times have we said what's going to be and somehow life just moves on it'd be pretty healthy for us if we take note of those moments and then we'd come back to it and say not just if it figured out things got better but that was a stepping stone it was impediments for me to grow and we tend to forget and we don't utilize the moment to actually thank hashem for that moment many times it's a really big thing and we wouldn't want it in our lives but we never know we never know for the purpose of the world and what had to happen now granted we're now all on the level to say thank you for the problems we're going through i agree to that but at least recognize that god knows what he's doing and when we're told in the torah the famous line do not stray after your eyes and after your heart says this fast ms one of the great hasidic crabbies pre-war he said don't stray after your eyes and your hearts don't view the world the way your eyes see it don't view the world the way your heart feels it go deeper and see oh there's something behind that there's something deeper and to me my finite eyes and hearts doesn't seem to make sense it bothers me i'm not really understanding it hashem says go a little deeper and you'll see something beautiful is behind it that's our job the happiness of this very day of light with omar brings that out there is nothing that brings happiness more than recognizing what the beautiful worlds were in with all the problems if you look deeper you'll see wow that's what brings us happiness that many moments in our life where am i happy or not so there are many moments in our lives when we're excited if you win the lottery it doesn't bring much happiness you'll be excited for the moment you'll be terrified a little later what am i supposed to do make sure nobody's fight enough too many people are finding out that you just won the lottery and those people don't stay happy too long and what happens when you've made the million and you have the mansion and you have the car you have the art you've been to all those vacations now what that's not true happiness true happiness is the inner serenity and inner peace of recognizing things are things are absolutely great i have a loving father in heaven who's taking care of me and everything is okay actually mentioning the lottery those of you who remember it was a couple of years ago when the when the big luxuries in new york went up to into the billions now i do not remember how much it was but i think the price was over a billion if i remember correctly and everyone ran out to buy a larger ticket many larger tickets people spent a lot of money and lots of tickets and i was telling my friends then i don't want to buy a lottery ticket i don't want to win i mean there's almost no chances i would win i would only buy the lottery ticket you would only buy the lottery if you think he gonna win well the chances of you winning there's more chances of you being bitten by a shark while you're swimming and if you're not afraid to go swimming in the ocean you shouldn't be buying a larger ticket but that's for you to decide if you want to buy or not i personally did not buy the lottery ticket but i said you know what either way even if i would win it's a little scary to own so much money and all the security detail that i'll need it'll destroy my whole life but i do want the money so how do i figure this out i said i want my father to win it imagine my father wins the lottery ticket then i'll be okay i didn't win it i don't have anyone there's no mafia running after me now if my father's a billionaire then i'm calm when i when i'm struggling with my bills and i don't know how to pay my bills i say i'm okay because my father's a billionaire well isn't my father a billionaire is it god almighty the one that loves us so dearly isn't he a billionaire isn't he a heart surgeon isn't he everything we need so why the oi loosen up and dance unlike bomber teaches us that from the mystics of kabbalah from the moment rabbi shimon came out of the cave and he started viewing the world like that he started writing the book writing the zohar and on his deathbed which is this very day in like omaha he revealed all those secrets when he revealed the secrets of the torah a new light came down to the world that started viewing life differently when we would open any jewish book and we'll say hmm okay things make sense things don't really shimmer's book the tsar said that's not the way of you whether you think it makes sense or not look a little deeper you'll see things are very different than they seem and we saw a whole new world in the mystics of the kabbalah and he taught us walk around in the street and look at every jew look at them in the eye and smile and say you are amazing you think only the holy jews are good why because their actions are slightly more than yours it's not about that they're jewish they're having a shaman just like you your fellow brother your fellow sister embrace every single one of them will be human taught that try dancing on your own whenever you say lachaim people think it means to life it doesn't means two lives plural you can't say i'm on life doesn't work on its own we have another yet and another yet another yet and we tried to find the issue they're not so similar to you go to rabbi shimon and marone now all different types of hidden dancing together that was rap shimon's message and he's sitting upstairs in heaven giving nachos pride when he sees all different types of jews dancing together and unfortunately we don't take that message home we stick to our type our type of jew and they're this type of jew the armed types of jews there's one concept in the sharma and that's what brings true happiness because we're one large family you're my brother you're my sister let's let's spend time together that's the simple and the next step of happiness is as we spoke about because besides for us just being friends life is absolutely awesome but look what i'm going through i know but your father in heaven loves you and he knows what he's doing and when you recognize that your troubles will be slightly less because it's not about the moment which you're going through it's it's much deeper than that and hashem knows what he's doing go go a little deeper let's skin deep your problems i'm not being insensitive to what you're going through we all have something what we're going through we're going to be shimmering taught us don't view the world with your physical eyes don't straight after your physical your finite heart this is the way it seems this is the way it looks and this is the way it feels now is there a god does he love me dearly does he love you dearly he absolutely does then why am i going through this i have no clue but i know he loves us dearly and please look a little deeper you may notice the beauty you may not you'll find out in three years from now you may not you may find out in 23 years from now you may not find out at all but one thing is for sure hashem almighty stays as beautiful as could be and wants our favor whether we understand or not and therefore unlike ome when we take those messages and we say the torah is so deep and so beautiful every year they're so deep and so beautiful the entire world is so deep and so beautiful life is absolutely awesome let's celebrate and dance you