Choose Life (Ep. 344)

Hi, this is Rabbi Ulanski. And welcome to the last Rabbi Ulanski show of this year. It's the end. This is it. Not just the end, but the end of the year. What a year. Well, I was actually considering doing like a year in review kind of a thing like that, but I have something more important that I have to do. But, let's let's take care of business first. Um merch. You can go to my website rabbiyulanski.com/merch and you can get the regular cup, you can get the large cup. Look at it. Look how much bigger that is. That's amazing, yeah? Um you can get the bumper sticker, you can get uh uh I don't even know what's there. There's an apron, I think. T-shirts. Are there t-shirts? I don't know. I think there are. Somebody just said to me I should get caps. People should get caps. I would I would do that, you know? Anyway, so you could go check out the merch store. Um and if you want to help to support the show, the best way is of course to sponsor an episode. Or like our friend Jim to sponsor 10 episodes. >> [laughter] >> That's even better than sponsoring one episode. And we're almost done. We've burnt through most of Jim's sponsorships. So we're going to have to call upon the Jewish community now to help. >> [laughter] >> So, I mean, unless Warren Buffett wants to make a little contribution and to keep the show going. But anyway, the best thing is to sponsor an episode or sponsor parsha in five. It's almost Bereishit, we're starting over. um sponsored question and answer, and uh otherwise, if you want to just help a little bit, you can go to buymeacoffee.com/rabbiyalisky and uh buy me a cup of coffee. All right? Definitely worthwhile. I just realized that I feel like this is backwards. My gosh, this is a left-handed mug. >> [laughter] >> Look. If you want to get the picture, you got to hold it in your left hand. Oh, man. I can't use a left-handed mug. I'm a kohen, no possibly for the base of mikdash. Anyway, uh this one you just hold it right in the front. Same side. >> [laughter] >> I didn't realize there's writing on the back. The hilarious real world Torah program that's a show, not a sheer. >> [laughter] >> Oh, I guess maybe that's when I hold it, that's what comes out. Cuz that's more important than just seeing a picture of me, you know. As photogenic as I may be, with my sparkling eyes, my sparkling smile, and my sparkling wit. I sound like seltzer already, just sparkling water. Anyway, uh so you go to buymeacoffee. We have a phone line, 605-313-4799, so you can just listen to the show, and you can also leave a message. Uh we have a WhatsApp group, tinyurl.com/rabbiyalisky. Okay. And our sponsor for this episode is our good friend Yehuda Zeiman. He came for us for Pesach, and uh he's listened to everything. He's uh, he he calls me often. He discusses different ideas, you know. And I'll never forget when he was coming for Pesach, he says, "Listen, I have a Shir Hashirim that I wrote myself." He does all kinds of things. He's I thought we have to have him on the show cuz he's just so fascinating. But he says, "You want me to lend it? It's my own. I'll come with the cloth and I'll lend it myself." So I was like, "Sure." >> [laughter] >> Sure. In the words of Blanche DuBois, "I have often depended on the kindness of strangers." >> [laughter] >> Anyway, he's sponsoring this dedicated in honor of my wonderful wife Aviva and in memory of my parents, Shraga Feivel ben Michoel Halevi and Feiga bas Moshe Hakohen. My father's first yahrzeit is on Chof Zion Elul. So this this should be just in time. It should be a big zechus for his neshama. You know, tens of thousands of people listen to this. Trust me. It's a tremendous zechus. If you're able to help to be marbitz this, it's not not for me. This is covering expenses and things like that, you know. So uh, um, may their souls be bound up in the source of life. Amen. Okay. So it's almost Rosh Hashanah. Like I told you, I had something else I wanted to talk about. But I got this email and uh, I felt like uh, it's timely. I'm not always good at that. Everyone knows who sends me emails. I'm I'm not always good at answering my emails. And uh, uh, I remember I at one point I had a quiet time. I went through all my I went through a bunch of emails. I answered them. And someone said, "You know, I sent this 4 years ago." >> [laughter] >> I hope it immediate question. I am your last game and official crazy going over 10 years back. When you were my teacher in Sam. I just watched the yellow episode and you mentioned many other times that well that was well people don't appreciate life. You asked do you want another year? I'm wondering what you would say to someone who doesn't want another year. I'm doing all the things I could. I'm in therapy and all that and as you said I really do fill each day with meaning and Torah. And what I would want if it was my last day. And then I go to sleep each night hoping it will be my last day. The yellow and the omen of rhyme time period is particularly hard for me. All the two fields based around asking for life when I don't actually want it. That's my question. What can I do to appreciate life and actually want it? Well, I will tell you the following. You're not the only one who feels this way. That's the whole reason I said it. Now for those of you who may have missed this particular idea, I've said it a number of times. But I do have to recognize that although there are a lot of Rabbi Alansky crazies out there who watch everything I say and and and record there are also regular people in the world. >> [laughter] >> Who might suddenly stumble upon a a a podcast or even a clip. My daughter Yaffa who is a managing my social media is a putting up clips on all kinds of different platforms and there are people who are getting exposed to what we do here. Not necessarily the long form but at least the short form and seeing different clips and ideas and they're getting exposed to what we do, joining what I like to call the Rabbi Olswang community. Yeah? And uh um and of course uh we have our um uh intrepid cameraman Yakov filming every week, putting this together. And uh what can I tell you? We basically are able to produce uh wonderful product because of him that go out there that I would say the envy of every other podcast out there on the level of professionalism. And of course producer Ari who then works on the finished product and puts it up. And he also has to deal with all the difficult people cuz I send them right to him. Yakov doesn't have to. He only has to deal with me. But all the crazy people I send them over to Ari and he has to deal with that. So hey, God bless you. >> [laughter] >> But for those of you who may not be familiar with the particular point that she's referring to is I always point out that the theme on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, as we say many times, >> [singing] >> L'mancha Elohim, chayim. I'm not available for Rosh Hashanah anymore, but you might be able to get me for Yom Kippur if you really try. Anyhow, you know, it's like somebody said to me once, you know, is there any way we could get Rabbi Olswang to come and speak? He goes, yeah, sure, just offer him money. >> [laughter] >> So if you want me to be your shliach tzibur, just offer me money. I'm I'm really easy that way. I said, when they write my biography, it'll be called All for the Bucks. But anyway, but um uh so Zochreinu l'chayim, remember us for life. Yeah? Uh Melech Hafeitz Chaim, the king who wants life. Because we say for Chaim and write us in the book of life and we keep saying this over and over again. Life, we want life, we want to live. Yeah? Mi yichyeh u'mi yamus. Who will live and who will die? Who will live and who will die? And let's face it. There are a lot of people who are not happy. They're not going to kill themselves. But it's not like they wake up every morning as an adventure. I used to do this routine but someone told me that Rabbi Frand did it once before Rosh Hashanah saw. He's much more than I am so I'll quote him. Yeah? When I was growing up there was a commercial. No, it wasn't when I was growing up. It was I was already older. For a coffee called Folgers. And those of you who have watched the podcast for a very long time know that as far as I'm concerned there is only one instant coffee and that is Folgers. Yeah? And uh everybody in my family and almost everybody I know and every school that I go to they only drink Taste of Choice. And um I don't know whose choice that is. But to me Taste of Choice tastes like brown water. People say to me, "Well, you know, Folgers is too bitter." So uh so I say right because it tastes like coffee. >> [laughter] >> You know, it tastes like brown water. No, it's not like Turkish coffee which they call in Hebrew boats which is mud. It's not it's not actual mud but at least it tastes like a cup of coffee. Feel like something happened there. Is that my opinion the best coffee in the world? No. All right? I'll tell you what is not the best coffee in the world in my opinion, Starbucks. Tastes like the thing is burnt. Yeah, I don't enjoy that. But uh the best coffee in the world is 7-Eleven coffee. And when I hit the lottery, all right? I have a list of what I'm going to do. And one of the things is, I'm going to go to 7-Eleven and have them install in my house a coffee maker. I get bags of 7-Eleven coffee and I'm going to make my own 7-Eleven coffee. And that'll be it. And I realize I have to make a whole pot of it, you know, a gigantic thing just to be able to take my one or maybe two cups a day, but I don't care cuz I'll be rich then cuz I've gotten the the uh half a billion dollars in the um in the lottery, you know what I mean? Which once upon a time was a lot of money. Today, okay, so you know, you can get by. But um uh you know, but uh okay. Anyway, they had an ad. The best part about waking up is Folgers in your cup. So, I used to point this out. I used to do that routine. You know, I'd sing, "The best part about waking up is Folgers in your cup." Which means I wake up in the morning and I say, "Should I get out of bed? My family, Kodesh Baruchu, my job, my life. I don't know if it's worth it. Oh, there's a cup of Folgers? Uh. And that's the best part of waking up." >> [laughter] >> Cuz people do not a lot of people, they don't want to wake up. But understand, the Chazal tell us, that there are things that exist in this world that you can't experience yet. You will one day. Olam Haba, the world to come. You can't experience it, but Shabbos is may'ain Olam Haba. And the term they use is it's 160th. Why? Because those of you who are learning colon and daf yomi, you know that the smallest amount that you can detect is one in 60. If uh excuse me, one in 59. 1/60th. Once you get to one uh when when there's 60 parts and this one 61, you don't sense it anymore. So, 1/60th which is the smallest amount that you can detect of all of Hava is Chavez. Um the uh nevu'ah prophecy. It's very hard. We're not on the level of prophecy today, but a dream gives you an insight into what uh prophecy is. And sometimes they are in fact prophetic. Like someone told me, he says, "I had the strangest dream." I said, "What happened?" He goes, "I I felt like I ate the world's largest marshmallow." When I woke up in the morning, my pillow was gone. >> [laughter] >> So, sometimes a dream can be prophetic. It really can on a on a small level. You can sense things. Kish Malala Yeah. And the best way if you want to experience death is sleep. Sleep is as close to death as you can get. Cuz if you check, you'll find that for the most part dead people don't accomplish things in this world. The only one I can think of is Mozart. They found Mozart's crypt. They opened them up and there he was erasing all of his major works. I said, "Mozart, what are you doing?" He He "I'm decomposing." >> [laughter] [gasps] >> By the way, it's a terrible joke, but it's the only one I have. So, on that subject, I'm I'm open to suggestions if you have a better one. Right now, that's all I got, you know? But, that's it. So, too, people are sleeping don't accomplish anything in this world. They're sleeping. Depressed people sleep 18 hours a day. There's nothing to get up for. So, I'm speaking to a group of teenagers. And I'm trying to lead them to that like it says in the safer is the greatest pleasure that there is. And that's why it says it's better than all of these things. The word of the safer is it's better than all you should burn them the covered. So, I said, "You know, life you have to choose pleasures. What's the greatest pleasure in the world?" And kids, without hesitating every time, they'll say, "Sleep." I said, "No." "What are you thinking about if you had a day off?" So, he said, "Of course, I'd sleep all day." I said, "Well, what if you had vacation?" So, he said, "What do you mean? I just had some of vacation. I slept for 2 months straight. I went to hibernation like a bear. I got up to eat and go to the bathroom, go back to sleep." The greatest thing in the world is sleep. I said, "Well, then I guess you can't wait till you're dead cuz you'll sleep forever." He says, "No, cuz I'll never have the pleasure of waking up and going back to bed. But, if every few years I could open up the top and go, 'Everything's still here? Yeah.' Turn over, turn over my little pillow in my coffin, go back to sleep. That would be fine." But, sleep is death. That's why the week of Rosh Hashanah we get up early to say Selichot. There's different ways of doing Selichot. There's people who stay up and say it late at night. But it really should be Shacharit at Boker. You can get up early. Because the point of Selichot is I'm going to get up early because I want to enjoy life. And I don't want to just sleep it away. And most people, if they had an hour left to live, wouldn't say, "Oh good, let me get in one last nap before I go." No. Cuz we understand it's an opportunity. But when people say, "I'd rather sleep." Because what am I getting up for? Why should I bother? Now, they're not wrong in an absolute sense. Says the Mesillat Yesharim, "Nobody in their right mind could believe that we were created for the pleasures of this world." How many pains and illnesses and sufferings and worries are there in this world? We're always nervous. We're always upset. Someone punched us out and stole our phone. >> [laughter] >> Somebody was nasty to us. Somebody did something to us, hurt us. I wake up in the morning, everything hurts me. Like a friend in my age group said once, "If I wake up in the morning and nothing hurts, I know I'm dead." You know, all the problems and illnesses. And uh I remember at my mother's funeral, my son said, "You know, if this was 50 years ago, most of you would be dead. Because four of the six brothers had uh had bypass surgery. They they didn't have that back then. And uh that's it. My good friend David Willner uh lives in Efrat. He told me that um we go back from Los Angeles back to the NC's Y days, 1978. Yeah. He said to me, "My grandfather he he obviously had a blockage, he'd have a heart attack. He'd go to the hospital, he'd lay there for, you know, till a couple days till he felt better, he went home. And he had another heart attack. He'd lay in the hospital, he got There was nothing they could do for you. No way to clean out a blocked artery. Until one time he got a heart attack and he didn't recover. That was it. Today that they can take a piece out of your leg and they can go into your chest and they can bypass. What amazing thing. Yeah. But uh uh the the fact that you know, people are able to live today. Amazing thing. We're living longer. And it seems like with less purpose. Less purpose. Because life is hard. How many illnesses and how many problems and how many worries. As you show me on his deathbed, he says to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, "I'm dying now, so you're going to have to take care of my family. Every month borrow from this gemach, pay back that gemach, take from this gemach, give it to this gemach, then bring this back over here and pay this, pay that, yeah." A gemach for those of you who don't know is a free loan uh society where you could borrow money and pay it back, you know. So, people are juggling. A lot of people in Israel live in debt. In fact, once upon a time when you would go to the makolet, which is a little grocery store, the guy would have a little box and everybody had an index card and he'd write down how much money you owe. And you'd pay it when you had money, etc. And somebody said when I first moved here, someone said, "If one makolet would call in that box, the entire economy of Israel would collapse cuz there is no money." >> [laughter] >> This is an amazing concept, you know. Um In America, there's this crazy concept that you can only spend money that you have. There's one bank like that here, called the Bank Hadoar. If you get your bank account at the um post office, then that's it. Whatever money is there, you can spend it. If not, they bounce your check. But here, you get overdraft. And you negotiate with the bank, which bank will give me the most overdraft. And you just spend money you don't have. And you're living in debt. You know? And it's a certain mentality that you just go on. So you have to keep worrying about the debt. I have to keep worrying about this and the illness and what's going to be with my kids and what's going to be with that and not to mention all the things you worry about that never happen. Like kid goes for a test, they said there's something a little strange here on the test. I don't know, there might be a problem with the kidney. Why don't you go see this specialist? We see the specialist and he says, "Yeah, everything's fine." But for a month you were worrying what's going to be, what's going to happen. You don't know. There's so many things that can take place, all these worries and sicknesses and and he says, "There might be one person in a thousand who can say that his life is great all the time. Everything's perfect. There's no worries, there's no pains, there's no uh illness, there's no, everything's great. He says, "And even that guy, when he lives to a certain point, that's it. He's not enjoying life anymore." I'm not that old yet. No. But, um, uh, the list of foods that I can no longer digest gets longer and longer. You look at this guy, he ate but I don't know if he's going to be My mother loved frankfurters. Nobody would buy it for her because she was sick lady, it was terrible. I would because I was going back to Israel and I figured, you know, more important that she likes me. >> [laughter] >> She said, "Get me a frankfurter." I said, "Sure." I see her the next day, I said, "Mom, how was the frankfurter?" She said, "Oh, it was great. I was up all night throwing up." >> [laughter] >> But, uh, flesh has become more and more difficult. Everything. And when you reach a certain point where you basically, as it says in Pirkei Avot, at a hundred, over bottom in all of them, it's like you're not even alive anymore. There's not a lot you could do at the age of a hundred. There was a Jewish comedian called George Burns, that wasn't his real name. And he died just before his hundredth birthday. He had booked a big show when he turned a hundred, he didn't make it. And he says, "I have my opening line. It's a pleasure to be here. At my age, it's a pleasure to be anywhere." And that's it. An old person could just stand up and everybody applauds. Yeah, that's it. Everyone's happy he's still there. And, uh, so, so he says, "Obviously, if you were created for this world, it's not working." If If you think you're in this world just to enjoy the pleasure of this world, then by the way, in the other version of Mesillas Yesharim, he speaks this out more. You know, there's two versions that he wrote. There's one that has become known as the Vikkuach edition. It was even translated into English. Where it's a dialogue between a Chacham and a Chassid. And the Chacham doesn't understand the Chassid. He's arguing with him. And so, at one point he says, "Maybe this world is just like a place that uh just like an artist paints a picture and hangs it up cuz he wants people to enjoy it. Hashem made this world and wants you to enjoy it. And so, all the laws are just there so that, you know, when you go to the park, no loud playing, no animals not on a leash, uh don't uh clean up after yourself, just so that everybody gets along. And another one is, you know, to recognize that the artist gave you this, so you know, he's he's hosting you, so you'll thank your host. So, you'll thank your Kadosh Baruchu for it. Maybe. Maybe that's why we're here. And he says, "So, how come people are so miserable?" I still remember a bumper sticker in the '90s that said, "Are we having fun yet?" Every time they come out with a new course on happiness, it gets sold out. They write a new book, it becomes a best-seller. Cuz a lot of people are just not enjoying life. So, you understand, this is a big problem. Because when I go into Rosh Hashanah, and we're going to ask Akadosh Baruchu for another year of life, and I'm not sure if I want it, that puts me at a disadvantage. I have to want to live. And people who don't want to live, will sometimes die just for lack of interest. Sure, I mentioned the story. There was a a girl I met who was suffering from mental illness and they were trying to find the right cocktail of drugs to give her, you know. And she said to me, I feel feel like if I don't fight, I'll end up dying. I said, "You'll kill yourself?" She says, "No, I'll just die from the pain." So, that's why there's a possuk in the Torah that says, "I give you today tov v'ra es a chaim v'es a maves u'vacharta vachaim. Choose life." Now, why would the Kodesh Baruch Hu have to say that? Except for the fact that there are people like you who don't necessarily want to live. Now, when I was, you know, depressed, I used to think about that all the time. I would never kill myself, but I was always my my my goal was to try to die al Kiddush Hashem. That would be the best, you know. And you cut out everything, go straight up to Shamayim. Because I didn't think I could make it by the rules. I didn't think I could manage in this world. This is Zakan, now she's Mrs. Cooper. When she lost her mother, she was sitting shiva, so uh she said to me, "My mother came from a town. Everybody in the town got sent to the gas chambers except for my mother. And she survived the war. And she said, "My whole life I was haunted. Why doesn't Hakadosh Baruchu want me? Why wasn't I zoche to die al Kiddush Hashem?" I said, "Cuz she had the harder journey, and that's to live al Kiddush Hashem." Some people get to go out in a blaze of glory. And some of us go step by step, wake up in the morning, put one step in the a foot in front of the other. You know how much was accomplished in the world by Holocaust survivors who came out of that experience and said, "We have to rebuild Torah. We have to rebuild the Jewish people." With the sense of dedication. To die al Kiddush Hashem, that's the easy way. To live al Kiddush Hashem is much harder. To paraphrase General George Patton, I'm not looking for people to die for their country. You don't win wars by dying for your country. You win wars by making the other guy die for his country. Kuz Baruchu is not looking for anybody to die for the cause. Which is why it's so sad. Cuz I know a lot of Jews who would give up their life for Judaism. They just won't live it for Judaism. So, life is difficult. And I don't know everybody's challenges. You mentioned you're in therapy and things like that. And yeah, all of us have Everybody has a pekelah. Everybody has problems. Everyone has um uh difficult things. And the day will come when we won't wake up. We have to work to stay alive. There's no question about it, like that girl said to me. That's why I picked up a new phrase when people ask me, "How you doing?" I said, "I'm still alive." I woke up this morning. So, someone said, "Well, you set the bar pretty low." I said, "Absolutely." I almost died three times. So, you still I just the last time when I mean, I had my bypass and then they put in stents, and then they had to fix one of the stents. And afterwards, the guy said, "Look, there's nothing else I can do. We're not going to open you up again. We can't fix any more stents. There's no room to put anything else in." So, uh you know, either take care of yourself or don't start any long books. You understand? >> [laughter] >> So, every morning I wake up, I say, "It's a It's a new day. I have a new gift." We get up in the morning and we wash the till she died in Shul Boca. One of the reasons is cuz you take a new cle and you put it in the you put in the mikvah. And I woke up today, and today is a new day. Yesterday is a canceled check. Tomorrow is a promissory note. All you have is today. Spend it. And I have to look at every day as if this is my last day. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if I'll wake up tomorrow. I hope I wake up tomorrow. But, that already puts me ahead of you because you don't want to wake up tomorrow. >> [laughter] >> And that's why the old expression is, "Growing old is hard, but consider the alternative." Yeah. Because while you're in this world, you can do something. And I've said this before. I've met many from people who say to me, "I don't think it makes a difference to Hakadosh Baruch Hu if I live or die. And I say, "Make no mistake. He has no shortage of ways of getting rid of you." So, if you're still in this world, it's cuz he wants you here. Cuz there's something you can do that nobody else can do. And we give up. So, uh So, this past Shabbos uh my good friend Yitzy Shapiro made a bar mitzvah for his son Shmuel Zev. And Yitzy's mother spoke about her mother. I I still can't wrap my head around this story. Listen to this story. I mean, there's a lot of stories that are very powerful. This story made a deep impression on me. My mother was sent to Auschwitz. And okay, she was sent to work. She was healthy. She was strong. And she stepped on a rusty nail, and she got very sick, and she couldn't get out of bed. And if you don't show up for the roll call and they put you on the lift list for death. That's it. There's no There's no alternatives. But she had a friend who was working in the office who got her medicine. And she got better. And she got up. But it doesn't help cuz you're already on the list for death. The decision of who went to life and death was done by a fellow by the name of Mengele. So, her friends took clothes from the dead and dressed her up so she looked as uh bright as possible. And she goes into Mengele's office and said, "There's a mistake. I was written down for death, and I'm fine. I I go and work? And Mengele said, "You know how many Jews I've sent to their death? You think I care if you're healthy or sick? You're on the list for death, that's it. You're going to die." And she comes out and her friends are crying. What do you do? I mean, that's it. That was the only chance. A few minutes later, Mengele comes out of his office and says, "You know what? I'll examine you." He examines her and says, "Okay, I'll take your name off the list. Go to work." His mother is only alive because of Dr. Mengele? Mengele saved her from death? I would say that puts you in a very small category of people whose lives were saved by Dr. Mengele. She survived the war, but she was terribly depressed to the point of not being functional. Her husband had to handle everything. And she said she was a shadow of a person for the rest of her life. But she managed to have four children. And look at how much we had one of her great-grandsons bar mitzvahs when she's talking. She says, "And look at everything that came out of that woman who was depressed and somehow she managed to have four kids and and you know, make an impact on the world." An amazing thing. Isn't that amazing? And she had a very hard life. What would have happened if she would have given up? Not gone to Mengele and said, "Well, that's it. I'm going to go to the my death. I'll die as kiddush Hashem and that's the end." How many people would that make a difference to? And that is the theme to one of the movies that Steven Spielberg said was one of the greatest movies ever made. It was called A Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart. To make a long story short, Jimmy Stewart is this wonderful all-American guy, and he's doing all kinds of wonderful things, and he gets into financial trouble, and he's going to go to jail. And there's nothing left. And he goes to the bridge, and he decides he's going to kill himself. And an angel comes to him. And he says, "There's no point, you know, I wish I was never born." And the angel says, "Uh, fine, you were never born." And he goes into the city, and he realizes all of the impact that he had in the world. He saved this city. He saved these people. He helped this person, he helped that person. You don't even He wasn't even conscious of how much he did in the world because it was just ordinary. So, he says to the angel, "Okay, I want to live." He goes back home, he doesn't know what he's going to do, but all his friends and neighbors gathered together the money to be able to give him so he could pay it off, and and he'd be covered. That's why he says at the end, "It's a wonderful life." He has his wife, he has his children, he has his home, has his community. But, we reach that moment where we say, "To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether it is better to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune. Want to end it all. Call it a day. Cash in my chips. Lay down and die. Victor Frankl on his book about the Holocaust, he wrote, "Anybody who survived the Holocaust, it was only because they had a purpose to their life. Cuz the easiest thing to do was to die. Just lay down and die. You know how terrible life was in in the Holocaust and what I had to do? Okay. So, most of us don't have to go through the Holocaust. I have thought this over in my head many times if I was there, and I'm pretty sure they would shoot me before I got to the train. I'm really low-functioning. >> [laughter] >> I'm not meant for those kind of crisis. But, you know what we do have? We have all of our own crisis. And I'm not here to judge. Everybody gets the test that they're expected to to pass and the situation that they're in and they have to fight. Whatever that situation might be. So, two stories. One was I don't know if it was a kid or a bucher. I don't know what it was. This guy has ADHD. Very hard to learn. And he sees Avrohom Yehoshua the Yeshiva of Brisk walking down the street and goes over to him and says, "Rebbi, what do I do? I want to learn Torah, but I can't cuz I have ADHD." If I wish you were looks at him and says, "Sit for 10 minutes. You can learn for 10 minutes. And then get up and run around and then sit down. When you get it out of your system, learn for another 10 minutes. Then get up and run around. And do this until you're ready to sit for 15 minutes." That was the advice he gave him. If I wish you were the mashiva of Brisk was not too big to help some kid with ADD ADHD. As someone with ADHD once said to me, "Cuz you're lucky. You only have ADD. You know, they used to sit you in the back of the classroom and you'd all space out." Says, "We were the ones bouncing off the wall. We were the ones who got the hardest time, yeah. You just would space out, you know." He says, "This person today is one of the khashuvim in the world of chinuch." And he tells me another story. He says, "This mashiva has this kid in the yeshiva with ADHD, a bokhur. And the mashiva sits him down and says, 'Tell me the truth. How much do you learn in a day? There's 10 hours of learning today. How much of the day do you actually learn?' He says, 'Well, he said, "I could get in trouble. They could throw you out." But throughout the entire day, how much of the day do you actually manage to learn?' He thinks about it and he says, '2 hours.' He says, 'Oh my gosh, you're the biggest masmid in the place.' He says, 'Come on.' He said, 'No, pasuk in Mishlei says that a person who can't learn and pushes himself to learn it's worth a hundred times. So, the biggest masmidim in this place learn 12 hours a day, 16 hours a day. He says, "It's so hard for you that every hour is 100 hours. You learn 200 hours a day." He looks at him and says, "You just say that to make me feel better." He says, "No, no, it's a possuk in Mishlei." He says, "No, no, you're just saying it." He says, "You know what? Let's go to Rav Chaim Kanievsky." So, he goes to Rav Chaim Kanievsky and he says, "The boy has ADHD. Very hard for him to concentrate. But he tells me he learns 2 hours a day and I told him every hour is worth 100 hours. He really learns 200 hours a day and he says I'm just saying that to be nice." Rav Chaim Kanievsky says, "Emess l'amitai." "And please give me a bracha cuz I never met anyone who learns 200 hours a day." So, yeah, life is hard. And the yetzer hara wants us to give up and say, "Huh, you think you daven with kavana? Huh, you think you learn? Huh, you think you accomplish anything? You're nothing." And we listen to that little voice and we believe it. I've said this many times, but it's almost Rosh Hashanah. So, I'll say it again. After we do our tekios, we do one last tekiah l'arbe v'satan. Why? Cuz the satan hears that tekiah and he thinks it's the shofar of mashiach. Asks Rav Henoch Leibowitz, Rosh Yeshivas Chaim, "It's 2,000 years, he still falls for the same trick? Lana b'i masa, he'll see that we always blow that last tekiah. Why does he think it's the shofar of Mashiach? Reb Henoch said, the Satan's not stupid, we are. Because after a whole Rosh Hashanah davening, we could make that last tekiah into the tekiah of Mashiach, we just don't believe it. Reb Moshe Cheder was a yeshiva Chaim Soloveitchik. He said when he was a little boy, he went to the zoo and the lion roared and he got scared. And I said to the zookeeper, "Can he break out of that cage?" He says, "Yeah, but don't worry, he doesn't know." So he'll never break out. And he looked at us and said, "That's every one of us." So you get up every morning and life is hard for you. It's supposed to be easy. It's easy for people who can't accomplish anything. The simcha of din is that God thinks that you are worthy of standing trial. He has not dismissed you. You are not a lost case. And every minute that you're in this world, you are accomplishing. That's why there are people who put a lot of emphasis on the sheish mitzvos temidius, the six constant mitzvos that you can get all the time. Every time ahavas Hashem, right? I I believe Hashem exists, whatever those six mitzvos are. Every time I think of one of them, poof, I get another mitzvah. Every learned learned of Torah that you learn is 613 mitzvos. By the way, that's true for women, too. So you do your little two halachas and shmiras halashon over there, you know, every day, assuming that that's what you learn. Hundreds of thousands of myths. Constantly, constantly you you you're you're just racking up points. But you don't believe it. So you say, "I might as well just quit now." What? You're in the treasury with a bag and you can fill it up with gold and diamonds and silver and anything that you want. And you say, "Yeah, it's too hard. I'll just leave." Leave? You're surrounded with the greatest opportunities. I don't have to be perfect. That's not the point. The point is that I'm in this world which is a world of opportunity. Use this opportunity. Don't let it go to waste. And if we take this opportunity and we use it the way that we're supposed to, then we walk in the Rosh Hashanah and we say I could have I'm not perfect, but I'm a good investment. And that's why people have so much trouble before Rosh Hashanah cuz they look at all the stuff they don't do instead of all the things that they do do. There was a story in Chicken Soup for the Soul, this guy got into a motorcycle accident became a quadriplegic couldn't move anything from his neck down. They say he was a very happy person. They said, "How could you be so happy?" He says, "I used to be able to do 25 million things. Now I can only do 2 million things. So I can focus on the 2 million things I can do or the 23 million things I can't do." We have to celebrate our victories. Once once we're dead, it's done. All we do is decompose like Mozart. Nothing for us to do anymore. The Vilna Gaon on his deathbed was holding his tzitzis crying saying mitzvahs mitzvahs, in this world they're so cheap and in the world to come you can't do them anymore. We're surrounded with opportunities. We're surrounded with all these blessings. And we have to say like Jimmy Stewart, "Erch a wonderful life." And it's hard and it's difficult. That's the story of a shul and shul children tells where he was learning with this boy and the boy said, "Rebbi, I can't come tomorrow. I have to go and play soccer." He said kaduregel. They call football here, you know. We call it soccer. We have a game in America. They made by Gucci did this. It's one of the funniest clips ever where he's like George Washington. He says, "We'll be free to do our own things. We'll have a sport called football." He says, "Football?" He says, "Yeah, yeah. Throw the ball with your hand." He says, "There's no kicking?" "There's a little kicking." >> [laughter] >> "You can kick to get some points." "How much?" "Sometimes one, sometimes three. It's complicated." >> [laughter] >> "But here they call soccer football cuz you actually play with your feet, yeah?" So he says, "I have to go and play kaduregel." He says, "What's that?" He says He says I pretend that I didn't know what it was. He goes, "What's that?" He says, "Well, you have to kick the ball and get it into the net." He says, "Okay. So go, kick the ball into the net and then come and we'll sit and learn." So he says, "No, there's somebody there blocking the net. You have to get it past him. He says, "Okay, so go tonight beforehand to kick the ball into the net and then come back." He says, "No, you can only play if somebody's blocking the net." He says, "Why? It's harder." He says, "When it's hard, that's what makes it fun." He says, "So, imagine how much fun it'll [snorts] be for you to come tomorrow and learn instead of going to play Kadur Regel." Instead of going to play football. >> [laughter] >> You're right. There are no challenges in life. There when when phones these little portable phones came out cellular phones came out, had like one game on it. It was called snake. And there's little like two line dots and you have to go around and eat the dots and as you did you got bigger and bigger and sometimes it went faster and faster. But imagine that you played the game and it was only like these two little dots and you keep going around and that's all you do is you just sit there and eat the dots and you never get bigger and never gets faster. After a while it would get boring. And so that's why yeah, we have challenges. Because you're bigger than you realize. And what you're doing is so incredibly important and you don't know it. I've told the story many times and one of my favorites. Jonathan Rosenblum said there were these three Jewish screenwriters Saturday morning having brunch on Pico. And they see a family coming back from the shul. Everyone's dressed nicely, everyone's smiling, everyone's talking. And this challenged these guys. They realized they had nothing like this in their life. And they left and went to Aish HaTorah. They all became frum. So, he says, "This family did nothing but walk down the street. And when they get up to the Shamayim, you know what's going to be waiting for them? Thousands of people became firm because of them, because these people became firm and their children and grandchildren. And they used their koachas for screenwriting to to produce Torah materials, which reached out to thousands of people. And all of that is to the credit of this family who did nothing but walk down the street. I don't know what's going on in their life. But imagine that they said, "I don't need any more time." They would have missed out on the opportunity of changing these people's lives. And all they did was walk down the street. And you don't know what you do and how powerful it is. And not until we get up to Shamayim are we going to understand everything we did. And every one of us have had situations in our lives where somebody comes over to us and says, "I don't know if you remember me, but you said this to me or you did this or you did that and etc. etc." And it changed my life. And we're always shocked. Cuz we don't believe that we change people's lives, but we do. Yeah. Ask Hakadosh Baruch for another year of life because all the time that we're alive, we are changing this world and making a new reality in the universe. Okay, the last appreciation comments of the year. Hi, I just want to thank you for all your podcast. I really appreciate how you talk so openly about your struggle with depression. I'm a high school girl who also struggles with depression. It's refreshing to hear you be so open and honest about it. On a lighter note, you mentioned the ben azmanim in your last podcast and reminded me of a joke. Ben azmanim comes from AliExpress. It takes 6 months to a lot arrive and last for less than a month. >> [laughter] >> That's a good one. And here's the last one. Thank you so much for the amazing podcast. I really enjoy listening to it while I cook for Shabbos. It always leaves me lighter and happier than I was before and with good points to ponder. Well, just knowing that I have a chelek in your family's uh food for Shabbos, that alone makes me feel good. And that's it for this week and for this year. Uh if you want to find out more about the show, you can go to my website rabbiorlowsky.com. You can sponsor an episode, please. We're we're out of sponsors. You can sponsor question and answers, sponsor portion five. Uh if you want to just help out, you can buy me a cup of coffee. You can sign up for one of the online shiurim. What's so interesting, we're reaching the end of Mesillas Yesharim in my ladies Mesillas Yesharim shiur. And one of the ladies in the shiur said, "What do we do when we finish?" I said, "Hmm, the way we're going, that'll be several years, so don't worry about it." I find a lot to talk about, you know. We have the Tefillah uh uh shiur, and the men's Daf Yomi. Uh you can uh go to the merch store. Uh you can submit a question. There's other material. And that's it for this week and for this year. Until next time, I am Devin Orlowsky, and this has been the Rabbi Orlowsky Show. >> It's the Rabbi Orlowsky Show. Torah and Simcha, ready to go. The Rabbi Orlowsky Show. Knowledge and wisdom will help you grow. Lots of fun in every episode, and we don't have to rhyme, though we often It's the Rabbi Orlowsky Show. rabbiorlowsky.com Torah anytime, YouTube, and more. it's the Rabbi Orlansky [music] Show. Torah in simple, ready to go. It's the Rabbi Orlansky Show. Till next time, till we meet again, the Rabbi Orlansky Show. It's the Rabbi Orlansky Show. It's the Rabbi Orlansky Show.