Rabbi Benzion Klatzko - What is the Sound Track of YOUR LIFE?

about a year and a half ago right before the shabas project I decided to create a video that would show how one can invite people to the shabas project through shabbat.com I hired a video crew they came after shabas and they shot some gorgeous footage of what chabas in a home looks like I was really happy with the footage and we put together sort of like an infomercial showing how to use shabbat.com to invite people and I really thought that this video would go viral unfortunately it didn't we had about 6,000 people who watched it which is something but certainly not what I had intended however the footage was really really beautiful and I wanted to do something with it so I took the same footage that we had just shot and I reorganized it and just made it into a nice video all about shabas and I put it on YouTube and I titled it the most beautiful shabas video ever well thankfully that video did viral and we have about a quarter of a million people who have watched that video and I was really happy what a nice way to show the world what chabas looks like this past week I was looking at YouTube and I saw that one of the thumbnails was an image from the most beautiful shabas video ever video but it was not put out by us so I clicked on it and I realized that it was put out by a mega church that was there there to try to tell people to convert to Christianity and that only through yashka can one be saved and they used about 2 minutes of the footage from my video I was really Steed about that particularly because I myself am in the video and I don't want to be promoting Christianity it's not what I do I'm a rabbi so I contacted YouTube and I told YouTube you know we have to have a cease and theist they have to take down the video they cannot use my footage to promote Christianity that's not why the shabas uh footage the shabas video was made and they did not ask my permission and if they had I wouldn't have given it I was thinking that the image or the imagery was really so beautiful and yet the soundtrack that they put behind it was not the soundtrack that we put but instead it was gospel it was Christianity it was missioni in soundtrack instead of the soundtrack that we had put in and I realized that sometimes an image can look holy and yet the soundrack behind it is absolutely not you know in this past para that we just read the Jewish people were commanded to slaughter a lamb and take the blood of the Lamb which was the idol to the Egyptians and put it on their doorposts and the almighty said that any house that has the blood of the Lamb on the doorpost will not be Smitten by that last plague the death of the firstborn now you'd have to imagine that some Egyptians after nine plagues already understood that if the Jewish people are doing something is probably a good thing they probably are doing it to be saved from a plague and you'd have to imagine that some Egyptians also took either the blood of a lamb or if they didn't because it was their God some other blood and put on their doorposts in order to be saved did it work it absolutely did not the Torah says that in every single Egyptian house there was at least one person who had died they were not saved by mimicking the Jews you know why because although the footage was the same the imagery looked like blood on a doorpost but the soundtrack inside the house was completely different the soundtrack by the Jewish people was a pesak Seder by the Egyptians it was an Egyptian household with many gods rty it was just not the same soundtrack the image was the same the soundtrack was different and then I was thinking you know we each live our lives doing similar things if we are Jewish and if we are trying to accomplish and grow in our Judaism we'll try to do Shabbat we'll try to do kosher on whatever level that we can you know we go to a synagogue we give staka we we go through the motions and yet we each have a soundtrack that's playing behind those motions and it's that soundtrack that creates the music that infuses the imagery with meaning and authenticity and I was thinking what is my soundtrack when I go through the MIT what is my soundtrack is it I love you almighty thank you for everything that you do is it without thinking at all is the sound turned so low that I can't even hear the soundtrack am I playing the so the song so many times that it's not it's background music and no longer inspires me we each have a soundtrack and it's really important to identify what is the soundtrack to our lives that help us wake up in the morning and decide to live lives of meaning and greatness and it goes once step further you know there was a movie called The Prince of Egypt and in The Prince of Egypt when the Jewish people are saved after the death of the first born so the Jewish people they peek out of their houses to see is the coast clear are we actually saved and as they leave their houses this song Wells up in them until by the time they're marching out of Egypt there's this beautiful musical number in the movie and they're marching out of Egypt with a song the truth of the matter is it's not completely accurate the song actually came after the Egyptians were seen dead on the other side of the sea after the sea had closed up on them that's when Shira began and that's in this week's paraa that musical number began when they were totally safe but the M but the movie was not completely incorrect you see the way that Shira works the way that song works is that the musical number that plays inside of us that gives us joy that gives us meaning sometimes is jolted by what we see is inspired by what we hear or what we experience to the point that it bursts forth in a way that it can no longer be contained picture Jiffy Pop you know that that popcorn you put it on the stove and you wait a few seconds and then you hear a little pop po pop po pop until there is so much popping going on that it breaks the silver foil breakes the tin foil breaks the tin foil and it becomes a big mound of popcorn now I don't know if Jiffy Pop is kosher but in the imagery of what Jiffy Pop is or if or if you rather the magma that's inside of a volcano that is simmering and boiling until it bursts for forth and the volcano erupts in that same way we have music inside of us and that Shira that happens occasionally but Oho beautifully that happens not because all of the sudden were moved to sing it's that all of a sudden the song that we always had inside of us that played and inspired us that Melody that tune it bursts forth and we just have to dance in the streets that's what Shira is but Shira only works that moment of inspiration where we B burst out into the song that only works if a we have a soundtrack that's playing and B that soundtrack is synced up to our actions so I have a little message for you think about your soundtrack is it a song is it gratefulness is it beauty is it thankfulness whatever that song is sing it played you don't have to carry a tune you could sing just because inside of you music those vibrating strings that are the building blocks of the universe that beautiful beautiful music it's inside of each and every one of us what is your song today what is your song constantly is it time to change that song is a song One of sadness and we have to sort of like change the track change the channel because that sad mournful song doesn't help you accomplish if you take that song and you take your actions and you syn them together in a way that you float through life you tap dance through your day saying you know what I'm so happy I'm so grateful then every one of your actions will be one of Holiness and it will sink together and it won't be that like that YouTube video where on one hand you see a holy shabas and on the other hand you hear a soundtrack and you say whoa whoa whoa stop this is not speaking to me this just doesn't make any sense but instead it'll make a lot of sense and then when we do have questions we could fall back on the song and say you know what my actions sometimes are a little bit shaky I'm a human being sometimes I trip up and fall but the music is consistent the joy is real and it's going to help me get back in sync with my actions and help me live a beautiful wonderful life thank you so much for watching