Part 2

okay good morning we're going to get started first of all there's C more coffee if anyone would like uh coffee with any flavor of coffee mate my wife buys out the coffee mate at Publix on a weekly basis um there is a sign up sheet going around if you sign up it'll be easier to remind everyone when we're having class and even more significantly in the event that we're not I me you're welcome to come anyway on Wednesday mornings and hang out at my house but uh in the event that we're not so please sign up and um make sure to give the information okay last week we studied again the idea is to study about amuna each week and we're not studying a set safer but rather each week to find another nugget another unit just for that week something to inspire our amuna of the week as we spoke about last week amuna is one of those things that hopefully we have within us it is inside all of us to feel there is a power a Creator something greater than ourselves in this world but life gets in the way we get distracted we get distracted by a world of Temptation we get distracted by a world of um of to-do lists and tasks and we forget to connect and so the goal of getting together on Wednesday mornings for a cup of coffee and a a boost an injection of amuna is to hopefully carry that charge throughout the week and to remember with a greater sense of amuna that we don't live here independently that we're not all alone but rather there is meaning purpose and Order of the universe and that there is a Creator who has a intimate personal relationship with each and every one of us I want to study this week last week we saw piece in the shom and this week in front of you you have a piece from Al Alish was written by R who was himself a fascinating individual about Chua who uh became the mash of he did not supervise a kitchen in Mash is the description of the position of the spiritual mentor of theiva the Russa gives the ual challenging shear and the mash speaks to rashash speaks to the brain of the students in the Yesa the mash speaks to the heart and the Soul Mash is is responsible for the spiritual growth and uh and Raa was an outstanding individual who had penetrating human Insight a brilliant brilliant person and uh there are two volumes that represent the vadm the mus groups that he used to run it's called alore it's in two in two volumes this is the 16th chapter of the first volume of Al his introduction to his chapters on amuna and maybe we'll continue and see those chapters on amuna but the introduction itself I think is fascinating he begins by quoting the gamar shabas 119b the gamar chabas says the following let me also just say this by the way I know that some people here aren't uh literate in Hebrew or it's harder to understand and some always ask for English and some the reason I think it's great to study with a text and we don't do enough of it is that the highest level of Total Learning nothing compares to when you have your pen and you have your text and you're underlining you're writing the my greatest years of learning breakthrough my earliest years were writing the translation of the words underlining and Aster coming back knowing there's passive learning where you're listening to a lecture and there's Active Learning where you have a text and you're marking it up and you're making what we would call a Kenyan you're acquiring that Total Learning you're going to review it later you're going to share it with somebody else you're going to take another look at it and that's how you pick up more and more words that's how you remember more and more so don't feel obligated to follow ins side but one of the goals that we'll try to achieve on Wednesday mornings is not just talk about amuna but do it through a text so that we're gaining skill in texts and so that we're making we're acquiring Torah to make it our own so the says whoever answers a with all of their enthusiasm whoever answers aain with all their passion the gateway toen to the Garden of Eden is opened for them this is a statement of our rabbis in this is the origin of you may have heard some communities have aain groups maybe this is going to turn into one drink your coffee and make a bra we could all answer aain but whoever answers a if you respond to somebody else's BR first of all that in itself is instructive you respond to someone else's br means that someone else made the BR out loud so you could respond so just as an aside I cannot tell you how critical I think it is in our homes and around our children or grandchildren to recite Bros out loud you talk about the the influence of amuna through osmosis the the nuanced implicit statement of amuna you know our children don't only grow cuz you sit them down on the couch and give them a lecture about the first cause creator of the universe who has relationship with us our children know you believe in Hashem not necessarily because you can have a philosophical theological dialogue with them they know you believe in Hashem because before you take a SI of cafee you say oh wow I need this CAE so badly thank you Hashem for inventing the cafee Bean thank you Hashem for giving me access to a delicious cup of coffee right now you say that everything came from Hashem it was all created with his word you know the children may not articulate it may not be on a conscious or cognitive level they say oh my parent believes in hem because they made a br but day after day year after year of hearing a br out loud before you eat and feel free to throw into the BR I'm going to thank Hashem now for this amazing dinner that that we're about to eat or for the opportunity to go out and eat a restaurant or for the ice cream that we stopped to have come make a br with me tell your kids you make a braa I want to be able to answer aain to you because as we'll see right now the whole notion of AA is an affirmation of amuna I believe you exist and you don't say thank you to some somebody you don't believe exists you don't say thank you to a figment of your imagination you say thank you to somebody something that you wholeheartedly believe exists so just by saying thank you to Hashem you are implicitly affirming acknowledging that you believe he's there and then the person responds to that BR and says aain what they're saying is ditto me too that's what aain literally means aain means ditto me too a is you said you in hem me too I also recognize Hashem who created everything with his word or whatever you br you're saying so the gamar says that if you answer aain with all your energy with all your strength with all your passion with enthusiasm and excitement it achieves opening the gates to the Garden of Eden my what is I'm on the third line a is an acronym A is El the god the king who is trustworthy in whom we trust K it says on your dollar bills and God We Trust aain is and God I trust aain is the root of the word amuna it comes from the same word so a person who screams out a you give a not you ignore the other person's bra not you Mumble a not you say aain to yourself you give an a K it opens the gates to the Garden of Eden is an acronym K says the following the way of our rabbis was to reveal the most significant the greatest the most advanced ideas through a small gesture what's the idea of answering a with of your being you know some people think a great statement of is you're willing to die right this week's partially have the AA is willing to take his son to Har and he's asked to sacrifice and we can't even imagine spoke about it yesterday in the para class a little bit but the Supreme sacrifice of not only killing your beloved precious son but killing your whole future AR spends years on a soap box lecturing the world about how they have it all wrong he has it all right God's promised him his children are going to be like the stars in the sky and the sands on the beach it's going to all happen through my son y you should all know that through my little y we're going to transform the world to be a monotheistic Society the future is with my family he's been telling that on every talk show writing that as op heads in every newspaper telling the whole world and then God says uh change your plan I want you to kill y can you imagine I mean don't imagine AB not only is going to be asked to do the most cruel thing to his own flesh and blood but also what it means to lose his life mission that's an unbelievable challenge it's an unbelievable challenge so that's a supreme Supreme moment of amuna to say I believe in God whatever God asked me to do I'm going to do and we have in our lives Supreme moments of amuna people go through incomprehensibly difficult circumstances and they're asked to still believe that is an unbelievable statement of amuna answering aain is the smallest most trivial seemingly TR expression of amuna someone made a br they had a cup of coffee and you said a big deal he said aain that's like the complete polar opposite of being asked to kill your own son aain a small thing a small little gesture and our rabbis revealed through this through a small gesture of Faith right it's not that the gates of ganen open when you're willing to die it's not that the gates of Gan open when you're willing to to you know sacrifice something meaningful in your life or be willing to suffer be willing to endure ridicule or no the gates of ghen open because he answered someone made a such a small gesture it's upon us to try to figure out you need to know that when our rabbis they don't speak in hyperbole they don't make exaggerations their language is not inexact if our Rabbi said something it's because they want us to understand it and they want us to understand it in the way they said it in many places we find our rabbis giving us the following promise our Rabbi is constantly telling us that if you do the right thing live this virtuous way be a noble person you are promised a portion where the world to come elen and yet says R if you want to really understand what the rabbis are saying we have to decipher why the rabbis here not say what we're used to them saying if you answer aain with all your energy with enthusiasm you're guaranteed a portion of the world to come usually that's the promise right give be a good person speak guaranteed a portion of the world to come here that's not the promise not the usual here it's not a portion of the world to come it's the gates of ganen will be open what happened to the usual promise incentive that our rabbis use also if you look carefully the rabbi say if you answer aain the gates to ganen are opened it doesn't say you Merit to go into the Garden of Eden you Merit to live in Paradise that's not what it says answer aain with all your energy and the gates to ganen open okay I mean if you want to give me a promise why not the promise be that I Merit to live in Paradise I get to look through the open Gates where is is the world to come is to return to our source it's the world of bliss it's the world of perfection it's the world of the ultimate and Revelation is the world to come it's the place of of reward ganen is a throwback ganen is a throwback to to Adam before the so what happened we were in ganen when Adam is first created he's placed in the Garden of Eden why is he out he got booted why did he get booted because of his wife dangerous why did he get booted is expelled it's a dangerous uh I'm well outnumbered here to make those kind of jokes but Adam is expelled from ghen why because he Anda had bad judgment they made mistakes and their mistakes created a barrier between themselves and God in ganen Hashem was revealed everything was taken care of for you man first of all lived forever he had immortality in ganen in ganeden one didn't need to work one didn't need to toil in ganen hasm presence was undeniable there was no barrier there was no doubt the uncertainty that we live with the doubt the struggle is there God is there not God I don't see him I don't feel him how could a god do that thing I don't know all that didn't exist in gun Aiden but we're on the third paragraph in the world after the the mistake we live in a world where God Is concealed we live in a world where God is hidden if we want to and we wouldn't be alone this plenty in the world we could deny God's existence we could live as atheists or even agnostics and say the world operates on the principles of nature there's a natural order so there's chance and happen stance and Randomness and things just are there's a natural order why do some people get sick and others are healthy ah it's a flu it's a statistic it's data why is there an earthquake or a hurricane or a ah why does this one have have healthy pregnancies and great nakas from their children this one struggles ah it's nature it's the natural world and the natural order and everything that happens to us is a product of nature there's no God there's no Creator there's no omnicient P being that uh that interacts with the world if one wants to God is hidden he's concealed leaving room for doubt now why is that by the way we spoke about it last week in the in the afternoon class in in the shabas afternoon class it had to be that way because God wants the world to have meaning and for our life to have meaning we have to have free will if we don't have free will there's no purpose to life to be pre-programmed robots who execute exactly what we're supposed to without choices or free will there's no there's no point to life the bread and butter the foundation of every relationship is the fact that the other person in the relationship has choices to make they make the right choices and we feel closer there's intimacy there's connection there's affection they make the wrong choices and we feel distance and we feel a barrier but if they never made choices we just program them to be exactly what we wanted right that sounds like it would be great you could program your husbands to put their socks in the laundry basket to be home when they said they would be home to do what they right if you could program them uh like you program your computer you think that would be great there a a movie like that Stepford white yes there's a movie like that and the whole idea of the movie is that that you think that it would be a a a great life but it's not you know it's not a great life you want a robot you could have a robot you can't have romance with a robot there is no love there is no intimacy there is no affection those those feelings that are the very source of our energy of our life source of our being alive you can't achieve that from a relationship with a robot you need free will you need choices because the choices and the results that come as consequences of the choices give meaning to life hopefully enriching life in the most positive of ways sometimes having a setback in life but hopefully overall providing a very meaningful life and what's true in our human relationships it's true for parents and children it's true for uh friends it's true in marriage it's true in every realm of life it is the Free Will that gives meaning and purpose and and and animates and makes the relationship Dynamic and Rich and meaningful and without it there's no relationship and the same is true in our Rel reltionship with God if we just were obedient and did everything God wanted exactly as he asked it he didn't need to create a world that looked like that he created the world and he planted us and plopped Us in this world filled with temptation and distraction and desire and he said now make the right choice and when you make the right choice you're going to feel like a million bucks and you and I will have a relationship and there's no greater pleasure and there's no greater good than that feeling of connection of doing the right thing there is no greater good than the feeling of doing the right thing now I always say I don't always live it but I always remember it and I try to live it when you're in that great Zone with eating right everyone your diet and your healthy lifestyle whatever you're doing when you're in that great Zone where the the unhealthy food doesn't even tempt you when you're in that zone so the great feeling of being disciplined is far more pleasurable than the momentary Taste of the chocolate cake you gave up when you're not in the zone you forget that you think the chocolate cake tastes better and is more rewarding and will last longer than whatever pleasure that's the challenge of it because our mind plays games on us and you forget it but when you're in the zone what keeps you in that zone is you stare down the chocolate cake you have no interest you defeat it you walk away with your head high and you say you know what being able to say no being disciplined and regulating myself expressing my free will in a healthy way is more delicious than any piece of chocolate cake ever could be that's the way we were wired it's the way that we are programmed so in in order to retain that free will God has to be hidden if God talked to us like people say all the time well if God talked to me like he talked to abam if God spoke to me like you did Moshe of course I would believe him so why doesn't God talk to us why isn't God revealed why is the world designed in such a way that he's hidden and that we could be in denial if we want to be because otherwise you don't have free will you do not have free will if the consequence is right in front of you nobody ever speeds with the policeman in front of them on the highway you'll never be on the highway and see someone turn on their blinker go in the left lane and zip around the cop never happens why do they have free will to speed in that moment they don't yes they can press on the gas pedal but that's not free will Free Will is you're presented with equal opportunities and choices and you're not when the policeman is on the road right in front of you well if God were revealed undeniably you wouldn't have free will or choice and there'd be no meaning or purpose to life so Hashem has to remain hidden and there's terrible consequences to that that that's a necessary part of life having meaning but the result of his being hidden is Free Will the result of Free Will is people choosing the wrong things causing a lot of pain and destruction and death in this world but if you couldn't choose bad there would be no meaning to choosing good it can't just be you have free will but you can only choose good there has to be the alternative of choosing bad otherwise there's no value to choosing good so for the sake of Free Will which is the entire purpose of life there has to be the option of bad why am I telling you all this come back to Rola so R saying Hashem is hidden in this world he's hidden so that we could have free will but he's hidden and if a person wants to live their life and say ah it's all Randomness it's all chance it's all nature second line of the third paragraph if you want to study history you can the option is available to you to study history and say it's all natural 1967 it's a fluke we defeated all the armies around us but you know the stars were aligned just right that it happened to be it was chance we were victorious you could look back at all of history and study this way if you wanted the rambam rights if you want to explain every one of the 10 plagues that happened in Egypt Under The Rules of Nature and Science you can you can I remember reading a New York Times article many many years ago of a scientist who argued that if the planet were the right way with the Stars would would called the waves to go the right way you could scientifically explain the winds would blow through the night you could scientifically explain the splitting of the city you could do it is it likely is it probable but you could do it the option remains there if you want to look at history and not see God but explain it all based on nature and Randomness you can and it's essentially what we do in our own private lives all the successes that we have we ascribe to our own hard work why do I have that success cuz I worked hard cuz I was dedicated cuz I achieved Ito so what do we do we have a selective way of looking at life we look at all of our successes as being a result of us and all of our failures because of external forces something didn't go right oh it's not my fault it's because my lousy family member it's because my boss it's because of the community it's because of the rabbi it's because of the weather it's because I didn't feel well it's because of the other driver it's because of whatever whatever went wrong it's someone else's fault whatever went right it's entirely to my credit there is an iron curtain between us and God where he is hidden he is revealed he's behind the curtain he's hidden I'm sorry not concealed he's hidden behind the curtain and we go through life with his being hidden hauna if you choose to live with amuna if you choose to peek behind the curtain if you choose to say you know what it's not just me there's a Creator there's something greater than myself and both my successes and my failures are for a reason and for a purpose everything happens for a reason there is a cause there is meaning to the world you know what does it pierces a hole in the Iron Curtain amuna is you take a knife a sword and you slice open that curtain you say God you're not getting you're not remaining hidden in my life you're not going to be Conceal concealed in my life I'm not explaining everything through science and Randomness and chance and nature I'm explaining that it's all you I'm opening a window in that wall that is blocking you from me so that I can see you amuna is I see you in my life I choose to see you in my life I ask you for the things I need your help with I have gratitude to you for the things grateful for I praise you I recognize you I appreciate you I communicate and I talk to you I'm living with amuna I'm cutting a hole in that curtain that blocks us so when you answer aain with every ounce of your amuna with his affirmation his great declaration someone makes a and you say I believe in him too I see him too I talk to him too I'm also grateful to him that's what a main means what happen I love the visual that R provides what were's questions why is it that if you answer aain with all your energy if you express amuna passionately enthusiastically you promised the entrance to Ganan is opened what happened to being promised and why not be promised you're in Paradise why are we being promised that you open the gates To Paradise to ganen so he's answering it when you answer AO you you open the wall between us and ganen there's a place called ganen in ganen God is revealed in ganeden you don't deny you don't live with doubt you're not unsure you're not curious in ganeden you know as much as I know that you're sitting in front of me right now you know with certainty that God exists that God is in in your life that God loves you and you live with gratitude towards him that's the place called ganeden normally there's a wall blocking us from ganeden I don't know if God exists I'm not so sure I live with doubt sometimes more than others why would he do this thing to me there's a thick wall when you answer aain when you live with amuna you open a hole in the wall you open the curtain and you see ganen you see that world of God being revealed you see what it's like to live with God in your life if you can successfully open that curtain and peer into G your feet are firmly planted in this world but you're spiritually already living in another world right the people that we know who live with amuna the people that we know I spoke last shabas about rebas and how her son-in-law my buddy AR willig described her as otherworldly her feet were firmly planted in this world making 30 meals of shabas and taking care of people and hosting guests but she was otherworldly she was in ganeden she was looking right through the gate to her there was no curtain blocking I'm I'm not sure I don't know why would God I don't know that gate was open that that curtain was wide open her feet were in this world but the curtain was wide open she was peering right into ganen all the time that's what amuna could do so for Henny Maas there was nothing that was random or chance or nature everything was Hashem even the guy who knocked on her door at 3 in the morning a a right creation is not just nature right you go to the Grand Canyon or you see a remarkable sunset or you live some you You observe some incredible natural phenomena it's not just nature that's God history is not chance our success is not the result of our initiative alone in nature you see God's will like who put nature into order yes there's something called nature of course there's gravity and there's rain and ecological cycle there's nature but who is the driving force behind nature who created the natural order nature is the Ron Hashem nature is the will of God history is God interacting with the world my getting pleasure having a delicious cup of coffee is God's wow God you gave us the Coffee Bean God you invented ice cream that's un that's your to me a person who's strong in their is living in a spiritual world even while their feet are on the ground the entire world is transformed to a place where you see Hashem everywhere challenge your kids next time you're on a long or your grandchildren or your neighbor's kids next time you're on a long car ride somewhere challenge your kids okay who could see Hashem everywhere let's have a contest see something and tell me if you see Hashem the end of our par by the way talks about AB planted a tree and he declares Hashem salek talks about AB was trying to said the message Hashem is not just in philosophy and Theology and all kinds of fancy words you see this tree it's Hashem it's meal you plant the tree and it grows and then it grows fruit and you could eat the fruit and it produces something that that allows you to plant another tree that's unbelievable and it's sweet and it's delicious and it sustains us and it nourishes us that's incredible that's Hashem how can you live life with the curtain open instead of closed and the control you know the strings to the curtain to open it that's up to us not Hashem Hashem is behind the curtain it's only up to us to be able to open the curtain we are the only ones who can control through living a life with amuna that is symbolized through answering aain can I ask a question sure so are you saying that this curtain stays open so if we're living in Two Worlds so then obviously we don't go into God ating because we only go into God ating when we leave this world but the goal is is when we're in a physical body is to have our feet planted on the ground and always keep the curtain open that's the state of existence not the desire to actually be in gun or Alive we don't want to die we believe Inca we believe that and this is unlike other religions who who cherish death we believe that life and why is that by the way because what we were talking about before only while you're alive do you have free will and only with free will can you achieve and earn closer relationship to Hashem the moment we die and we go to the the world of Truth where Hashem is revealed entirely you're done you're stuck you're set where you are you can't grow anymore the only way you can advance is by getting a return on the Investments you left behind that's why we say Yer that's why we say Kadesh that's why we do things in the Merit of our loved ones who are no longer here because we can help them but they can't help themselves anymore because there's no more free will only in this world do we have free will and that's why we cherish every moment of life so we're not talking about ganen in some way you know glorifying death and wanting to get there we want to live life as long as we can but we want to do it with the curtain open so I would take it even further you know sometimes you can have a door that has a spring so when you open the door it automatically closes the curtain has a spring it's just the nature of Our Lives that even when you've opened the curtain and purered through it the curtain automatically shuts so you have to constantly pull the string with every BR you make with every aain that you answer with every piece of nature that you say that's god with every moment in history that you see hashem's hand you have to pull the string over and over and over again it's tiring because the curtain is going to keep closing automatically and only through our efforts and affirmations and exercises in amuna do we continuously open the curtain over and over again question why an good question I don't know I don't know if it has to do with the Soviet jury movement but uh I don't know kazal already did kazal had this Rola didn't invent it it comes back from K I guess it's the image of a hard metal and impenetrable and like it's a weird thing to describe a curtain wondering yeah yeah well I don't know if he says curtain he says iron wool I'm saying uh curtain I don't know because maybe I have uh what was that what's Ard who's behind the curtain wizard The Wizard of Oz yeah maybe that's why I have The Wizard of Oz on my mind yeah when we're saying to heal him for somebody who's ill um they always say that when you do it in a group and you know you can say well 150 chapters and everything that you're opening the gates of Heaven you're opening Shay for that person so it's the same absolutely also yeah the the prayers are going directly to the last sentence of the third parag the long paragraph if you live life this way your life is transformed you're now you're living another level of Consciousness another level of mindfulness of being awake or if you're searching for Hashem he will call out to you from every corner if your eyes are open there's like a radio frequency that's constant there's a radio frequency of Hashem in this world but you have to tune your radio to hear it and once you tune your radio to hear it you now have access to a world of incredible things of amazing listening but you have to tune your radio over and over make sure every day that your radio is calibrated is finally attuned to pick up that frequency and once you do you know it's like living without amuna is like seeing in black and white and living with amuna is all of a sudden your life becomes in in full color in full color you see Hashem everywhere you feel happy and meaning and purpose you feel your life is is is at a different level of Consciousness is escorting you everywhere into every meeting you walk into into every difficult moment of homework into every fight you're trying to resolve into every carple you have to do into every everything that's on your plate Hashem is escorting you if you invite him to come and living life with this is in fact the entire essence of creation and is the foundational reason for every Mitzvah all 613 Mitzvah all of a rigorously observant lifestyle is designed to live life with a to be mindful from how we tie our shoes in the morning to I mean think about it I think I mentioned this last week to come out of the bathroom and say ASAT could you have another level of mindfulness that even when you're done going to the bathroom you're thanking Hashem I don't want to say Hashem came with you to the bathroom but he's waiting outside for you and when you come out you're saying thank you to him and I was at the cotel many years ago and outside the bath rooms they've done them like 10 times since I'm sure it's still there they had like a plaque on the wall of ashat and I was sitting there I say who I was probably waiting for to come out of the bathroom but I was sitting there and uh and there was a Israeli man and his son also waiting for their counterparts to come out and the Israeli man was reading this BR on the wall and you know I guess the benefit of being Israeli you understand Hebrew even if you're not observant whatsoever he clearly wasn't observant it might have been his first time with the kotel he's Israeli and I overheard him telling his son like wow look at this there's a blessing for coming out of the bathroom that all the parts are working the way they're supposed to work and producing and and absorbing the nutrition and getting rid of the waste and holy cow check out this braa that's unbelievable and seeing through his eyes the UN uninitiated person's eyes how incredible it is to have a blessing how mindfold that makes you and and you know I hope and pray none of us have had this experience personally but somebody who's had to live with a catheter or a colostomy somebody who's had significant GI problems they'll make that ashat like like never before we neglect the ashat because thank God we've been a position that our whole life it's like no big deal it's a nuisance got to go to the bathroom get out of the way get back to life but if you appreciate what it means to be able to properly absorb what you've eaten take the right things leave the wrong things everything's working properly getting rid of what it needs to get rid of that's unbelievable it's a miracle you see how even in that so much so that when you come out of the bathroom you want to say thank you that went well because God forbid it didn't have to so is just one example but all of is designed before I eat I say everything I do is designed to see in this world and that's what thean writes at the end of I'm sorry two lines from the bottom of the page our Rabbi said as careful and Vigilant with what looks like a small mitvah as a a strict one said never never dismiss something as a small mitvah oh yeah that's a small I don't do that small thing I do the big things because every gesture and sometimes the smaller the gesture the bigger the expression of amuna for those who came last night to the Shalom bayas seminar in Gatman and we talked about Gman has this notion that throughout our day couples make bids for connection you make a bid for connection could be you walk in the door could be a call it could be you text and check in it's a bid for connection and we respond to those bid for Connections in one of three ways we turn towards we turn away or we turn against and you need the proper ratio of 20 to1 and so on you can listen online if you weren't there about the whole Gman philosophy and Muna is that God throughout the day is making a bid to connect to us if you woke up this morning that was God's bid to connect you had food to eat you had a roof over your head you found the parking spot the meeting worked out the thing happened the credit card went through that's god making a bid to connect with us and we could react to him in one of three ways we could utterly ignore his existence we could turn against him or you can respond positively every Mitzvah we do says the ran is a positive favorable response to his bid to connection we are connecting back you know to live life with Amun to do a Mitzvah to say a the essence of every Mitzvah is to acknowledge God and to be grateful for his being our creator this is the purpose of being alive this is why God created us and that's all he wants from us he wants us to know we exist he exists he wants us to acknowledge his bid for connection [Music] so says the this is all in the raan's introduction to the book of sorry in the end of says thean all of T is designed to promote and reinforce the opportunity to affirm our belief that Hashem is there and our gratitude for everything that he does on a regular basis for us and what's for to gather together and collectively as a community say thank you and the opposite is also true you could seemingly be doing all the right things but if underneath it you don't believe God exists you're cuffway to you're you're you lack gratitude you're an ingrate for all the good you're turning against his bid for connection you don't have a relationship even if you're going through all the Motions this is simple if you're missing you're living in black and white not in color so if you're not living withun you're missing out on the key on the core purpose of life and that is uh our thoughts on amuna for the day yes are you going to discuss in future class um what happens when you have auna and bad things happen anyway yeah we could try to talk about that why do bad things happen to good people well living with Thea yeah cuz it's it's like this this is the positive stuff right what to do it's the elephant in the room we'll get to it yeah and you also said like God is