MINDFLEX Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe 11 18 2020

you know the talmud says an amazing thing the talmud says that every person born in each of the 12 months of the jewish calendar has a different mazel has a different zodiac sign that tells about their deeper inclinations their deeper uh intuitions their deeper uh uh you know nature of who they are and the talmud says that someone born in a specific one of the zodiacs will be a a a murderer they'll love to spill blood king david was born in that zodiac sign right in ma'adim so now the actual question is what do you mean so you're telling me that if i was born in a specific time that this is who i'm going to be i'm going to be a murderer don't worry there are great things you can do with this you were given a certain set of tools your job is to utilize those tools and become the best you can be with those tools in what way well you can be a mole a mole spills blood you can be a chakra a slaughterer who slaughters animals so that they be ritually sorted in kosher or you can be a doctor or a nurse today right and they also they have to sometimes take your blood that is also means you can utilize the traits that you have and navigate them in a way of positivity we all every single human being is given a different set of tools we are all unique we're all special every single one of us even if you have a twin a twin brother or twin sister okay we're all unique i know many many twins i grew up with many friends who were twins they didn't like the same foods they didn't like the same colors they didn't like the same type of music there was nothing similar about them that's if they're twins they grew up in the same in the same womb right but if someone didn't you know so just a brother or a sister someone who grew up in a different family someone grew up in a different community someone grew up in a totally different place guess what they're so different than you they're so unique and their challenges and your challenges are not the same we are all special we're all different and we each need to make our choices to make to become the best possible person we can become so i want to share with you a story right an amazing story about a high school kid who wanted to play basketball and he was thrown off his basketball team because he wasn't good enough and that little basketball player became michael jordan right and most people don't know that michael jordan who's has i just checked today his wikipedia page and he has more awards for mvp than there's almost lines on the page from all the different awards he received from nba but he was thrown off his high school basketball team and he didn't say i'm not going to try anymore he didn't say i'm going to give up for basketball it's all over or how about um nick vuich okay from australia right he was born without any limbs no hands no legs nothing he was bullied as a child as you can imagine he's you know limping around without any any limbs and today he's married has beautiful children and started an organization uh called born without limbs to empower people to say i'm not gonna stop because someone laughed at me and he made choices instead of running away for running away from life and running away from challenges running towards those challenges and embracing them someone else in in the sports world who has always been in really an incredible story of inspiration there's a guy who grew up in chicago you know how cold chicago is i don't know wherever you are in in in i see some toronto people some new york in houston thank god it's terrif terribly freezing it's about 64 degrees right now so we're all got our coats and we're all you know uh trying to warm up in this freezing frigid weather but in chicago it gets really really cold and this kid growing up his entire life couldn't be home before a certain hour he went to public school and he could not be home before a certain hour because his father was a violent drunken and if he got home before his father passed out from his alcohol his father would beat him to a pulp so you know what he did he stayed in school outside in the schoolyard and shot basketballs and shot and shot and shot and he became larry bird most people don't know that about larry bird they think oh wow it probably came from some you know wealthy home and he came he became came from a very poor family and very underprivileged but he decided he's going to do something and not allow his situation to pull him down and we have stories galore about people who didn't andrea bocelli right the great tenor right who everybody's heard of who one told awards right for his voice is blind and did not let that limitation stop him any person who's ever accomplished something great whether it be running a marathon whether it be losing weight had to face serious struggles we all do on a regular basis even building up your business you have to have determination you have to have you have to have you know an endless passion to accomplish and to not let go because you'll have naysayers and you'll have people who say you know it's never going to work you know so many people tried to to start such a business you know if you go over to you say i have an idea i want to open up a an electronic store you know what they're going to tell you well what do we need you we have best buy why do we need target when we have walmart well mr lowe's didn't think about that when he started his home improvement store he knew that there was a home depot but he wanted to offer something different target knew that there was a walmart but he wanted to offer something different and same thing with every supermarket these are people who didn't see challenge as a limitation they saw a challenge as an opportunity and when we talk about free will we have the ability in our lives to accomplish the the unimaginable there is nothing that can stop us if we are determined to accomplish and we have the free will to do so there's so much to talk about in free will that you know i i always look back in my own life at different points of where we made a right turn or a left turn and then we have to deal with the next set of challenges that come after that right we today every single one of us today has that same challenge we have a challenge you know there's an election for those of you who are in the united states you know that but those in canada you may not know that we just had an election two weeks ago and everyone has this urge to check on the news i want to see what's going on is anything changing is things not changing are things really happening and things not happening right or we can say you know what everything is in the hands of the almighty right we have a choice whether we decide to go to synagogue whether we go to listen to another class whether we push ourselves to teach a class i i bet we have now 68 people over here on this on this class how many of us feel capable of teaching a torah class i bet most of us would say me i'm not a rabbi right i'm not i i can't teach a class but guess what every single word of torah that you've ever learned you can teach get a group of friends together sit them around in your house in your in your in your living room covet of course you have to be careful use whatever precautionary measures are necessary and just share the love you have for judaism invite them to your shabbos table that also is free will and i'll tell you i have an amazing amazing story that happened i got a phone call from rabbi yitz greenman many years ago it's probably 13 or 14 years ago rabbits was a rabbi in passaic many of you may know he was the the director he's an ace student and he called me up he says i just met a young man in houston okay he says he's i met him in new york he's from houston he says he's not connected to anything nothing he's not connected to anything and now i'll tell you my life thank god we're very very fortunate to have many many people at our shabbos table but every once in a while we have those shabboses that there's nobody it's just the family it's just the family and that shabbos was one of them but i get this phone call from rabbi my my dear friend robbie it's green and he tells me make this phone call call this guy maybe invite him for a so i did what i always do i right when i hung up the phone i called him and i said hello right he actually picked up the phone usually they don't usually i get a voicemail i leave a message three weeks later they're not really interested you know i've got many of those called them up i said hey would you like to come for shabbos you know we were schmoozing for a little bit you liked the comfort shops and he came for shops and it was one of those again it was an off shop it's for our family but i said i'll make an exception because i don't know if i'll have another opportunity like this that individual from that one experience and he's repeated this many times he's been honored by many synagogues here in houston he's been you know he's been to jerusalem he's been to ishita he's been to many institutions from one invitation right one invitation can change a life now we all have that free will we all have that free will to say you know what i can do a little bit more or nah i'm not comfortable with it and like we saw here the beautiful words of rabinor weinberg right the battle of free will is practically defined as the choice between what you truly want life and what you feel like doing in the moment many times they're like you know what i'll push it off i'll get to it a little bit later i'll get to it a little bit later but i can do it right now we all have people who are in need of something can we reach out to them can we call them can we inspire them right so my dear friends free will is in your hands you can accomplish anything there's nothing that a person can set their sights to that they cannot accomplish let's harness that power let's do everything that's in our ability to go get him because there's nothing that stands in our way but derek wrote the way in which a person wants to go god ushers us there he helps us get there so hashem is right behind us pushing us guiding us to the path that we choose so thank you so much for this wonderful opportunity and i look forward to learning together in the future