Rabbi Avi Kahan Promo

hello rabbi welcome to the show thank you thank you it's such a pleasure being here thank you for having me on it's an honor to have you on and we are celebrating this holiday called tu b'shvat can you share with us some insights as to what tu b'shvat means of what it stands for so it's a great question and the whole day i've been debating what to say and as i'm sitting here in front of the computer getting ready one of my family members just sent me a what's up and they sent me this picture i don't know if everybody could see a screenshot of the video that was just done with somebody holding a tiny seed my brother just sent this to me and he said you can't get more inspiring than that try to beat that and get more inspiring so i want to speak about that i'm going to change what i would prepare to say and speak about that is a fascinating answer the more i looked into it the more more overwhelmed i got from how fascinating it is it's like you just said before it's the rosh hashanah of the trees it means we know our rosh hashanah what we have once a year is the day that we get to decide how we want to be that year the day that we decide who we really are the day we carenay the king we decide who runs this world and we return ourselves to who we really are and in essence that's what we're looking at when we look at a seat of a tree a tree has huge potential if it's going to be taken care of well if it's going to grow if it's going to be nurtured but we tell hashem you know today is the first day of the tree and it starts all the halakhas of a tree star on this day of tuber what does that mean trumus nicerest which is giving off a part of the land a part of the tree thanking and realizing that it's coming from hashem and dedicating it to hashem the kurim arla netaravai all the halachus that have to do with the tree what's permissible to eat what's prohibited when do things become permissible to eat is all dedicating that the essence of the tree is godly just like a human just like rosh hashanah that's what we tell ourselves we say our essence is godly and therefore we could do true but we could repent because our essence is like with the valentine's day looking like that's who we really are when we look at straw we look at the essence of a tree and we say that you're godly and therefore i'm going to give from you to god to his children to help other people we're recognizing that even in something that looks mundane as simple as a tree as a fruit tree whatever whatever whatever field we're dealing with is also godly and deserves to be recognized that it's coming from god before we benefit from it and therefore we give it to kahanam we give it to levine we bring it up to the base i make this to the whole his place we bring up our fruit and we donated the air to the base of magnus to the kehan to show that the essence of the tree is still godly whatever we're busy with we're busy planting we're busy growing we're busy with what people would call mundane activity it's not mundane activity the first thing is i'm recognizing that god exists in that tree oh so it's also godly not only ungodly the tree's godly that's it's it's a great point that you're making and i want us to drill down on it it's a very jewish way of seeing the world that i don't know if all of us fully appreciate which is sometimes in life we look out in the world and say okay that's holy that's not right he's holy i'm not right that thing that thing you're holding here behind the ark holy the thing that i'm holding in my house not now there's truth there's degrees of holiness in this world but what i think you're driving at which is such an important point is that when you go down to the core of it which is trees nature the world right the physical world the world of the mundane what this holiday is telling us yeah that's holy too because that also has a piece of god that's a powerful concept for us to sort of grapple with it's a very i think a very hard concept if we would grapple if we would understand that every single thing is godly and holy even trees we would treat it with the holiness it deserves we would understand that you can't just tear down a tree when you're in the wood of tearing it down sometimes you have to discuss and develop an understanding of which trees this is they're called baltasas which trees could be ripped down which trees can't which tree do we say oh you have no use anymore you're not going to just say that with the tree you have no use anymore you have to look at shulkin art to see maybe god thinks it hasn't you still there's some there's still some potential in it that you might not realize it might not be able to grow the fruit foods that you desire and therefore you want to knock it down to build another one but two bishop tells you know there are mixes and trees also you want to eat something because you're hungry you got to make a broth on it it's godly it's it's beautiful it's it's it's part of who we are it's recognizing god everywhere you know it's interesting i i i you know you said something that it really struck me that i have never thought about like you know i i know it but i never thought about you ever had that feeling like you know something you've ever thought of like you we can't just cut down trees we can't just assert ourselves on this world god has a list of rules that we have to follow it's not my property it's not do whatever you want and i don't think it's that's part of the rules that people know about that there's a certain level of respect that we have to have for nature that i don't know if it's in our in our culture to understand that that there's a body of law around what man kind can assert as control over nature which is very different than the world of where my property my life i do what i want i'm in control god goes i don't think so like you're you're on lease my friend it's my property and my world and don't mess it up that's a tremendous respect that we need to have for everything a hundred percent i mean the bear gala the last vera gela in scott discusses the passage in sultan arthur that says you know how to harm yourself and the barragula says that of course you can't harm yourself you don't have permission it's not your body it's it's you have to care about the god inside of you it's not your body you can't harm trees it's it's there's a god inside of the tree you can't just destroy a tree you have to understand it you have to see it and we're blessed that one day a year we have a minute to celebrate that and to pay attention to it and eat the fruits and make a barakah and pay attention to the holiness and trees and maybe that would help us understand the holiness in ourselves also that's the point i love it rabbi that's awesome and i think that's exactly right when we realize there's holiness in trees then we look ourselves in the mirror and say hey wait a second if god's got a holiday for the trees i i feel far but i don't know you know i always say i have the privilege of taking men every year to israel uh for a trip i see some of the guys on the show now it's momentum it's a great organization and and and project inspire goes as well with guys and we take tons of guys with them as well and i always say to the guys i said the worst thing a jew can say in my humble opinion i want to get your opinion and then you know just i think the worst thing that you can say really the worst things you can say is i'm a bad jew like the minute somebody thinks like i'm unholy i'm unworthy they are they're cutting at the core of what it means to be a jew which is if your eyes are open you got a piece of god if you got a piece of god you got you got a ton a ton a ton of potential and you are super holy of course if i could add to that there's one of the one of the gimella vera khmuras is ritiko that you're not let it kill so the gemara discusses if somebody tells you to kill somebody else or he's going to kill you are you allowed to kill that other person to save yourself and ignore first tries to derive the ruling from a possum and the guard says you know what you don't need a pasuk it's logic why do you think you're better than the other person which the gemara is coming what do you mean you know who i am you know what my resumes i am but i don't thought no no what makes you think the more sense is the samara why do you think your blood is sweeter than the other person's blood and i don't care who you are they wanted to say rashid doesn't say but if he's this person then okay he has an exception moisture i mean it wasn't going to kill anybody else i think we don't pay attention to that in rosh hashanah because it's hard to so six months a couple of months later we have a restaurant for the trees and we could focus that even a tree has that god inside of it a tree and for sure a human has that potential to understand the god inside of him beautiful rabbi thank you so much for joining on the show i want to appreciate all the best thanks so much for watching for more content like and subscribe and be sure to tune in live every thursday at 8 pm eastern at the shabbato.com or right here on youtube