What's A Practical Way To Have Yiras Shamayim?

Hi, this is David Alavski with our question and answer short series. Anonymous asks, do you have any suggestion for a practical way to work on growing in your shamayim? What a great question because everything seems to be very esoteric. Have you ever noticed that people talk in vague generalities about what the miser do I do? So I'm going to teach you my method for developing your shamayim. And let me start by saying what do we mean by shmayim. It does not mean fear of God. As the Rambam says if you think it means that God is going to punish me that is appropriate only for the unlearned and little children. You know Shem's going to give you a patch. You know what I mean? You're more adult. You understand that's not what yours shamayim is. Hashem is the wow of au is wow. Yeah. You look out at a beautiful view. You watch a sunset here in Jerusalem and you go, "Wow." I grew up on Long Island. This is one of the big sacrifices I made when I moved here. We don't have an autumn, but I used to love it in September and October where you go walking around and all the trees are changing colors and it's mindblowingly beautiful. Or the first snow of the season where you look outside and everything is white. It's just otherworldly. or you go to Cape Town, South Africa, which is one of the most mindblowing beautiful places. There's this giant square mountain called tabletop mountain and it often has a cloud on top of it and the city's built around it and the ocean around it and the mountain and the sky and the water is hypnotic to the point that people who run cure organizations say they're much more successful in Johannesburg than in Cape Town because the people in Cape Town already feel like they have spirituality. So hashem is that wow wow you are unbelievable is awe. You know the expression awesome that's awesome. Today we use it in the vernacular right but awesome means it's filled with awe. Wow that's awesome. It takes your breath away. I saw a clip of Barishnikov who was one of the greatest ballet dancers pirouette 30 times without stopping and you just look at that and you're like wow wow people you look at it it just you know takes your breath away you see certain things that's how we should feel with so how do we do it you have to begin by talking to Hashem And people say I davin. I said I didn't say davin. Davin is an avod. I mean talk. And I add this on for from people. Talk to Hashem as if he really exists. Not just theoretically. Now this is very weird because I'm having a conversation with somebody who's invisible, right? It's very hard for people. I talk to certain people on the phone and I'm not an aha kind of guy. Certain people are like that. They go, "Oh yeah, uh-huh. Uh-huh." Throughout the whole conversation, I don't because I have ADD and I have to concentrate. And so I'm listening and I have certain people who are talking. They go, "Hello." I said, "Yeah, I'm here." Okay. Anyway, so hello. Because they don't hear me the whole time and they're sure that I must have hung up on them, but I'm just trying to listen. I'm not an aha kind of guy. This has gotten me into trouble, for example, with my email because people send me an email and I'm not sure what to answer. So, I wait to answer. And my wife says, "Just write something. Just write, I got the email. I'll get back to you." You know, I said, "Yeah, but that doesn't mean anything." I know, but people want to be acknowledged. and I said anyway. So that's why we're going to talk to it's an exercise. Do it for five minutes a day. Talk to Hashem as if he's really there and you're going to feel weird cuz apparently you're talking to nobody. I wouldn't do this when there are people around. But when there's nobody around, just talk to tell him about your day. Tell him how you feel. Talk to him about anything. Share with him a interesting article you saw or a poem. Say, "Hey, that Olski guy, he's something else, isn't he? He says he's tight with you. [laughter] Just gonna name drop for a minute." You know, try it. You'll feel a little silly. And do this every day and you'll see an evolution take place. The first step is you'll begin to sense that someone's listening to you. And like I say, you could pick up the phone and just talk and you know there's nobody there. And you can pick up the phone and talk and you think there's somebody there and you don't know if they really hung up or not or if they just dropped the phone and put it down. Rav Gab tells a story that uh during CO he was in his room and he hears this woman's voice and he's searching around and he sees a phone on the bed, the woman talking. So he goes to his daughter and says, "Is that your phone?" He goes, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whenever she's finished, just turn it off that was taking classes during co." [laughter] So she thought she was talking to somebody, you know. But sometimes you're talking to somebody and you know that they're listening to you. That's what's going to start to happen. You're going to feel listening to you and then you're going to start to get answers. Now, if you have voices, go see a mental health professional. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about you're going to say things to coach Baru like, "Okay, look, I looked everywhere for my keys. I can't find my keys. I need your help. Help me find the keys." And then you're going to look in your pocket and they're there even though you checked it 15 times. And that sort of stuff starts to happen all the time to the point where I was once driving with somebody and they noticed the weird amount of desay that I was having and I said to them, "My kids know it's one of my favorite expressions." Nah, Khu does stuff like that for me all the time. He's always helping me out. You know why? Cuz I acknowledge it. And so says, "I'll help you out. I'll be there for you. You want me in your life, I'll be in your life." As much as we let him in, he comes in. So the more that becomes real to you, that's the year as Hashem. When you start to say, "Wow, that was so cool. I I uh I had to dive in an early MKA today and I'm driving up and down. There's not a parking spot to be found. And I'm looking at my watch and I said, "In another two minutes, I'm going to miss Mina." And a car pulled out right in front. And I pulled in. And I was not surprised. I was like, "Yeah, cuz does stuff like that for me all the time." And you start to develop a God consciousness. And the way I like to put it is, I don't know how many infinite friends you have who say they want to help you, but I think if you got one, hold on to that relationship just out of self-interest if nothing else. Okay, just a reminder, we need sponsors for the uh question and answer series, for the paran, for the regular podcast. We depend on your support. Until next time, I am Devolofski.