Part 125: Don’t Ever Despair

good morning Boer to very special thank you to our generous sponsors for the amuna series for the year drors Ai and B Morgan Rabbi Dr Brian galet and as always I invite you if you want to sponsor a particular amuna class please feel free you are certainly invited to do so we are continuing in that a righteous person at sadic is only really alive when they're living with amuna we we week we review the title title alone title alone is so powerful that if we want to really be alive there are people are walking around dead even while they're alive because they think they're the center of the universe because they live with anxiety and worry envy and anger fear and nervousness and there are people who are truly alive even while they are struggling with death because they have auna they tap into something much bigger than themselves with an awareness that there is something much greater so up to again we've been going through of V the great cabalist the student of the arisal taught us that we have habits which are the external manifestation of internal viruses there are four elements within a person and they are wind Earth fire and water and when the external manifestation of a poor habit of a negative attribute of a uh corrupt trait it's because internally there's a virus we gave the mush we gave the example last time that a person has a on their skin so you can shmear with cream and try to make the rash go away then the rash comes up on the other arm then the rash comes back on the back and then the rash is on the face and you keep chasing like a whacka ball with the cream trying to get the rash to go away but the truth is you're only treating the symptom the reason that there's a manifestation of a rash on the skin is because there's a virus within the body and until you identify and heal the virus the rash will keep coming back and that is what has been telling us when you have anger or Envy when you have arrogance or when you have sadness or depression when you have all these attributes not clinically that needs to be treated medically or chemically we're not talking about when it rises the level of clinical I always give this disclaimer and I want to say it again that a person who Rises to the level of clinical needs to seek therapy and help needs to have support either medicine therapy or both and there's nothing wrong with that but we're talking about just the regular Jewish Neurosis not the level of clinical and for those attributes rather than break the habit and as the kutser said we're left with two bad habits we want to not just put the cream on the rash and say I'm going to try to be more humble or I'm going to try to be less jealous because then all we're doing is putting a cream on the rash we want to figure out the internal virus and the internal virus the common theme of all of these manifestations is a lack of amuna person who walks around and they forget they think that they're all that they think that they're in charge they think they're in control they think the universe responds to what they want and how they drew it up instead of realizing with amuna that there's someone and something such much greater than ourselves so we're up to this is the notion of the earth within us the fourth element within a person is so if fire was represented by anger and arrogance and Ru wind is represented by challenges or corruption viruses in the speech and we went through each of the other three then earth when there's a problem with the element of Earth within us whatever that means we'll see in a moment it manifest itself in laziness sadness and despair laziness laziness I'll get to it I'll get to it eventually I'll get to it Le moving lethargically going slowly trying to get something activate within yourself you know what you have to do you know when it needs to be done just do it and yet there's an element of of resistance there's something that holds us back procrastinate even worse by the way the way kazal say that sometimes we have the the mental gymnastics that we take something which is negative and not only do we not see it as negative we turn it into a Mitzvah so I am a great procrastinator but I've convinced myself that I can only write a good jussa when it's the last minute you know convince myself I can only have creativity when it's under Fire if it's far in advance or planned out or scheduled ah I can't get it done it won't be as good and by the way there's actually some studies and research that that shows that and supports that which is very dangerous for you to ever see so but there's this resistance there's a block sometimes we know what we have to do and we know the timeline of when we need to do it and yet there it is we just we can't get ourselves started we can't get ourselves going we can't get ourselves in that direction so there's a corruption there's a problem in the off element within us sadness sadness I'm not talking about you're sad because you've lost someone special or you're sad because there's a real challenge you're going through talking about a sadness which is just you wake up Melancholy you're just going through life where you just feel this sadness something's pulling you down weighing you down you know and even though you try to smile when you see people you try to seem positive but inside you in the world that no one else has access to you feel down and sad or Y Yos is despair you've given up you've given up I don't mean you walk around in sweatpants all day I mean you've given up that yish that I don't think I can be all that or achieve that I don't think I can become that person I have so now we're going to go through all the sadness can come from external reasons oh or sadness can be the result of some internal sometimes a a imbalance in the element of Earth within us can leave us feeling very heavy very w weighty by the way that that's the common theme of all those expressions of it you're lazy and you procrastinate you walk around sad and down you've given up and you don't have the ambition to drive at the core of all three those all they're different circles but they overlap they're overlapping circles and at the core of all three is you feel heavy and weighty sometimes you're on top of the world you got a bounce to your step a skip to your step and you feel weightless like there's no gravity holding you down bless you and you're flying high you're happy and you're joyous and you're driven and you're ambitious and you you can conquer the world you're singing and you're skipping and you feel you could conquer the world nothing can stop you and you know those days where you bang out your whole checklist and then things that weren't even on your checklist and you took on the whole world and you feel the most accomplished and you celebrate what you got done and then there are other days where you feel like you feel like just walking through life you're carrying an extra thousand pounds on your back and to get yourself started and to get anywhere and to put a smile on your face and to believe things can be different and to have drive to get anything done you go to sleep in your checklist has nothing checked off from it so that can come from external or internal we already said a person who lives with is drawn to our creator we put our trust in him so when you live life and you put your trust on hem when you realize that hm has your back then you can let go and enjoy the ride you could literally enjoy the ride so the greater your amuna the more trust and faith you have in Hashem the more you recognize and see his providential Divine hand in guiding your life that whatever challenge you're going through or whatever opportunities that there are you realize that these are forem and they're the way they're meant to be and everything's going to happen in its right way so now that gives you a skip to your step gives you a skip to your step if you're really worried about someone and something and someone you know who's in charge or in control of the outcome of the thing you're worried about says you got nothing to worry about I got your back I'm watching it carefully I'm in charge relax say oh okay then you relax now you can enjoy life because you have that that confidence that someone who knows more or is more in control is in charge well that's what Theon Shalom says to us all the time that's the Mitzvah we've said this many many times the Mitzvah ofus of clinging and cleaving to hem the says means de means glue God says stick with me if you stick with me I'm sticking with you and and everything's good now does that mean everything's good everything will turn out the way we want the way we write it up definitely not there people in this room who experienced extraordinary pain and loss and suffering and struggle and challenge it doesn't mean that if you stick with God he sticks with us in a way that he then designs everything the way we want what it means is that however it is designed and whatever is meant to be we have the courage we have the strength we have the faith we have the fortitude we have the endurance to be able to not only survive but to even Thrive Beyond it a person who believes a person who wants to have and says you know how many times am I going to start the stinking diet how many times am I going to try to quit lashan Hara how many times am I going to try to finish sh how many times am I going to try to concentrate when I DAV how many times am I going to swear that I won't raise my voice to my children how many times am I going to swear that I won't be lazy we all have a long long list of things that we've restarted over and over and over again and you know the more times that we fail the greater the likelihood that we have a sense of yayos like why bother why should I try again why am I going to start again just to fall down again right you know the whole Einstein insanity is doing the same thing expecting a different result well why would I expect a different result I'm going to keep doing the same thing so I'm going to have I don't see a path forward to be able to succeed I don't see a way out I know people who feel this financially they've tried everything and it feels like they just don't have masle and they're destined to have to need the help of the community I know people who are single at an advanced age and they say I've dated I've looked I've long I I've given up clearly I'm not meant to be married people who've longed for and yearned for all kinds of other things in their lives professional ambition and uh Health and Fitness and Wellness and Total Learning and in and in right and daving and they say there's no path forward for me to succeed this is my masle this is my destiny I meant to be ignorant I meant to be distracted I meant to be unsuccessful I meant to be alone I meant to be the ceiling that's holding me back from whatever it is so one falls into that dark and heavy place when they've given up on belief and faith in Hashem because if you have amuna if you're a if you live with a sense of amuna if you realize Hashem is in charge and hashm is in control then you realize that the sky is the limit and it's never too late and it's never done and you don't know the opportunity that will be presented to you tomorrow I didn't I didn't I should have but I didn't prepare illustrations or stories of this but the internet the Hal internet is filled with endless stories within the from Torah Jewish Community within the general population non-jewish world of people who struggled struggled struggled boom they had a breakthrough something changed something changed in fact the shabash which was really made up of two parts the second part was how we become a professional Jew from an amateur one um but the first half was all about this notion of the resistance that holds us back and how to overcome it remember we talked about the it was all based on a a book I had read this past summer the most articulate um expression of the Yahara I had ever read certainly from a secular source and the book was called The Art of War not the artart of War The War of artart The Art of War is an ancient uh guide to how to go to war this was a play on that not the Art of War but the war of art the war of Art and maybe we'll go through some of those makorov more slowly that we didn't have a chance to do fully in the shabash Vasa so he talked about the notion of the resistance and in the introduction to that book He's a he became a famous author from which many movies were made from his his books and very successful by at least all secular measures to today but in the introduction of the book he talks about the fact that he was in his 40s maybe even in his 50s he was homeless living in his car every manuscript he had written had been rejected he was nothing and and he realized what had held him back was this notion of resistance what we call theara but what he called resistance and how you overcome how you get around how you run through or run over that notion of the resistance to have that breakthrough in your life and part of it is Faith part of is the belief in something bigger than ourselves part of it is that we are not a finished story that there's still yet more to come that we have more chapters to write in our own lives so the way to overcome that sense of yish it doesn't matter I I tried to run through the wall Boom the wall knocked me down I tried again it knocked me down I tried again it knocked me down so you can walk away and say forget it or you could say you know what each time I've loosened the wall a little bit and one of these times I'm going to run through it or maybe you know what I got to stop run trying to run through the wall maybe it's time to run over or around the wall maybe I've got to figure out another way but one thing I shouldn't do is just sit down next to the wall and give up and despair because we're meant for greatness every one of us has an opportunity to achieve great things to be something and someone great if we woke up this morning God has great faith in us and our mission and our goal was not to lounge around in our pajamas and get to the end of the day moving slowly and lethargically and giving up Hope on anything but if we some days that's okay to do once in a while I could use a day like that once in a while but if we woke up this morning morning it's because we have a mission and a purpose yet to accomplish and to achieve like a to go discover who we are and who we're meant to be to have an image in our Mind's Eye to have a mission statement for our lives and then to pursue it to pursue it relentlessly to pursue it with everything we've got to make that difference in our family in our community in a volunteer opportunity in Torah in in in whatever way we want we have that chance and we have the opportunity to be that best so if you live life without amuna you say I'm a victim of Randomness and chance this is my genetic predispositions this is clearly how I was programmed this is my mule right I I consult my horoscope and it says you're going to be X Y and Z that's the limits that are placed on you too bad if you don't have amuna then you give up and you despare because how many times you going to get a beat up and try but if you live life with amuna and if you realize no there's something bigger and better waiting for me Hashem is in charge and Hashem is in control and there's nothing that limits him or holds him back of what he can do and maybe I've hit that resistance and it's knocked me down over and over but I don't know what tomorrow brings I don't know what today brings and the opportunities that it will present and the chances that it will give me and the Breakthrough that I can have how many people broke through at Advanced age who tried and tried and tried and it was unsuccessful till they finally got it right you know the famous Benjamin Franklin quote about the light bulb when he was asked by a reporter after discovering the light bulb you don't know this it's a great quote he was asked allegedly by a report after he after he invented the light bulb he said you know you did you did 2,000 experiments before you finally got the light bulb to work how does it feel to have failed 2,000 times and Franklin looked at him and he said I didn't fail once I invented the light bulb it just had 2,000 steps to it oh my so it's all a mentality it's an attitude that we have we could look at the challenges that we faced and say I failed and I failed and I failed or we could look at each of those failures as a learning opportunity each of those fail failures were a stepping stone to Lift Us higher to learn more to reach and to be able to grasp at things he to because puts hope within us if you have no amuna then frankly you have no reason to Hope why should you hope if you just look at the surface of everything out there and you say taka I have no masle and statistically there's no reason why this should get better now than it's been so if you want to be able to transcend what the surface shows you then you got to dig deep and live within amuna and realize no I'm tapping into something much bigger than myself you know the says we are not subject to to astrological signs and constellations and horoscopes the past is no indicator of the future you know they say the past is an indicator of the future not for a yid not for a Jew the past is no indicator of the future I think I shared in a paral she recently but it Bears repeating that Hashem tells a to go outside and look up at the stars and count them because this will be what your children are like skip forward a few paros takes for Thea and he asks elzar what do you see and both of them say what do I see I see a Barren desert I see Wasteland I see nothing says what do you see he says I see a majestic mountain with like a great light on top of it he says you guys you wait here with a donkey from which the gamar learns you have about as much Vision as a donkey you just a donkey just sees the surface what is a donkey I didn't say this part in the in the par but what does it mean you stay here with the donkey what's the Hebrew word for donkey which also means means stuff material physical stuff you are similar doesn't it's not degrading it's not the biased it's not discriminatory what it means is you are like a donkey the donkey just lives on the surface the donkey is very shallow superficial and you too if all you see in front of you with no vision is a Barren desert then you have about as much Vision as a donkey you are like just a piece of all you see is the material the Mah writes about this very often Mahal has two languages he talks about the dichotomy or the relationship between what he calls in Mahar language the and the Sur means the material substance and the Sur is the form that it takes so a table it's made out of wood the the wood is the that's the material but the Sur the form it takes is a table is a table so when you look at that do you say I see wood or I see a table when you look at a pile of wood do you only see wood or are you able to within the table within the wood you say I see a table so that's what a was telling and I asked you what you see and all you saw was the you see just you know whatever you see topographically is that the right word whatever you say the the he ask and has some Vision he says I see light and I see AA and I see Holiness he says good you guys wait here with the donkey because you're about as much as a donkey and and Van and he and I we're going to go where at Co see same same word Co God told a go outside look up at the stars because the word Co there means thus which is a Biblical translation thus thus shall be your children your children are going to be like those stars then a says to we're going to that Co and then when it's time to give a the how is it introduced the the we give our children it says thus this is how you should bless the Jewish people that same word Co is used in all three places what is the word Co so the luina of Mayor Shapiro the founder of thei so he said the following amazing idea hasem says to a go outside look up and count the Stars what should any normal rational person have said back to hasem are you crazy have you seen this guy not without the artificial light if you're looking up at a pure Sky have you seen the sky there's millions and billions and ions of stars it's impossible to count the Stars can't even get started at counting the stars why bother even trying to count the Stars so if you're a you look back at Hashem and you say thanks but no thanks if you need me I'll still be inside I'll be indoors because I'm not stepping outside to count something that's impossible to count that's nearly infinite in number but what did aam do instead he went outside and he said 1 2 3 5 10 100 because for aam there's nothing that's impossible if God tells you to do it and you feel God has your back you can make the impossible possible you could reach for the stars and you can count them and that's the mid the quality of ab that he instilled in each and every one of us we make aaham we ask Hashem to preserve that optimism that hope that drive that ambition that faith that trust say Hashem preserve that in me that I never ever give up hope that I never ever dismiss something as impossible would we still be here if we didn't have the that quality of aam the Jewish people faced expulsions exterminations Exiles we faced enemies and pgrs and if we would look simply at the statistics and the data and the likelihood and the chance that we would survive we would have given up hope long long long ago we're only here because we have the mid of a hasem has answered our BR of M he's preserved that quality of ab inside us that we go outside and we look up and we make the impossible possible we take on the impossible tasks and we make them possible so that the United States and scientists around the said it's absolutely impossible we have all the money in the world and we have all the brain power in the world and we have failed so it must be impossible to design a missile system that can project the trajectory and speed of an incoming missile and meet it in the air and make it explode they gave up impossible Israeli scientists said no we we descend from a you say it's impossible if you could lend us a few dollars we'll get it done we'll get it done and they did Iron Dome system and there are countless examples countless examples of the impossible becoming possible our very survival as a people and that's what says I'm taking we're going to that place of Co you wait here you give up hope you walk away you you give in you believe the impossible is impossible I'm taking the kid who believes that the impossible is possible I'm taking the one with vision I'm taking the one who sees much beyond the surface and we're going to co the co of and when it's time to give a to our children when it's time for the co to give us a the they give up us is wake up every day with optimism and hope and belief and trust it can and it will be better that you have capability and capacity inside you that you don't even begin to know that you don't scratch the surface of knowing what you're capable of until our back is against the wall until we're pressed into a corner but the ran talks all safe abous the nas the tests that a endured are of us all endured the the commentary say that we are destined to endure each of us have 10 tests in our life and that word test n comes the word n which means a flag you could plant a flag in your life there are 10 moments in your life that mattered the most where you were tested and they were junctures that your life could have gone one way or another and through those 10 challenges or tests being pressed against the wall you discovered something about yourself and who you can be and you plant a flag and you say that moment it was difficult it was hard I was tested but when I came through on the other side when I came through on the other end I learned something about myself I discovered strength and I discovered faith and I discovered courage and I discovered patience and I discovered humility and I discovered satisfaction and I discovered whatever it is that we discovered within us that we otherwise never would have known never would have known if we just look at the surface if we just look at our genetics if we just look at our predispositions if we just look at our ancestors in some cases or our we'd say why am I going to bother but if we embrace the legacy of AR a we realize the sky is the limit so what does this all depend on amuna amuna if you live a horoscope life if you live a life of that you think you are under the constellation that you're born into then why bother living just read your horoscope and then that's it determined it's already told you what's going to happen we don't believe in this narish kite we don't believe in narish kite we don't believe in this Ridiculousness a no horoscope can tell you what's going to be you write the next chapter of your life nothing can dictate nothing predetermines nothing tells you what has to be you write that next chapter I wrote a piece this morning um I posted this morning my article for this week is about yakob and ASA but it's about two other twins who were separated at Birth their parents got divorced one went with the mother one went with the father and the one that went with the father grew up in Germany and became a Nazi and the one that went with the mother made Aliah and became a member of the Israeli Navy and they and they United later in life these two brothers and when they when they United when they got together later in life it turns out without planning it they were wearing the exact same thing they were wearing the same outfit they had the same glasses they had so much in common and for everything about their nature that they had in common the nurture of their life made them so different they couldn't stand to be around each other you read the article and then I spoke about Yakov and asov of we have a similar nature but ultimately it's how we nurture ourselves that determines who we become asov is assu rash say that the name ASV comes from the word he was complete he was born complete not only physically was he born complete he was born having completed puberty he was born fully mature he was born looking like an adult not only on the outside but on the inside asa's attitude in life is I'm done as an adolescent I'm done and yob is as yov is yov which comes from the word which is a heal and theak says when you take a step you start with the heel and then the front of the foot the heel then the so the heel represents the beginning of the first step Yakov is I'm not done I'm not complete I'm not a finished product this is just the first step in my march to Destiny from from yov to is and every one of us have that ability we're not done we're not complete we're not finished there can be unbelievable breakthrough I've been quoting a lot this year Herman woke who passed away this year who wrote some very very important books did a lot of Outreach in kiru and brought Torah to the masses in a very meaningful way he wrote and published his last book I think he was 101 years old so you think 100 I'm done finally 100 I'm done maybe 100 I can retire 100 no if you're 100 you still have another book you have to write you still have another book you have to produce and if you're less than 100 then you haven't even gotten started yet you haven't even begun The Best Is Yet To Come you have to believe the best is always yet to come so how do you have faith The Best Is Yet To Come say how is my Best Yet to Come there's nothing in my life that that supports that assertion that my best is yet to come if history teaches me anything if the pattern that I've created if the genetics that I've inherited my best is not yet to come it's just downhill from here so if you don't have auna you think life is downhill from here but if you tap into amuna and you realize there's a Hashem and he has a plan and there's nothing that holds him back there are no limits then I have to believe and I have to do my part it's a partnership by the way I can't sit back on the couch and wait for him to produce my best is yet to come it's a partnership I have to take my initiative I have to get up but what gives me the courage and what gives me the strength and what propels me to take that initiative the first step is the belief that it can be better the first step to change is the belief that you can change is a very very important Point many people don't bother trying to change because they don't believe they can I am what I am they're like ASV I'm AI it's just not who I am it's just not who I am who I am is the lazy who I am is the self-centered who I am is the person who's jealous who I am is the one who gets angry and loses their cool who I am is the one who's impatient who I am is the one who's materialistic who I am is the one who doesn't appreciate ding who I am is the one who never volunteers it's just who I am it's I'm stingy it's just who I am it's who I I'm I'm as of I'm I'm complete I'm it's just who I am we're not we're not called Ben asov we're Ben is we are the children of yov or the children of Israel we're just the first step in our March towards the destiny of who we're meant to be but we have to believe that we have to believe we can change we have to believe that we can realize our dreams we have to believe that our best is yet to come we have to believe that we can live our best lives yet and if we believe and we take our first step Hashem will meet us more than halfway oh need to take is the first step and then he will he'll pull us forward he will shorten the path he will bring us to our destiny there's another reason that's why this famous says this thear is the whole discussion G young boys who start learning gamar and yeshivas almost always start from B they start with the Su of what happens if you lose an object what signs on the object are you obligated to to return the object can you keep do you say losers you know Finders Keepers losers weepers what's the position on this so the language the the's the's language ises means I'm only allowed to keep something if the other party the one who lost it Hades if you maintain Das if you maintain hope that you're going to recover it if I keep it I've stolen it from you because you've preserved your ownership over it so when I take something that you still own that's called stealing so if I find a quarter that has no identifying Mark the Assumption can be that you dro the quarter you probably you've given up hope that's a fair assumption to work off of you lost a pen and I found not a Mont Blanc but a bck pen so the assumption is there's no symbol on it there's nothing sign that makes it identifiable a Mark that it's yours you gave up Pope I'm allowed to keep it but what about yay Shalom the gamar has a whole conversation and a whole discussion Shalom you gave up hope but Shalom you didn't give up hope consciously or you didn't make the choice to give up hope you just subconsciously Shalom so says Shalom he's talking now not about lost objects butman says if a Jew ever gives up hope Shalom they're not in their right mind for a Jew if you've given up hope you're not in your right mind because if you're in your right mind you never ever give up hope we live with we live with hope all the time because Hashem has our back and Hashem is in our corner and if you have access to the greatest expert to the source of all to the one who's really in charge and really in control then you never ever give up hope there's another reason that a person who's made mistakes starts to give up you have a problem when a person makes a mistake when a person violates an indiscretion when a person comes up strong short or stumbles so now they used to think that they were great and now I realize I'm human I'm not as great as I think I am I'm not as infallible as I think I am I'm not as strong as I think I am it it's POA it's it's damaged my own internal sense of my greatness so what happens when that happens you say you know what I thought I was great and I thought I was but I see I'm not so why bother trying why bother even trying how many times am I going to fail each time I try and I think I can and then I fail I just beat myself up again I just feel unworthy again I just feel bad about myself again I just feel guilty again so you know what's much easier is to not even try it's much easier to not try I VI I give up I don't even try I just say that's not me it's not me to be righteous or kind or giving or good or patient or or uh to have auna however ever if your is is strong if you have am then you can be strong not to be arrogant in the first place and you can be strong not to give up hope even when you've Fallen because you know you have a support system you know the recovery Community some of its Brilliance is that it is designed to be a recovery Community it's a community person has a sponsor and they go to meetings and they're part of a community and the whole idea of that is that if I were struggling with addiction and I were doing it on my own so when I stumbled I'd say you know what's the point how many times am I going to quit X before I give up of realizing that I'm just not destined to quit X but if I have a community that every time I start to fall they catch me and they lift me back up and I start my count again one day one I start my count again day one I don't want to embarrass him I won't use his name but the individual who was on our community panel before SOS who shared his incredible story family he grew up in and the hopes that they had he was one of the Yan one of the great Learners in his Yeshiva but he couldn't ever meet the expectations people had and his father tragically died very young and he started to numb himself with one drug which turned to another another another until he was homeless and he told this whole story and yet now he's been he'd been clean for a certain amount of time and he talked about it very very powerful before SOS this past Sunday he got his oneyear chip that he'd been clean for one year and at the home that he lives in the in in uh treatment place he invited me to come to a barbecue that evening to celebrate it was extraordinary his his mother and siblings from very from had flown in and they were there and celebrating with him and it was really I was so honored to have been invited and to be in the presence of both he and the others who live in that home was not to be in the presence of people who are weak or failures to me was to be in the presence of greatness of people who are conquering their challenges their resistance of people who are not giving up a community of people who say no matter how many times I hit that wall and I'm knocked down no matter how many times I try to quit but I end up getting hooked again I'm in a community that's going to catch me and lift me so maybe maybe you don't hit your year on your first try you got to six weeks and you went back to one you got to six months and you went back to one maybe after a year God forbid you go back to one before you can get to 10 years or 20 or the rest of your life but what it means is to be in a community of people who lift you so we have a community that's called the Reon the amuna community we're part of a recovery Community too and our recovery Community is the Jewish people our recovery Community is Torah our recovery Community is amuna and it says never give up and don't Despair and you're right maybe you if you are alone maybe you as you alone are so fallible and so frail and so feeble and so weak that maybe you're right maybe you can't do it but here's the good news you're not alone Theon shalom's with you and because he's with you never have y you're never ever alone I love to tell the story about a bris this goes back maybe 15 years ago already but you know what a bris tables all start full at the beginning of the bris and then there's a lot of conflict early in the morning with a bris everyone's got to go to work or drive carp or things to do so you're at the table and it's full and everybody's eating and then half the people got up and left and then you're down to two people so it was me and one other person and I said to him I feel so terrible I feel very bad leaving you alone but I got to go to work because you feel bad leaving that last person just sitting there by themselves so I said that to this person and he looked at me and he said with a full heart he meant it this wasn't just lip service he said rabbi don't worry about it I'm never alone I always have the Reon shalam with me so he meant it don't worry you can get up and leave me at this table because even when visibly there's nobody at the table I'm never sitting alone I'm never ever alone so whenever you confront whatever is your addiction your obstacle your challenge your appetite your Temptation your desire whatever is your Kryptonite and you face it and you say I have y I can't give up this cryp tonight how many times have I thought I gave it up and here I am back again the reason not to have is to realize even though when I look around it looks like there's no one here I'm never ever alone's always always with me the biggest resistance that we have is Despair and sadness they bring us to weakness if you're weighted down by sadness and despondency if you're weighted down by a sense of melancholy if you feel just down in the dumps and and then you give up hope so that's going to make you weak and for you to overcome whatever challenge you have you need the opposite of being weak you need to be strong you need to jump out of bed you need to greet the day like a lion you need to believe that I am a lion there's nothing that can hold me back and the sky is the limit for me today and I'm going to go conquer the world today so when you say it's hopeless there's nothing that makes you feel more weak than thinking it's hopeless when you say I'm sad the world is a dark place there's nothing that's going to make you weaker but if you say all I see is light all I see is opportunity and possibility all I see is chance all I see is Hope and optimism then you're going to be energized to go conquer the world a person who has faith in hem never feels overwhelmed and never gives up hope because he knows that hasem always has Mercy on us and he can lift us at any moment Hashem is the ultimate parachute Hashem is the ultimate what's that thing if the fire people tell someone jump out the window and they catch them in a a netem is the ultimate safety net from our amuna we draw the strength to put our hope in Hashem and to believe in him so again if you wait for a moment of of stress if you wait for a moment of of uh challenge to dig in and to tap into that Reservoir and the reservoir is empty if you need to take a major withdrawal from your bank account but your bank account's got 50 cents in it you got a problem just like everyone should have in their personal lives every institution should have that rainy day fund you don't know when the AC is going to give out or when the roof's going to give out or when your kid is going to get into a fender bender so you need a little if you have a dollar in the bank you're in trouble when those things happen well amuna is a bank account and we've got to make deposits over and over and over again so that when there is a challenge and we have to withdraw from the bank account of amuna we can make that withdrawal without going into the red so you got to make the deposits while you have a little extra cash you can't make the deposit when there's nothing there but you need it so that's why in the good moments and the happy moments and the calm moments and the Tranquil moments we make deposits we're finishing up writes person the obligates us to know with all of our heart that everything is in the hands of hem you have to put your trust in hem in every dark moment and every challenging moment and to know in truth that he could save us he could intervene he could intercede it can feel like the last moment when everything is given up hope when there's no chance it's never too late for him it maybe too late for us it's never ever too late for him M hasem will pick up with this next week oh wow