One on One Ellul Session with Rabbi Shomo Buxbaum

i thank everyone i applaud all of you for coming on it's a weird year because it's like rosh hashanah like tomorrow early like you know next week and it's like we're in the middle of the summer we're still on vacation but it's rosh hashanah and these years are tricky these are tricky literally in my field a lot of the people a lot of the families that we work with um are you know not necessarily the most observant but because of that they're not as in tune with when things are coming up i was speaking to someone last week and i'm like by the way you know shoshone is like labor day weekend and it totally hit them by surprise they were completely not ready for it so it is much harder to get into the zone this year so all the more so the importance of having calls like this having learning sessions like this and really just a little bit of time just a little bit of an investment of your time can go a long way the difference between rosh hashanah if you gave it a little bit of thought versus if it just hits you is is huge and i think that if we look around at some of the by the way i'm only going to speak for just a just three four minutes right now and then i'll let you go off into your 101 learning and then i'll close it up at the end but you know sometimes hashem gives us little wake-up calls and this week was a crazy week the entire i mean it's just coming out of the news so many different things that are that are meant to wake us up and and refocus our attention to what really matters you know we see that you know the terrible earthquake in haiti or you know everything that's going on and and if we take a look i i just want to share with you a a a a thought about what's what we see going on in afghanistan and this is not at all a commentary on the news this is purely what we say the derek marshall everyone know what those words mean but derek marshall means metaphor right when we look at it and again a blame game and this is why we all have our commentaries but if we look at it in more of an indirect maybe we can extract uh an indirect message uh we can look at it metaphorically and if we would imagine over here that you know we all we all we're in a state a constant state of war you know we have in the beginning of this week's torah portion when you go out to war and we specifically read that torah portion during elo because ella's meant to remind us that we're always at a war with whatever we're trying to overcome whatever we're trying to accomplish and you know like the soldiers in afghanistan right we sort of we set up these things in our life to try to make sure you know a little security here a little soldier here we try to structure our lives in a way to keep us safe to keep us away from falling into the pitfalls the things that we know are harmless trigger us to behave in ways that we know are not becoming for ourselves god forbid we have a bad habit or we have a bad addiction or we know we have a little gate sahara right a little evil inclination for a certain thing so we try to set up our lives we structure things that you know what i'll stay away here i'll i'll move this here i'll filter this out here we try to set everything up we try to set up our whole life in a way to keep us protected and keep us cozy it's fascinating to see i don't think anyone anyone expected how the taliban in afghanistan the minute the minute right who knows what how long they were planning this for but nobody imagined the speed and with the aggression that immediately when when the american forces when they took away their maybe people did maybe people were aware but how quickly when when america would pull out their troops suddenly the taliban would come and take over and it's a reminder like what we read in in the book of voracious where we say that the eights are hara the evil inclination is la pesachatas is always there lurking the eight sahara is the number one lurker just lurking and just waiting when are we gonna let our guard down when are we gonna remove the troops when those troops are gone suddenly the eight sahara comes right back in and often when it comes when we're coming closer to rosh hashanah one of the things that we struggle with is when when we're getting ready to do chuba to try to return suddenly we were burdened with this guilt this guilt on our shoulders saying like are we really worthy are we really worthy there's an old hasidic saying that says that the greatest you know what the greatest sahara is the greatest evil inclination what is the greatest evil inclination people say the greatest evil inclination of speaking gossip will say the greatest evil inclination is lust the greatest evil inclination says says the old jewish saying is the evil inclination that tells you that you're not good enough golda you're sort of right you wrote depression but specifically specifically the type of depression that says that because because you're falling again and again to the evil inclination you're not good enough you're not going to be accepted by god you're not great you're mediocre right that word that you're mediocre you're just regular and the first step to doing chuba is getting that get removing those removing those those those voices from our head l is the time of yes thank you golden for clarifying that anil dodie with i am to my beloved my beloved is to me but the first has to be the first has to be an eye the first has to be a recognition that if you are if you are struggling with something that is a sign of greatness that is so human that is so great and if you fall a thousand times in your victorious once it's worth it to go through an entire life just to experience that when we have that in mind when we realize that the first step to doing chuba the first step to returning is getting into that right framework then we're ready to step into that l zone naturalism so i love how um how project inspire put those two aspects of chuba inspiration and perspiration because number one it's a lot about recognizing like we said earlier who you are what you are you know realizing your own inner light which we'll speak about shortly but also knowing what's the destination like where are you going where do you want to go i heard such a such a wonderful story it's probably anecdotal but it's a story with albert einstein and even though it's anecdotal you'll see why that's an important point but the story goes where albert einstein is on a train and the conductor is going through the train checking tickets i guess that's what they what they did in the altaheim and they asked him for his ticket and you know he's going through his his pockets and he's pulling out papers and things and where is it and he's going through his back pocket and under and you know he can't find his tickets but the conductor realizes he says listen you know he's a pretty famous guy he knows he's an honest guy and he says you know what mr einstein you know don't worry about it i trust you i know that it's you no problem we let it go and the conductor moves on and then he turns back a couple of minutes later and he looks and he sees that einstein is still there and he's looking he's going through his papers and he's trying to figure out he's looking for his ticket so the conductor says mr einstein dr einstein it's okay i already told you like i know who you are and it's okay so einstein responds back to me says i also know who i am the problem is i don't know where we're going i wish you guys are not all on mute because i would enjoy hearing you laugh at this but okay and it's like that awkward zoom thing and you don't really thank you whoever just unmuted for that so you got to know who you are and you also got to know where you're going and those are very very important things but like we said earlier the beginning of the process of l is reminding ourselves who we are and that even though we've struggled even though we're here and we're in the middle of the war julian are you raising your hand or is that accident oh that was actually clapping for you so oh thank you thank you i appreciate it so um so you know even though we're here we're in the middle of the war we're in the middle of the struggle and therefore it's inevitable that we're going to lose from time to time it's inevitable that we're going to feel less than we're going to feel unworthy from time to time but we need to remind ourselves in el amila dodi i am worthy i i was studying recently in a in a safer and a book that speaks about the proper way to speak to god when a person is doing what's called hitbody that means when a person when you have a conversation with god not in the context of formal prayer but when you have i guess what you might say casual conversation with god or private conversation with god using your own words and often it's difficult to know how to how do you how do you open up the conversation you know one of the most beautiful see movie scenes i've ever seen i don't know if anyone has watched over here there's a movie an old movie called eat pray love you ever seen that movie you know where there's a beautiful scene where she gets down she's in a real she's in this terrible situation she's in a marriage she's unhappy but she doesn't know what to do she feels totally stuck and she she kneels down on like on the floor of her house she looks out the window and uh you hear as she's narrating she says i i did the only thing that i can think of to do then and i decided to pray to god the problem is that i had never prayed before and i had no idea what to say and she says i was so scared i almost opened up the conversation by saying dear god i'm a big fan of your work you know but sometimes it's like that awkward thing like you start speaking to hashem and like what do you say what do you say and in the safer it was explained that the first thing when you're speaking to god don't start like speaking to god is not like you know confession time i'm so terrible god i messed up again come on i'm so sorry no it's not the way you open up a conversation with hashem the best way to open up a conversation with hashem is to remind yourself and say hashem i know how much you love me i know how much you care about me i know how much you cherish the fact that i'm coming here to have this conversation with you we need to remind ourselves that this is what we're here in this world for and therefore it's the most beautiful thing but we need to feel worthy and the problem is that because we don't spend our days completely immersed in spirituality but because we go through the daily grind we're out in the war because we go through this daily grind it beats us down and it makes us feel like we said earlier just mediocre you know it's an amazing thing i i took this as a sign when i was thinking about what to speak about tonight so there was a concept that i heard about twice in one week which i've never heard before or never shared before so take it as a sign that maybe tonight's a nice time to share it you know in hashem when god makes speeches so it's interesting i have a friend of mine who writes books and when he writes books all of his books are titled the 10 secrets the 10 secrets to an amazing marriage the 10 secrets to this everything's intense i feel like when god speaks god likes to speak when he's organizing his speeches it's always intense right god creates the world using 10 utterances 10 utterances god creates the world when god gives the torah at mount sinai dasaratha the ten commandments so god likes to speak intent rabbi nachman of breslin and his students whose quotes saying it in his neighborhood of breslau saying that god makes these two speeches and he asks the question he says you know up until that moment at mount sinai when god made the speech of the ten commandments and the jewish people had not received the torah so if the torah is what powers the earth with its life force the universe stands on torah so before that sinai moment what did the world stand on it was the torah what gave the world its life what gave the world its power what infused the world with holiness and rabinasana explains that until the word the ten commandments there were the ten utterances but what was god doing when he said those ten utterances what was he doing he was building the world what was god doing when he gave the ten commandments he was building spirituality so god gives two major speeches in the torah one he's building the world the other he's building spirituality and us ourselves also in our own life the reason that god decided to to use the same structure is to say that in your own life you know what there doesn't have to be a difference between the ten utterances and the ten commandments there doesn't need to be such a big difference between when you're doing the spiritual work when you're praying when you're speaking to god when you're studying torah when you're doing kindness or the alternative when you're building the world because you're you're you're you're at your job you're with your kids you're with your family you're giving you're taking care of the things that might seem mundane right those are god's ten utterances those are the asura morrows that god uses to create the world so rabinasana breslau explains in the name of ravina and he says there is no difference between the two but we need to understand we need to start looking at our own life in that way we need to start looking at our own life understanding that even the mundane even the day to day even the kitay of when we're out in war we can also find the spark of holiness you know i think there's something very very beautiful i mentioned earlier i used this as a parable this whole thing of afghanistan and in how comparing the taliban to the atahara now it takes over now we're all reading the stories about this one jew who's there um i wrote down his name over here zablon symmetose zabala and seventh house there's the one jew that's left there this guy is not leaving i don't know anything about him right but that's awesome this guy's like talent man like yeah you're gonna take me down like you know i'm not leaving you can pull me out with whatever it is right he says you know this is my home and i think there's something absolutely gorgeous gorgeous about that story again without getting into his story or anything like that where even when the eight sahara is pulling us apart the taliban our inner taliban has taken us over and we're down in the dumps we have that spark we have that spark that says i'm not going anywhere i'm not going anywhere and that spark is there every single day no matter what we're doing we're at work with our kids we're down in the dumps rabbi nachman says he quotes from this verse and i believe it's a verse in taylor but i don't remember he says if i go up to heaven's god you're there the imagination if i'm in the depths of hell hinaka you're there as well i'll find you there also so no matter what we're going through we'll always there we will find that spark you know danielle mentioned when we uh when we introduced that i wrote a book recently i released this book called the four elements of an empowered life and it's a book about finding your mission but really one of my main my mission my main goals in writing this book was because i felt that so much there's so much emphasis when we come to you know when people speak about your mission in this world your mission in this world as if it's like something out there you know you got to go out there and do something go you know save the world change the world give away a kidney make a difference you know go to africa right and and this is all beautiful this is all beautiful but if you say that if that's the way we view our mission in this world then what about getting up in the morning and feeding your kids breakfast what about doing the things that are difficult what about going through the struggles and the purpose of the book and the reason that it's about the four elements is that it focuses on all of the inner parts of us there are parts of us that are like earth that struggle between sadness but earth can also be the source of our stability there's a part inside of us like water which struggles with lust but it's also the part of us that wants to love and wants to create life there's a part of us inside that's like wind that is just kind of frivolous and jokey and and wants to make light of everything but there's also that part of us that's curious that's creative that wants to learn there's a part of us that's like fire that gets angry and full of ego but there's also that part of us that wants to self-actualize and as we bring this inner perfection to ourselves what happens is we send out these vibrations to the world the world is a better place when you're doing your thing when you're in your lane and you're struggling with your own mohammed with your own war the world becomes a much better place and i think that as we go into ello the first step of chuba is to take that first step to look inwards to look at your own battles and say i am great i am great because i am going through my stuff and that's what makes me great that's part of my mission and the idea of chuba is returning returning to yourself returning to anil dodie returning to to that sense of self that sense of greatness that you owe yourself to feel the word repentance we know is a poor translation because l is not about i'm sorry i'm saying i'm sorry 100 times right obviously we want to look we want to improve yes the perspiration is necessary but as we prepare for rosh hashanah we want to go into rosh hashanah with the sense of knowing who we are right with knowing that we that we have have an inner greatness and that's really one of one of the main goals one of the things that i was hoping to give over tonight i'm going to bid everyone a farewell for now i want to thank you all so much for coming on for joining us thank you danielle for organizing this and the good news is we'll be back next week