(Part #1) Jews and the News: The Good, The Bad and the Holy with Rabbi Asher Baruch Wegbreit

[Music] welcome back to klm the cavanaugh mitzvos foundation in the yebene base midrash i have a question for you if you had a choice to be a hero or a nervous bystander if i usually you have a choice to be a hero or a nervous bystander what would you choose obviously you would want to be a hero now the these classes i'm about to give are partially inspired by a terrible tragedy that just happened the terrorist attack in el od um and i'm hoping that what we take from these classes will be a ilia nishmas for the victims and a support for the family and i'm really serious about this when i ask you this question do you want to be a hero or a bystander if i hope you haven't been in this situation that my daughter was she was in the what we call the takanat mirkazeet the central bus station in jerusalem and there at rahmanistan there was a terrorist attack right outside and there was a rumor that the terrorists ran into the state system people were screaming and running in all directions it's a terrifying thing terrifying now again i asked you let's say there was there was an incident and there are seriously wounded people who would you want to be would you want to be a first responder like the holy hat solo organization would you be a first responder a hero someone who's helping or you just want to stand there and just be uncomfortable and worried and maybe even terrified we'd want to be a hero so i have an opportunity for you for us to become heroes in a place you would never imagine you're not going to believe that what i'm about to say offers you the opportunity to be a hero but it does ready you could be a hero listening to the news that's right merely hearing the news listening to the news you could become here no don't get me wrong i'm not promoting the news the um let's face it the news is designed to be alarming it's designed to be addictive there's some problems we're going to discuss that but also we have to face the facts in the past three years there have been there's been a level of trouble and tragedy throughout the world and rahman is to the jewish people you know marone's coming up there was florida there's it's been there's been so much heavy news and we need to learn what can we do what can we do with this news in a constructive way so this is the first of a three-part series that i'm calling uh jews and the news the good the bad and the holy tonight we're going to talk about the good the possibility of good that comes from just listening to the news the next time we meet we're going to discuss the bad and all the um troublesome negative addictive qualities of the news and how it can really affect us in a negative way and but most importantly what can we do about that and then thirdly the holy we if we learn how to interpret the news in the right way we can experience the news in a way that brings us close to hashem so that's the series we're going to do the good the bad and the holy so let's start with the good and i have to at this point i want to thank rev yitzhak braider with shlita because you know the news is a very controversial thing especially if you're you have a job to learn torah and teach torah there's all sorts of it's a complex topic the news so i just decided to speak to a great rabbi like red bridewitz and he brought forth some tremendous good we can do by uh listening to the news and that's what i want to uh discuss with you how we what we can do and what we can do each and every one of us by hearing the news so at this point i want to go back to what we said in the beginning we you can be a hero in how you experienced it i wasn't just making uh uh um would call it an analogy by talking about a first responder and hudsola it's completely true let's take a look at this okay let's do it let's understand how we can be a first responder to the news with three mitzvos and for anyone who doesn't know what a first responder is they're the emergency crew that gets there right away and tries to save lives and they're the first action taken same two with us we can do and again it's not really a metaphor we can do cpr uh ourselves and now let's go through that the first thing what's the first response when you hear as i said as an example about a terrible terrorist incident or something like this the first thing to do is to care and you might be surprised but to care is a mitzvah caring itself is already in mitzvah it's called no say to share the yoke or the burden of one's friend which includes um feeling deep empathy and compassion and sharing the pain that they're going through that kind of empathy and care is a mitzvah and it's the first thing we can do care think about this you know the this heart the the horrible wicked people use axes and kill these people think about the kids one one one father fought off the terrorists to save a six-year-old kid right what's what's it gonna be like for that care break your heart over this and we're gonna learn it it's coming up in a little bit i'm gonna tell you it's unbelievable the effects of just caring caring is the first step okay after care there's prayer and this is something that is so important in let's face it as we get nearer to the redemption we see that troubles have been continuous hashem should have mercy on us but you have to know that you know when it comes to prayer is prayer a torah obligation or a rabbinic obligation many people think it's rabbinic and that the three pairs we say um a day is a rabbinic obligation and they're correct according to the wrong uh they're correct according to the ranvan and most postgame prayer is rabbinic the rambam disagrees and says every day you have a basic obligation to praise requests and thanks thank but here's something everyone agrees with in times of trouble it's a torah commandment to cry out to hashem everyone agrees and every time you do that when there's trouble and you cry out to hashem you fulfill a torah commandment so that's also a major intervention so we have to care to think of to feel the anguish and and empathize and sympathize with what when hat would happen prayer to pray to hashem for help and we'll discuss in a minute and finally repair okay if you look at this figure okay this person cares davening what does it say here it says we've sinned now i was just speaking with rabbi poston when people say you know the jews are the source of troubles in the world unfortunately that's usually coming from an anti-semitic anti-semitic voice and the goal's not good but the truth of matter is there is a gemara in yavamas that says all the misfortune and calamity that comes to the world is for the sake of the jews in other words we bear a collective responsibility for the whole world we're meant to be a light in the nations and sometimes hashem brings darkness into the lives of people so we will grow repair repair ourselves improve ourselves and here's something else that's very we have to realize what i'm trying to convince you is that if you hear something bad in the news you should repair yourself you should improve yourself here's my other uh indication there's a tosefta in shavuos that says if a person hears bad news it's an indication that he deserved to hear the bad news hashem justice is incomplete and that means that if a person doesn't deserve to hear bad news he won't hear bad news so if we do hear bad news it is also a message to us that we have to raise our level and improve ourselves okay so when you hear the news now let's just think for a minute you know the news you listen to the news and sometimes people do it to uh whatever just occupy their time right sometimes people uh will hear it and and they're good people and they feel depressed and sad but what we're learning here is as jews we can do so much good when we hear this news right we can care we can do prayer and we can repair ourselves now what i want to do to uh to complete this is to show you a very simple way to do this and that way you know what could be a passage of time which could be what could be something like a very negative experience can turn into a life-changing and world-changing experience so what's uh what i hope is as i always mention i never want the tar we discuss in the cavanaugh mitzvos foundation to ever be treated like a tv show oh that's interesting oh that's inspiring i want us to live it and here we're hearing that by approaching the news in the right way we can do so much good so that's why i came up with a very simple way these three steps that we said the cpr you can give to the victims the people in trouble the people need help it can be done in about 25 seconds all right so let me explain the first thing is this care imagine what this is all you need to do is to do the miss of sharing the yolk of your uh to share the yolk of of your friend who's been in trouble just think about what they're going through like i mentioned in that terrorist incident it's terrible think about the families think about someone who's in the hospital you just take a moment to care and you're fulfilling the mitzvah of sharing the yoke with the other now i want to quickly tell you something amazing that rabbi breidowitz pointed out i said wait a minute rabbi the mitzvah of empathizing and feeling the pain of someone certainly when you're with them or you give them a call and they see you're concerned and they see you care and and what happens as a result they're strengthened you've taken some of the load of pain off their back but he's saying that i could be sitting in my home and i hear what happened in a lot or something like this and i feel pain and and that's helping that's helping them that was my question listen to his answer unbelievable he said like this the jewish souls right we come from one root we're all one soul in essence and therefore when you feel genuine anguish about some jews suffering their soul feels relief it feels you care their body may not recognize that someone in harnow feels a broken heart over their pain but their soul will recognize it you're really really helping them directly when you feel pain even if they're not there that's amazing and another point he he mentioned i mentioned to you hashem is just and we never ever hear anything unfortunate if we didn't deserve to so we discuss we have to respond but here's the other thing if you take upon yourself to feel the pain of those who are suffering so in a certain sense it's unwarranted for you to have that pain so hashem has to if you will we encourage hashem to reduce the troubles for the other people so what just by caring caring as a mitzvah just by caring do you realize what you can do you can relieve them and you can actually diminish the trouble the next thing is prayer and this is i want i want you to realize even a few words to hashem can help i'm giving you a simple quick way to do this of course if you would recite it to him unbelievable but if i say every time you hear the news pull out your talent or say that i'm worried you won't do it but you can do this hashem help them please you're done you did something to fulfill the torah commandment to cry out to hashem it could be a few words and you can reach a very important place finally repair here's something you have to know about shuva too there's a concept called here horchuva which means a mere thoughts and feelings i wish i was better appangs of chuva can turn somebody with the status of a wicked person into a righteous person so even and i have to share this my wife's grandmother a holy woman she's in the other word when she heard bad news in israel and she was here in 49 armored so she heard plenty you know what she her reaction was when she heard the news khatasi i've sinned you hear this she took personal responsibility collected and as we said this the only hashem never wants to do bad he never wants suffering he just wants us to rise the occasion and be the people that we need to be so that's what i want to stress this is and by the way i always encourage you but i really please send me an email if you would like this this brings down the formula and if you train yourself to do this when you hear the news you'll be doing so much good okay we're drawing to a close of the first installment of jews in the news the good the bad and the holy we just finished learning the incredible good as we said you could be like a hat solo person you could be a first responder to trouble if you'll just apply what we call cpr there's three mitzvahs care which is to feel the pain of the person suffering prayer to cry out hashem in times of trouble and repair to even have pangs of chuva is significant so here's i want to explain something what i'm doing is i am trying to take i i try to do this often to take experiences that we're going to have anyhow most people are going to be involved with the news hear the news even if you don't watch the news you're going to hear the news you're going to hear what's going to happen you're anyhow experiencing this and there to say there's a golden opportunity if you do mitzvahs in that time is such an understatement but even more important is the the whole movement i'm trying to start here if you take a second and do it for hashem hashem i care because you command me to care to share the yoke hashem i i'm praying because you command me to you want me to you tell me to and i'm doing true because of that when you do that that there's just simply no way to describe the difference and here here's the metaphor i want to give you know the reason i boiled this down into a simple system cpr care prayer repair is this you know here's the metaphor imagine there were you were walking in this area and unbelievable there are diamonds on the ground they're diamonds each one unbelievably precious right could you imagine walking to say you know uh sure i like diamonds but then i have to bend over and pick it up you know to put in my pocket that's ridiculous right you wouldn't bend down to pick it up but you know what just do the the gates of horror you know i usually want people to follow this year but i don't want the it's hard to fall this year but i i promise you he's going to cause you he's going to try to get you to forget this he's going to try to get you to stay in your habit so i'm just saying cpr right care prayer and repair rem commit to remember it bend down exert yourself a little pick up the diamonds and when you do that i mean i'm saying diamonds for yourself and you're going to help the world at large [Music] is