Who Am I?

[Music] during this sacred and holy month of ello we are continuing in our journey to try to make our te fila experience meaningful impactful and fulfilling but the truth is that feel experience begins before we ever step foot in sure the tv experience even begins before we open up the siddhar for the rabbi is instituted upon awakening in the morning we already begin to dive and we begin our field experience we recite translated i thank you living and eternal king. forgive me back my soul in mercy great is your faithfulness the rabbis were so eager for us to begin that field experience that they created this third that does not have the name of hashem so that we're able to say it immediately upon awakening in the morning and the truth is this feel is multifaceted this opening morning prayer is so profound on so many different levels but i want to share with you an incredible story the story is told about the great saddiq of chernobyl the above chernobyl chernobyl is one of the great hasidic dynasties and the story is told that one time the chernobyl was traveling from one city to another and originally the journey was supposed to take a day the rebels traveling with an entourage but alas they got a little bit delayed the sun began to set and they had to check into an inn at the side of the road this inn was owned by a simple jew a simple ignorant jew but this jew knew jewish royalty when he saw it and he was so excited about the opportunity to be able to host the rebel of chernobyl so the entourage comes in in minha they eat dinner they dive in my river they retire for the night and the innkeeper decides he knows that the rabbit is going to set out the next morning so he decides for himself you know what i'm going to make a beautiful spread for the rabbit he wake up good breakfast he wakes up early in the morning and he checks in to see what's happening with rabbis is awake preparing himself to dive in shahrukh preparing himself to dive in the morning to fearless okay so so the ink keeper figures plenty of time any keeper himself runs he davens after he dives he comes and he checks back on the rabbit he sees the rebel is still preparing he's doing his aconis his preparations for shacharis he hasn't even put on his feeling he hasn't even started davinci slow preparations and keepers is great he whips up a breakfast like his uddas slo mahamelakhas a meal of solomonic proportions multiple courses fresh bread everything beautiful beautiful finally he finishes the table is set he's ready to go he looks back into the rebel's room and the rebbe is still engrossed in his hakhonos his preparation for davening he has not yet even begun to actually daven yet a couple of minutes go by an hour goes by finally two hours later emerges from his room having davin chakras sits down at the table and he's awed he's awed by the generosity of the innkeeper he thanks his host profusely washes and begins to sit down to have the morning meal to have breakfast as the love is eating the innkeeper comes over and the rabbi of course again expresses his incredible gratitude the incubator can ask you a question the rabbit says of course says jabba explain to me what were you doing for so long before chakras i understand person davin's along says brakhos with kavanaugh davin shmona esre with overwhelming concentration but what were you doing before davening that took you so long and said the chernobyl rabbit to this simple just something amazing so i'm going to tell you the truth in the morning when i say mod i thank you hashem i often find it difficult to move past the word ani i because as soon as i say i thank you hashem i begin to wonder who am i what am i what is my purpose in this world what is mashlichos what is my agency what am i here to accomplish and how should i accomplish it how do i give akhodish baruch how do i make the demolish all i'm proud and the chernobyl says i get so caught up in the ani in the eye of modani that i can't even move forward until i answer all of these questions that's why my hakonas that's why my preparations for davening takes so long i get caught on that first phrase moda ani i thank you hashem who am i what am i mahavasi ba olami what is my responsibility in this world and i think the rabbi is teaching us an incredible lesson you see often when we think about teela and even as we discussed in previous shivurim we look at fila as a vehicle to connection to god why do i davin i want to create the dialogical connection a relationship with my father relationship with the rebounds when it's absolutely true but we often overlook another aspect of tifila where tfilo offers us the opportunity to create our relationship with ourselves harsham shannon hirsch in his safer khorev system he says if you look at the word tidal it says what's the shoresh what's the root what's the root of lihit paleo palau palam means to in to judge li hit parallel is the reflexive form of that verb which means means to engage in the process of self-judgment cesar champion of all hirsch tefillah offers us the opportunity to can disconnect from the manic pace of life and to think not only about god but to think about me the ani who am i what am i what am i doing where am i going what's my mission what's my destiny am i actualizing my potential means that filo offers me the opportunity to engage in the process of self-evaluation self-judgment and introspection you see we often think that the goal of tvla is whatever you do don't let your mind wander kavona means concentration don't wander now that is true in other words my mind shouldn't wander to my business and my mind shouldn't wander to my stocks and my mind should have wanted to medication and my mind shouldn't wander to my sporting teams or any other things that are very nice in life but i shouldn't be thinking about those during davening but your mind is supposed to wander a little bit what are they supposed to wander supposed to wonder with thoughts of how am i living what does my life look like and at the end of the day at the end of the day is my life in accordance do i live my life in accordance with the values that i espouse to believe in my mind is supposed to wander a little bit but only wander to the good things only wonder to the important and impactful things li hit paul means to engage in the process of self-evaluation of self-judgment to focus a little bit on the ani and like the chernobler when i begin in the morning mo de ani i thank you to begin to think who am i what am i how am i living this is the duality of the tv experience tfilo offers us the opportunity to come closer to hashem but fila also offers us the opportunity to come closer to ourselves you know it's interesting if shyam shana fell hirsch was lamenting the manic pace of life can you imagine what if would say if he saw our lives today we're always connected we're always plugged in we're always on even we have free time we have so many distractions so dear friends when do we ever have the opportunity to think about who we are what we are how we're living and where we're going and the answer is tv gives us the opportunity to focus and to think about and to conjugate on the anni may we be zohamir to hashem to use this beautiful gift of tfilo to come closer to hashem and hashem to come closer to ourselves as well wishing everyone a wonderful day and a meaningful rest of khodesh [Music]