Rav Kook: Midot Haraya - The Faith of Tzaddikim | Rabbi Aaron Goldscheider | November 19th 2025

Great to see everyone. Nice to uh nice to be together and uh the opportunity this to learn the writings and the teachings of Rafuk. Uh the uh the sponsor is a regular sponsor Miriam Basalamto Benla. Okay. So we have uh we have the honor this morning to continue our learning of a safer that's called midotaya which are the uh character traits that Rkook speaks about and um the first character trait which we spoke about is aava. The second in the safer is amuna is faith. We spoke about faith in God and we spoke about faith in the future. And uh today what I want to look at is a piece. This is from the section of Emuna. It's lamemed. It's the 30 32nd piece that's found in the section of Amuna in the in the work mida. And here he speaks about the faith of the faith of sadikim the amuna the amuna the faith of sadikim and how they impact the world and how we look up to the sadikim and um are influenced by the faith of the sadikim. So let's let's take a look at a very fascinating fascinating topic and uh amuna in general but here the focus is on the righteous sadikim the saintly the way that they believe in god and the impact that that has on uh on the community. So let's begin with the words of RVuk and uh top of the page page one and the piece is the great people of this world page one top of the page the great people of this world they take they take a natural foundation the natural foundation of faith from a very foundational or maybe even from a low place they take the idea of faith and they raise the idea of faith. They purify faith and they beautify faith and they bring faith to a level that it's pure gold. The pure gold of faith and they bring about they bring a great light. to bring a great light that shines in all of its in all of its radiance. And then he quotes from a few words from the Zohar Zarotin that they spread or they throw I would say that they spread in the sparks to every to every part to every portion of the world. The faith of the sadic has a great influence that they light up the world with their faith and the entire world becomes lit with the honor with the honor of the the faith that they have and this is the last sentence we'll read from this piece and this is the ongoing service or worship of the sadikim or the way the work of the sadikim They are the stronghold. They are the heroes, the courageous of the world that they raise up amuna that they raise up faith from a place of loneliness or the fundamental idea of faith. So Rufk begins with the idea of the great sadikim and the way that sadikim bring about they themselves contain within them within their personalities a great faith in God and that faith then is a faith that influences that impacts that has ramifications on uh on the world on on every Jew on the Jewish community and the world at large. So interesting I don't know if you noticed the um what I put on the page on the right side which is very very strange. I don't think I've ever done that before, but there is a uh there's a sneaker on the right side of the page. That wasn't a mistake. That wasn't one of my kids sticking it there. Um that is it's a reminder to me to tell the following uh the following anecdote. So, this is a uh I don't know if you're into the into sneakers or brands of sneakers. This is probably the most popular, the most successful brand of sneakers in the world. It's called Nike or Nike depending. Yeah. Depend. Anybody have a pair of Nike? I was just I was just walking through Gula Maya Sharim right now from Harakutvim back here and in the window of one of the stores in Measharim are Nike sneakers. So they've they've conquered the world. If they're in if they're in May, you know that that everybody is wearing Nike sneakers. So, um, I saw a clip actually just like a week or two ago, Steve Jobs, who is the founder of Apple and, uh, he was speaking about Nike sneakers, and he said how brilliant their marketing is. All of their commercials, their advertisements, their marketing. He said that they never say a single word about their sneaker. Now, you would think if you're marketing a sneaker, you're going to talk about how great the sneaker is or to say how it's better than Reebok or Puma or any other brand. They never do that. How do they market their sneakers? They just show you great athletes that are wearing their sneaker. They do not say a word about their sneaker. They just have great athletes wearing them. And when you see those great athletes wearing them and they're wearing Nike, so you want to wear them as well and you think you're going to be as good as they are on the basketball court or on the tennis court. And um so it's all about the personality. It's all about these great personalities and they have successfully um sold you know billions of pairs of sneakers based on that based on that way of advertising. I was thinking about that thinking about this idea of sadikim the faith of sadikim the faith that they have and the personalities of righteous people the effect that they have on the hamon the effect that they have on each individual and the Jewish people as a whole and on the world as a whole. I was thinking about who are who are the people of of faith. When we think about if I were to ask you personalities, the great personalities that represent who are the uh who who are the the model of of faith. So who are those personalities? I want to share just what came to mind are three individuals. Even though I think you know every every great rabbi, every great teacher, every great you know Jewish individual, you're talking about a person of faith. But I I these were three that that came to mind. The first is Arainu. We talk about faith and often we think about Abrainu, we think about and certainly Ara is a person of but faith is a very very important part of his uh his personality, his character and what makes Abraham the the founder, the father of the Jewish people. We have God says, "Leave the place that you're living and go to the land of Israel." He asks Milah at a uh at the at an old age that he's asked to circumcise himself. And of course, the Aeda, the faith of the Aeda to take his only son and to sacrifice his son. I want to share with you just three or four makura, three or four sources which actually come from a very interesting place. Rabbi Salvich as many of you know was uh lived in America was a rashiva of yeshiva university but he lived in Brooklyn and his daughter married a professor of uh a professor at Harvard. He was very interesting personality. His name was Isidor Turski or Ritzki. He was also known as the Talner rebi. So he had both the persona of a rebi on chabis. He like functioned as a rebi. There was a bass mish and during the week at Harvard he was a professor at Harvard. Fascinating personality combining both worlds and there was a book that was just written uh written recently that compiled dra to that he gave at shalashudis in his base mish in Brooklyn. Um it's called the Torah of the mind the Torah of the heart and um Shapiro is the is the uh is the author or he collected these teachings. he was there and heard these ideas. This is this is the Dvar Torra that that Rabbi Turski gave uh known as the Tal Rebi that he gave at um at Shalashis and here are the sources he quoted the Puk in the Torah itself. So by the way the very first time that we have the word amuna the first time that we have the word faith is describing a and describing his faith in Godious vavashem he hadashem and meaning hashem saw this as righteousness as the righteousness of Abraham and then he quoted from a gared that says the following mosha when Mosherenu goes down to mitam and he struggles with the fact that the Jewish people are not listening to him and he begins to complain to God. So God says according to the gamar and Sanhedrin, God saysal, you know the word kaval, we use it here it is in the gamar >> popular word, right? What a shame, right? Or something along how do you translate >> pity? Yeah, pity on how unfortunate it is. So here it's the word it's a word in the garraal. He says, "Unfortunate it is that I've lost that Abraham and Yakov are no longer here." In other words, he says to Mosher Abenu when Mosha is complaining how much I miss Abraham that they never questioned me, right? They had complete faith. This is Hashem speaking to Mosheu early on in Mosha's career where Moshe is kind of struggling with what's going on in Egypt and the people aren't listening to him and things only get worse and God said you know what if only I had Ara and Yakov you know the way that they believed in me whatever I said they did and here you are Moshenu questioning and um and criticizing so that's so again there he quotes this gamarra a gamarra that speaks about the amuna of Abraham as well. And then he quotes the following. If you look at the top of page two, a um again this is part of a devarra that the talbi gave at uh at his shallis in Brooklyn, Massachusetts going back about 40 50 years. And he quotes a puk from Yeshahu aayahu. And this is just a straight pabu elbraham abraham your forefather. The uh the prophet says that you should look and see the way that he lived his life and to emulate a in your own life. Again, apayahu and then he quotes the and by the way Rabski that was his expertise theam and the mission and theim and he quotes the ra and theim that says the following you should walk in his ways. What is telling us and telling every Jew that we should try to emulate Abraham in the way that he the way that he had faith have faith in the Torah of Abraham the way that again the faith that he believed in the teachings of Hashem and his way that he lived his life the way that he conducted himself the midav to follow the mid of Abraham so that's what the Rambam says as And and so Abraham represents that idea of amuna of the first the father of the Jewish people and the great faith that he had in Hashem at Sadic, right? the righteousness of Abra and for us to emulate that as well. and add just and adding one last uh insight for the town of Rebi. And this is like a bit of aid shared again very interesting personality, a little bit of a rebi also professor. Um and he quotes the Mishnavos that says auam. So there were 10 tests, 10 trials. And this is the life of Afra. All the trials that he faced of the Aeda, the trials of leaving his home, the trials of not having a child, the tri the trial of of giving himself a circumcision at an old age. All these trials says the Mishna actually you could count 10. And there's of how to count the 10. Exactly. But and you would translate that and he stood or withtood every testal how much Abraham loved Hashem. The talbi says I'll take your comment in a moment. The talbi says the word amad. What does that mean? That he stood or withtood each test. So he says the word amad is like the word amida. What's the amida? The amida is davening that he davened each test. In other words, what that that was his his part. In other words, that he daved every every time every time he faced a trial, what did he do? What did he do? He turned to Hashem. He turned to Hashem in prayer. And that was the faith of Abraham. That was his response to uh to difficulty, to challenges, to trauma in his life was always turning to Hashem. So Abraham I would say represents we want to talk about amuna and amuna faith of its sadic I think we begin and really the story of Abraham is a story of faith did you want to make a comment >> just a question >> please >> there is the yes l i >> ah >> is that the same >> I believe not no I I think not I think that's a different that's a different >> that's a differentus okay >> yes please didn't also um back and preached to everybody. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. >> A lot of the other >> Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a that's a beautiful example as well of his faith. Not only was it a faith that he held on to, but it was a faith that he that he brought to others, that he inspired, that he taught to others. So again, I think interesting idea. Again, thinking about faith, we I think we can turn to Abrainu as the as a paradigm of uh of faith. Again, I don't know. We always think about a in that sense. The first time the word amunaz used in the Torah is the faith of Ara. and of course the life and all the trials that he uh that he went through and he succeeded and as the talbi said means that he davened each time the faith the closeness that he felt to hashem as he faced all of his challenges in life. So that is one example a second example of faith um that I that comes to mind and I think is a very powerful example of faith is raaka going to tamudic times. So Rabaka the story of his life is very much a story of faith. Um I I would say that we know more about Rabaka than any other sage of the Talmud, any other personality in the Talmud. There are whole there was just actually an art scroll book was recently published just about the life and the stories of uh of Raviaka Rabaka and I just to share three anecdotes of his from his life which I think we I think we're all familiar with to some degree. The first is found in the very last page of Gamarra Makos. And I won't read it inside, but the story is as he comes to Jerusalem, he comes to Shalim, he's looking from the mountain over the Harabas. He sees the destruction of the Harabas. He's there with rabbis. And famously, what happens at that moment? The rabbis are crying as they see destruction. They see the fox that's running where the kesh kadashim on the holiest place. And what does Rabaka do? According to the Garra it says he laughs right that he laughs and the last line of the gar this actually concludes one of the makos it says that you have brought that you had comfort you have comforted us and what does that mean and Rab the Gar explains that just as there was prophecy that there was going to be destruction so if that prophecy has now come to light if that has unfolded if I see that before my eyes then I know for sure I know for certain that also the prophecy of the rebuilding of the temple is also going to happen and I have absolute faith I see destruction before me but I have absolute faith in the rebuilding of uh of the beta mikdash and the Jewish people returning to the land of Israel so this as a as a beautiful example of of faith I think the other one other beautiful example and here I'll just read the words of this gamar this garbos dam of Ahmed Bay and speaks about Rabbi Aka in the last moments of his life and something that we're we're all familiar with. But just to read the words and what it means to be a person of faith in Rabaka being a paradigm of faith. If you want to take a look at this, this is uh number four on page two. As they were taking and these were the Romans persecuting the Jews and taking the rabbis, the great rabbis of the generation, they brought Rabbi out to murder Rabaka. And at that very moment, it was also the time of reciting the Schmazel. And they were literally ripping the flesh, the skin off of his body as as uh as a way to to kill him and to that he should suffer. says the cabelim at that moment he was accepting upon himself the the uh the kingship of of Shamim of heaven students that were there that were watching this they turned to Rabaka Rabenu and they said they said to the rabbi Khan how are you able to maintain this kind of faith at this moment am he turned to his students yay my entire life I I struggle to understand the or to fulfill the meaning of the you should serve God with all of your soul even if they take your life and that's what it means that you have that faith in God even as as they're taking your life I said to myself throughout my life would that moment ever come that I would be able to fulfill that uh that command of God to have faith even in a moment of great suffering like this and now that I have the opportunity to fulfill that great um you know that this the great act of am I not going to fulfill it lengthened the word like many have the min of doing even today as you say he lengthened the wordad and with the word his soul left him died the voice from heaven came out how how wonderful you are blessed are you that your soul left you with the word so when we think about the faith of Raba this is a gamarra that I think is is a foundational gam like that tells the story of Rebaka and his faith in God at that moment. He said, "My entire life I was waiting could I fulfill that that command of God and here I am and I and I affirm my faith. I declare my faith in God at that moment." Yes, please. >> I know you didn't get before you, I would say that the Holocaust Holocaust and precious >> Yes. Yes. >> Absol. Absolutely. We have the mo we have there's so many sadikim the are our our our people are filled with sadikim and and we see the sitkus of of our nation the righteousness of our nation. I think what we want or one of the lessons that I take from what Ruf Cook is teaching this morning in the piece that we saw in Rufk is how great personalities and learning about Avam and learning about Rabaka learning their stories and being inspired by their story gives us right that strength to to to walk in their path. In other words, that's that's what sadikim what sadikim do the great faith of sadikim the light that they bring the impact that they have on amii Israel. So I'm not saying you don't necessarily need to know these stories and and and the cabalists would say the mystics would say that it's in the soul re I think cook would say that as well that it's within the soul of every Jew. But when we learn these stories and when we grow up with these stories and we and we all have learned the Arab story in the we just read it a couple of weeks ago what that does for us the impact that that has and to learn the Rabi AKA story and what the faith that he had in the last moment to say is and yes it becomes very much a part of who we are and the faith that we have and be able to withstand you know the tests and the trials that we face in life. So that's that's the lesson or what what Rafuk is emphasizing in this piece how the faith of sadikim the impact that that has on us and sadikim could be the faith of the sadic who's our father or a rabbi or you know a whoever maybe with within our within our uh you know surroundings the way that we that we grew up and the people that we were exposed to. But these stories are are not just stories. They they're very much a part of of who we are and the inspiration that we have in our own faith. So one other one other garra and this is uh an insight that uh this is about Raba and this is Garos and it says the following. is about Mosher Rabenu who is in heaven and having a conversation with God in heaven and I think you might you might be familiar with this Rav so Rav had the following teaching this bottom of page two Moshenu went up to heaven and he saw Hashem he was sitting writing a safer Torah he sees Hashem according to Gamarra Again, a lot of allegory here, but he sees Hashem sitting and writing a savior Torah, the co-chair. And he sees that on the letters of the Torah that he's making little crowns on top of the letters. I'm not sure if you've seen that. If you open up a safer Torah, you'll see that certain letters have crowns on top, right? The shin, other letters as well. There's different different uh different misoras of of which letters have crowns. But you have on top of the letters little crowns like three little you know extension on certain letters like the shin for example. So Moshenu sees that Hashem is writing a safer Torah with little crowns on top of letters. Why are you doing this? Like what's for like what is it that's kind of like forcing your hand to like add these nice designs to the letters? like isn't enough just to this is Mosher Raenu's question according to Gamarra just give the safer Torah like what are you doing with these with these little crowns that you're you're adding to the letters so Hashem answers there's a certain person there'll be a person of certain individual that will come after many generations aka Ben Yoseph Shimo his name is Aka referring to Rabbi Aka Aibro shall called coat for coat that he's going to be able to be dur he's going to be able to find insights and wisdom and cohes that he's going to build up a tell what's a tell like Tel Aviv is a m what a hill that's right hills mounds of alahos not only from the words themselves but he's going to be able to to find insight and wisdom even in every crown that's on the letters of the Torah So that's the gamarra. I mean it's really like a you know a fascinating gamarra and again very poetic and the allegory but reb rabbi yose do salvichek rabbi salvich gave the following vort the following insight and he said the following he said what does that mean and this is really a very different way of of reading it. What does it mean on every coat that Raba builds mounds or mountains of alos. So a coats are like the little, you know, little protrusions or those little crowns on top of the letter. But the word coat said, Rabbi Salvetic, anybody know what's a coats? >> A prick. What? >> A thorn. >> A thorn. Very good. A thorn. A thorn. That's literally what it means. And every thorn said Rabbi Zelves, Rabbi Kea, every thorn with every difficulty with all the suffering that he went through, he built upon that. He built he built Torah. In other words, the faith that Raba had with all the pain in life and he faced many pains, many tribulations, many trials in life. But the faith that he had, he built, he built he built Torah. So that's the way that uh I thought just a beautiful idea uh in terms of the the life of Raba. Raba I would say also is a paradigm of faith. It's sadic. a person who lives his life with tremendous faith in Hashem. Okay. And now we come to uh our third. So we have again everybody I think would find their own sadikim and the light of the those sadikim the amun of those sadikim and the way that they impact us indivi individually and the Jewish community as a whole. So my third example we have au as the paradigm of faith. Rabaka in the gimmar as a paradigm of faith. And now we turn to R A Yak Hakoen Cook Ruk who is a man of remarkable faith in Hashem, remarkable faith in the Torah, remarkable faith in the Jewish people. 1904 he comes to the land of Israel. Um we can we can try to imagine I think it's almost it's become very very difficult for us to imagine what Israel looked like a 100 years ago. um based on what we see every day here in the building and the beauty. But he came to a land of Israel where there was very very little where there are very few Jews that are here. His future is really is in in Eastern Europe. He's offered to be a Russia Shiva to be in Valinian to be in Tels and that's you know that would be the simple thing to do. That would be a wonderful thing to do and many rabbis chose that path. But the faith that he had in coming to the land of Israel of building the land of Israel what he believed to be the Jewish people's faith that they would follow in his footsteps and they would come here to the land of Israel and the great faith that he had in the prophecy as well. I think about Gamarra about Rabbi Aka who said I believe in the prophecy there was a prophecy of destruction there's also prophecy of rebuilding and RVuk is a believer in the prophecies that are going to unfold that the Jewish people are going to return they're going to build this land and and I would say again if when I think about people of of faith of amuna and who represent that an impact and that inspiration of hi his amuna on the Jewish people I think of uh of Cook as one of those unique individuals who represent Amuna at Sadi of Amuna. Now >> 1904 1904 he arrives he arrives in Yafo. There's a small community in Yafo and they ask him to oversee that community and the new settlements around Yeah. Not an easy time at all. Not an easy time to come and what his future would be and and how things were unfold. It took a tremendous amount of faith and we see the impact that uh that he had. I want to share with you two two uh excerpts from Rufk's writings which really relate to this idea of faith and that sadic and the righteous person who is who inspires others with their faith and this is a letter that he wrote to a rabbi in Svat uh a rabbi that he had a lot of disagreements with. We see in the letters on the Schmita issue they disagreed on that issue. They also disagreed just in general on uh Rabbi Yakov David Wil willowski who was a great RV and he was invat also felt that Rkook was too open and too loving of the secular Jews and he felt that he had crossed the line in that area. So very interesting. So here in one of the letters and I'll just it's in Hebrew below but let's just read in the English for the sake of time. Page three. This is Ruff Cook who's writing to his a colleague. Again, a lot of disagreements that he has with him. Um, and he writes the following. Due to my own imperfections, I do not deserve the name Sadic. Serv Cook in his great humility says, you know, you shouldn't think of me, you know, as a sadic necessarily and the people that are calling me at Sadi. If only God would give me the ability to say with sincerity, for example, I am a Benoni, an ordinary person. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that with the help of God, the way that I'm trying to follow is the path of sadikim. He's saying, I'm not necessarily a sadic, but I'm f I'm trying to the best of my ability to follow the the derk of sadikim. And then Rkook writes, and this is with a certain amount of confidence. Those who follow me and connect with me in the way they study Torah and serve God. Those who follow me sincerely with a real faith in the sages will eventually merit to see the light and truth within this righteous and firm path. So Rufk on the one hand has a great humility. He's don't call me a sadic who who's to say that I'm a sadic but he feels that to the best of his ability he's following the path of sadikim and those that follow in that path will uh will be inspired to live a life of righteousness. One of the one of the books that Rafkuk writes in his lifetime and he didn't write that much in his lifetime. He wrote a lot you know just like on scraps of paper and in notebooks we have the fatsim but he didn't write that many works. One work that he wrote was a biography of his of of his father-in-law the aderat and he felt that his life was a life that should be shared with others. He it was actually his first father-in-law. his father he his wife passed away and then he married the uh the cousin of the of or the um the niece of the of the aderat. So here he writes the following just the importance of telling stories of the sadikim and he writes uh this is source number three on page three. There is great value in telling stories of the sadikim of the Jewish people. It is important to increase the impact of this incredible vision of the life of spiritual people elevate themselves above the superficial desires of life. Such people live totally inside the consciousness of holiness and purity, righteousness and honesty. Their light shines and penetrates into each moment little by little depending on the person's ability to receive it and the conditions of the current situation. So he writes an introduction to the book. It's called Adakar. It's about the aderat his father-in-law. The importance of telling stories of Sadikim, which is interesting because the the kidic world put a lot of emphasis on that that became part of the the way of of a tish and uh and part of drato and a chalishis like the idea of sharing stories and I would say the lifish world less. So the lithish world is more you know they concentrate on the gamarra storytelling is you know not necessarily not necessarily for us but here we see that rukfelt it's very important to tell stories stories of sadikim uh there is a great sadic a great sadic who lives in shalim his name is ra vdar neansalita I don't know if you you you know that name he's one of the postkim he was with with zam orbach zatsal who was the great uh the great postseek and uh and the great uh Gul Hatra who lived here in Shared and for many many years he has RA Nebansal lives in the old city. He served as kind of the the chief rabbi of the old city and he would learn in yeshiva hakotel that was essentially where where he learned um and the students would say that at night when he was sitting and learning often they would find him with a safer like a gdole safer. Now he's a gal, right? He's a great sadic, but he's reading like the art scroll. He read English also, but I think more in Hebrew, like art scroll sadikim, like about different rabbis that he was sitting and reading. And they once asked him like, is that, you know, is that what is that what you read? Like you're you're a great it's kind of like funny that you're reading these good books about Gdolan. And he said, I need that inspiration also. You know, I read about Gdolean. And in a very again with great humility that I u that I'm also that I also need to work on myself and the inspiration of reading about gdole. It's interesting growing up there were very few books like that and if you go like art scroll or fel time there are many many books today about all the gdollan about remsha feestein and about rufkook and about again across the board there are so many um about gdole that they're writing about the gdole about the sadikim I think it's a very beautiful thing and rufk writes in this piece as well that it's something that we very much need to be inspired the inspiration of of the amuna of the faith that they had, the dedication, the love that they had for Hashem and to be inspired by these great individuals. Okay, coming to a close, let's turn to uh to page four and I want to share with you a story and we've been talking about the importance of telling stories about Sadikim. So, let me tell you a story about Sadikim and a uh an interpret Sadikim from from the Gumarra itself and interpretation that Rkook offers for the following Gumarra. So these there are two sadikim I have it it's in English you can I'll just share it with you you know outside but if you want to take a look at it it's a braos it's it's 34b lameal and speaks about two great sadikim of the gumar you have uh rabi yohan ben zakai who was really that's a name that you may be familiar with one of the great leaders of the Jewish people one of the gdole of the Jewish people and khanina bendsa rabi khanina bendsa And these are the two rabbis that are mentioned here in the gumarra. It says kina bendsa once went to rab and benzakai to spend some time learning together. I think he was a student of his. But there was one point that they went and or he went to his home and to sit and study together. Maybe they took off over the summer a few weeks just to study together with one another. The gamarra says that during that time the child of raban ben zakai would became very sick. No benzaki's child. Yes. Zachi's child became sick and benzakai turned to Rabi Benosa and said, "If you could please pray for my child." Now his wife overheard this and found that kind of strange and said,"Well, why are you asking your student to pray? You're that you're the greater." The wife said and and and she was accurate that he was the greater that you should be the one to pray. Why is it that you're turning to your student to pray to Khan Bendo? So he said the following. He said to his wife, I'll read to you. It's the really the last line of the Gumar. says that he is similar to a servant before a king while I'm similar to an officer before the king. He is similar to an eved to a servant before the king. But I am like a minister before the king. So how do we understand that? What does that mean? So >> ah >> he's like okay good. So let yeah so this is the way that Rkook understands this gamarra. He says there are really two ways in which a person can davin the way that we pray to hashem. One way of daving and he says this is really not the ideal way of daving is when we put a lot of our our mind or our intellect into the experience of dving. That's one way of dving. The other way of davving is where we're just putting our heart in daving. where we just in a very simple way, in a very naive way that we just are like a servant, like an eb before Hashem. And again, there are two ways of dabbing. There are those that are much more intellectual about it. They're reading the words. They're thinking about it, thinking about the ideas, thinking about a conception of God. What does it mean to believe in God, to stand before God in prayer? But according to Scamara, that's not the ideal way to davin. The ideal way to davin is just the simplicity just an amunabuta right just to stand before God with faith with a simple faith in God. Now if you want to analyze prayer there is a time for that right there's a time we can have a class in prayer and we could talk about the ideas of prayer we can go through the amida and we can what does it mean elralo what does it mean like we could do that but that's class time that's good in a shir but when you're ding when you're standing before God when you're saying the amida not a time for analysis right it's not not a time for for scholarly uh scholarly analysis of of what's what's being said it's a time to stand before God with amunabut so this now just yeah this is what this is what the way that he understands the garra zakai who is absolutely a great genius he said when I dab before hashem I dab in like a minister like a minister like a cabinet now so a minister is somebody who who's very very bright right the president wants people that are that are scholarly that have a lot of insight a lot of wisdom and he says when I dove and you You know what? It's difficult for me to dive in with that purity of heart, with that very naive way of daving. But I have a student rightsa. And whenina davins, he davins like an evid. He davins like a servant. And a servant, how does a servant respond to the master? Whatever the master says is what the servant does. Does the servant ever ask the master like why is it that you're asking me to do this? like please explain to me like why I have to wash the dishes. No, that's not the way. Right? If you're hiring somebody to help to do chores in the house, you don't want somebody that's going to ask you those questions, right? I've hired you to to clean and that's, you know, that's what you're here for. So, this is the amuna. This is the amuna that that uh well that that rebina had that he said that this is like a servant that comes before God and the way that he asked and that prayer that's the kind of prayer that I need and the prayer that's necessary to bring a better fua for for my child. Did you >> say that officer has a certain amount of >> Yes. >> Yes. Okay. One. Yeah. No, no, no. There's a very good point. I think that's how how how I always read that gamar like a little bit of gifa and the other that's more humble like the avid rifuk adds this idea that it's also to be less it's it it should be less of an intellectual experience. It should be less of an intellectual and kind of move your your mind off to the side when you pray and just allow it to be heartfelt to just feel that you're in the presence of Hashem. And it's a it's a time not to question. It's a time not to analyze. It's a time just to receive, you know, to feel the presence of Hashem and to turn to Hashem in prayer the way that an EV would not would not ask and just to just to be responsive to the will of God. So that's I think that's that's what um uh that that's the way that that Rifkook understands his gamura. I'll just point out something interesting and that is that two of two of the great students of uh of Rkook who become his great students. One is the Nazir Rabb David Cohen who becomes a Nazir. He grows his hair long. He follows if you've ever if you've seen pictures of the Nazir. We've spoken about him many times. And also Rabbi Kalab Jako Mosha Khalab. These are two of his great students. He had a base medish. It's still there. You could walk down the street here and see it. And in both of their stories when they talk about what what drew them to Ravkuk, they both say that it was the way that RV cooked, which is really fascinating. And the Nazir talks about an evening that he meets with Rafuk and they speak about philosophy and and the Talmud and a lot of ideas. And the next morning when he wakes up he hears Ravk in the other the other room and Rafuk is reciting the beginning of dabing the that he hears him actually reciting the aa and when he hears the way that Rkook is saying the not everybody has the meaning of doing that which is in the sitter right that section from the Torah he says that's the ra that's that's the rabbi that I want I want to become a student of this rabbi who is his prayer and even though he was a great intellect the nuzir and alsuk but is the that simplicity and the passion of his prayer and interesting Rabbi Khalap also when Rkook comes to Yafo 1904 he comes to meet him he wants to spend he spends shuis with him and on shuis morning right before the reading the dibro's a section called adamos that you read it's a poem that's read right before which most people are half asleep they're up all night and people you know don't really give a lot of attention people barely know what it is but um the way Rabbi Kab said the way that he read that prayer that poem At that moment I knew that this is the rabbi that I want to learn from. I want to become a Talmud of Ravuk. So fascinating. Two of his great students. It was the way that he prayed, the passion, the simplicity, the amuna that they felt in those words of Ravuk in the way that he davin. Um let me just end with the following. You know this on the one hand I don't know this idea of like its sadic and learning from its sadic and being inspired by its sadic. When I say those words, I don't know, it kind of feels like like kind of something in the kidic world or something that's not I don't know not so mainstream per se. I didn't really in my upbringing and even you know studying for the rabbin at yes I yes university that was not like an area that was emphasized like sadikim and and being inspired by the sadik and being close to sadikim it's sort of like a little bit more in the again the kidic world but we say every single day in the amida a prayer for sadikim which is really I I've always found this to be like an intriguing braha within the estray to me it always felt like it didn't quite fit in with everything else when we're we're praying for health and for parnasa and for wisdom and for re that we should repent and and then we have a prayer for sadikim I don't know if anybody has ever like taken note of that just the the words and I just have the words on the page we prayimidim that hashem should give special blessing special protection for the sadikim and theim that are amongst us we want to make sure that they are blessed. We need them. We need them for their guidance. We need them for their righteousness. We need them for the amuna that they represent, the faith, that deep faith that they have for us to learn from them. And we're asking Hashem, which is again just a fascinating that we say all the time, every single day to say the is to include a prayer forim. And then at the very end of the prayer we sayimuahim that our portion should be with them. So I saw in Rabbi Schwab, Rabbi Schwab, if you know that name, he was he was a rabbi in Washington Heights in the uh in the Yaki community in the German community in Washington Heights, one of the great rebim, one of the great of this past generation. There's a beautiful safer, it's in Hebrew and in English. art school came out with it on prayer. And his comment on those words means that we should be we should we we should be to be part of their meaning that we should we should be close to we should be in the circle of sadikim to find sadikim and to be to hang out with people that are righteous so that their amuna that their goodness their should rub off on us. I think there's another way of understanding those words means that we should our should also be like in other words that we should live that life as well that we want to attain as Rafuk wrote earlier that I may not be a sadik but I'm trying I'm trying I'm a he says in a very humble way I'm trying to follow the path of sadikim so means we're also trying we're asking Hashem let us follow in that path of sadikim and what we're emphasizing this morning is the amun of sadik. Let me have that that faith. Let me acquire that amuna that a sadic has to live to live with that kind of faith as well. I'll just end with the uh with the following uh with the following story that I just that I just heard this morning. Um I was listening to a Rabbi Rabbi Shai Shakar. I don't know if that's a name that you're familiar with. He's a he's a uh he's the son of Rabbi Hershel Shakar uh who is a rashiva at yu considered to be one of the gdole Torah of our generation and he was giving a shir an initel just uh just a couple of days ago and he told the following story he said that when his father was bar mitzvot he was bar mitzvah in the Bronx in a small sh where his father was the rabbi his name was Rab Melik Rabbi Melik Shakar was the rabbi and He had his bar mitzvah and it was you know a very a very humble bar mitzvah in those years they didn't I remember in my day they said a bar mitzvah was is it more bar than it is mitzvah meaning is the bar like larger than the than the mitzvah part um but in those years you know in this it was just a simple a simple bar mitzvah he had his aliyah and he gave it to vartora and then afterwards they had you know a little some crackers and herring and that was that was it that was that was the bar mitzvah of his father in his father's again Rohersel Shakar with his in his father's shul there was a conservative synagogue down the block and the conservative rabbi was walking down the block and he saw that a lot of people were gathered in front of this you know the little orthodox shul in the Bronx and he walked into the shul to see what was going on and it was they were celebrating it was the end of dav the kdish they were celebrating the bar mitzvah so the conservative rabbi went over to melik shakar who again the father of rehearsal Shakar and he said to him, I want to give you a braha. And the braha that I give you is the following. You're pretty well known. He was a big well known in the Bronx. But he said, my braha to you is that your son should become more well-known than you. That people will no longer be talking about Shakar, but they'll say, you know, the son, you know, they'll be talking about Rahersel Shakar and um and he'll become the famous Rav Shakar. So uh the truth is that happened just uh not that long after the bar mitzvah within five or 10 years he became you know very well known as the uh as the Rav Shakar uh as Rav Shakar that everybody was talking about that everybody knew and then again this grandson of Shai Shakar he said that every at every sim in the family they would kind of share the story and they would say about Shak that we hope that your children right that your children will outshine that everybody will be talking about you and there they'll no longer talk about Shakar. So that was the uh yeah that's a braha that that we should all that we should all have but I was thinking about that story and thinking about this idea of of the righteousness of sadikim of looking up toim and we say so we want to look up to the sadikim of old. We want to look up to the sadikim of our generation, the righteous people around us, the great rabbis, the saintly people around us. But we also want to become those people as well that we should maybe we can even outshine you know some of those or at least join that group that we should join that group of sadikim as well. Sadikim asuk teaches us this morning sadikim that are people of great amuna people of great faith in God. Abraham's faith in God, Rabaka's faith in God, Rafuk's faith in God to live with that deep faith, with that remarkable faith in Hashem, that amuna, that that amunabuta, that simple faith that when we dive into Hashem, we dive into Hashem, come like an eid before Hashem, that we just stand before Hashem without without a lot of analysis or scholarship. It's just standing as uh in a simple way as a child before Hashem. And uh we should be za to yes to take inspiration from others and uh in our own lives in our own uh in our own observance and connection to hashem that we should have a deep deep faith uh hashem. All right we will stop here.