Living With Emunah (Part 145): Emunah Delivered

good morning boca tov great to be back together again for another installment of our emunah support group wednesday mornings living with emunah how we can uh find hashem in our lives feel his love feel his guiding hand on our shoulder live with a sense of calm and confidence good morning the peace and tranquility that we all crave to know that everything that happens to us and for us in our lives is not coincidence or chance but is by design and is especially choreographed and curated for us what a life of joy and happiness we can have no matter what challenges we face if we know that we are not subject to chance and randomness so thanks thank you for coming back for another installment of living with the moon i want to thank our generous sponsors for the year dr xavi and bella morgan we're truly grateful to you we've sponsored and loving memory of rabbi dr brian galbet an extraordinary extraordinary person who continues to inspire us each and every day when we think about the level of amunah in which he lived his life and in which he left this world and i also want to thank dana golani who is sponsoring today in commemoration of the earth side of her bellas and her beloved husband barack ben eliezer the 21st of er brad golani dana we knew your husband well he was a very good man kind man a man of great amuna as well and so our learning should be nishma so we continue on our trek and journey through this beautiful essay by ravitamar schwartz the author of the bravadi mishkan evna and he's been teaching us and providing us with the tools for how to live that life of serenity calm and confidence that we all crave who wants to be frazzled who wants to be battling who wants to be anxious and worried we all want to know that come and the way to do what he says is be taken the word be taken comes from the word confidence surety having knowledge walking into a situation and knowing that the odds are stacked in your favor that everything has been set up for you to be successful if you walk in like shimon and levy did to shrem knowing that they had compromised the other side and though even though on the surface it looked like they were about to enter a battle beneath the surface their advantage was so strong they already knew the outcome and we too on the surface externally we look like we're battling from the moment we wake up in the morning getting out of bed are we going to eat the right food will we interact the right way will our spouse and children behave or respond in the way we hope they will will the world conform to our view and our vision for it we wake up and we think externally and superficially that we're battling but really beneath that battle the odds have been stacked in our favor we already know the outcome before we begin how can we know the outcome before we begin in what way are the odds stacked in our favor even before we start because we have a college park of the almighty in our corner he is orchestrating he is choreographing and curating everything that happens and therefore we can live with a common confidence the part that's up to us we have to have drive ambition aspiration the part that's up to us we have to work like it's all up to us but then we have to pray and trust knowing in truth it's really all up to him so we have the external selves and the external lives we're living which are really characterized by confrontation tension and battle from the moment we wake up until the moment we fall asleep and then we have the internal sense of self that salamala kim the godly the best version of us looks at our lives and knows that after i've done everything i can after i take the initiative i'm meant to take then beyond that it's entirely up to him and therefore i have nothing to worry about and therefore i'm calm and therefore things will be the way they are meant to be we all go through this and we all are meant to experience this one day a week one day a week we practice one day we rehearse one day a week we live this best version of ourselves so that we can come back and the other six days a week continue to draw from it which day a week is that that's right shabbos the hey look a beautiful shabbos the holiness of shabbos the greatness of shabbos i've always loved shabbos the last couple of years i've been learning particular texts and have pursued specific uh experiences and incorporated new practices that shabbos has taken on an even greater meaning for me and i thought i began to experience really shabbos and then two months ago i really encountered shabbos because i finally started being a shomer shabbas two months ago the world forced me to not work on shabbos i finally started to keep shabbos two months ago and i no longer work on chalice and i'm not sure what shabbos will look like when this is over if i'm going back to work big day goomba i'm not sure i'm going to work on saturday we'll see but shabbos why is shabbos so beautiful and so hail again so amazing the sun sets friday afternoon and you know what sets with it our problems our challenges our anxiety our worries we have this place of refuge a sanctuary in time just like the mikdash of the mishkan with a sanctuary in space shabbos is that place of refuge that sanctuary in time it's the place that we go to to re-energize and rejuvenate and recharge it's a safe space that we go to where there's no to-do list and tasks there's no criticism there's no confrontation it's the place that we go to to just be now we know that after havdallah we light a candle to start shabbos it brings in peace and we light a candle to end shabbos and transition us back to the week and we know that when shabbos ends all the things that we've put up on that shelf they're going to be coming back down the doctor's appointments and the traffic lights and the challenging relationships and the bills that need to be paid and the laundry that needs to be done and the to-do list it's all going to be there but 25 hours we get a snow day you know what a snow day is the snow day it's interesting one of my children pointed out on shabbos this past week i wonder whether there'll ever be a snow day again up north a hurricane day down south why because now that the world has learned that it can live over zoom when campuses and spaces are closed will there ever be a snow day again i hate to deflate any young people who are watching or teachers who are watching maybe they still will have but now that we've learned that we can live off of our campuses and we can learn live at a distance will there ever be but what was the greatness when i was growing up in teaneck new jersey what was the greatness of a snow day the greatness of a snow day is that no matter how much is on your plate and no matter how much you have and are meant to do you can guilt free let go there's nothing you can do it's a snow day can't go to the store you can't get chores you can't go to work you can't do your shopping you can't go out it is a guilt-free day off that's what a snow day was that's what shabbos is once a week guilt-free guilt-free day off no matter how much you have to do or meant to do feel you need to do not on shabbos no matter how much is lacking or missing in your life not on shabbos if you're prepared for shabbos and you have food to eat and you have your health then for that 25 hours you have it all so rights of schwartz and i'm reading to you i'm sorry you know the source is in front of you when it comes to menuha the word that is most synonymous with shabbos is menuha rest calm peace we have two types of because once i've calibrated my compass and i've come back on shabbos to the best of myself i've restored and renewed my confidence that even after shabbos hashem is with me that just like on shabbos i feel complete and whole and i have what i need i can carry that with me into the week so one level of manuka the rest on shabbos is i'm not so worried and i'm not so fearful and i'm not so afraid and i'm not so overwhelmed why because just like i'm spending these 25 hours feeling whole and complete and happy i know i can feel that as after as well so my serenity my peace comes from two things number one the peace i feel now the guilt-free day off i have now and number two the same way that i'm able to breathe i can exhale i can release the muscles and the tension i can enjoy and live and be in the moment there's nothing beeping or buzzing or vibrating or ringing or bouncing there's nothing alerting or informing there's no news to check there's no data to follow just like on shabbos i can exhale and i can relax my muscles and i can be present in the moment for endless meals of games and laughters mirrors and dive torah and stories and provocative conversation thought provoking conversation that it doesn't just have to be that way on shabbos i can carry that into my week as well so he says similarly is telling us that's what bhitachon is remember we said this last week what is the litmus test what is the metric or measure to determine whether you are a baal or ba'alas how do you know whether the faith is only lip service is the faith you're living with skin deep or is the faith you're living with authentic is it real is it true how do you know the answer is do you have serenity calm and peace if you get flustered and flabbergasted if you lose your cool and your patience if you're living with envy and with jealousy if you're living with worry and with anxiety not the clinical time type that needs to be diagnosed and treated but the general jewish type if you're living with those things then you have to ask yourself where is my faith and how is my beta but if you're able to live with calm and serenity and you're able to receive and you're able to react no matter what life throws your way and say this is what is meant to be i'm not looking through my glasses and my lens of the external battle and tension i'm looking through my best self my internal self and i'm saying this is what's meant to be i had a toothache did i mention it last week i had a toothache last week and it turns out i need root canal okay it's not the worst thing in the world today they could do it and apparently you know later today in a relatively pain-free quick way so i had an appointment with the specialist who's going to do my root canal and i went on friday and he seems like a wonderful doctor a really a really special man but i waited a long time because that's what happens particularly in the quarantine era where you have to space people out and wear your masks and all that stuff and then he looked at me and it turns out that there was a mix-up he thought that i was scheduled for a consult whereas i thought i was finally getting that root canal last week so after having waited a long time and admittedly the anxiety of the day of the buildup of the appointment and will it hurt and will i recover from it what would my shabbos look like it turns out i didn't have it i'm going in for it later today please god why am i telling you this because in that moment when i heard that consult not the real thing my whole day what's going to be now i got to do it again my first reaction was to tense up to be frustrated to be angry maybe even to lash out at where this miscommunication came from and i said what are you doing goldberg you teach emunah every wednesday morning 8 45. what's the point of teaching all of it if you're not going to incorporate it and live it so i took a deep breath i'm just sharing with you that i'm i'm not only the president i'm also a client i'm not only the one teaching it i'm also trying to practice it we're all working on it together i took a deep breath and i said you know if hashem wanted me to have the root canal friday it would happen friday and the fact that there was a miscommunication and it didn't happen friday it's because i wasn't meant to have it on friday maybe it would have ruined my shabbos maybe the doctor would have been rushed maybe something would have gone wrong who knows who knows so almost every day almost every day by the beginning of our day we have been challenged or we are confronting some news some information some experience some opposing force or energy which is trying to throw us off our game trying to make us lose our cool trying to cause us to grow impatient or to act out or to rage trying to cause us to overreact trying to cause us to sabotage the relationships our mental health our physical health don't do it we can have bitarchon rebel bachelor says that metric that measure is now one life is calm and wonderful not when you heard you won the lottery or you heard that you're healthy or you heard that that's not when the test of the tachome comes the test of vitacon the measure of the metric is when things are not going your way can you maintain your common cool can you live shabbos even during the weekday can you realize that it's all from above it's all orchestrated it's all by design it's all the way it's meant to be and why would i therefore ever get flustered or flabbergasted if it's the choice between me or god have the root canal in a sub-optimal time and way or have the root canal the way it was meant to happen that'll be for your best who would ever insist on their way over the best way so if we realize that hashem always has the best way in store for us and our way may feel like from our finite perspective the best way is not necessarily the best way so who would ever want to enforce who would ever want to uh supersede what is the best way with our sub-optimal way and if we have that perspective and mentality as we live our lives then no matter what god throws our way something something so insignificant as a root canal which in the scheme of things is insignificant or even something much more challenging and more meaningful if we realize it all comes from hashem we can have shabbos all week long in fact that's what the zoar says say that righteous people they live behind the whole week what does that mean they don't do the llama test the 39 categories of creative labor they don't carry all week long no it means the serenity the peace of mind the living in the moment the mindfulness all of the calm all the things that we shabbos helps and enables us to feel on shabbos the truly righteous are able to create and feel for themselves the entire week long and that is our aspiration that's what we're trying to achieve because you have to say you know here's my mentality and here's the assumption i'm going to work off of i'm only going to get from god the things that i'm meant to have the things that are best for me the things that will be good for me so if i have it i should celebrate it because it means it's what's best for me and if i'm denied it or deprived it then i shouldn't bemoan it and i shouldn't protest it because it means it wasn't best for me a life of faith is not just a moment it's not just a choice or an attitude in the moment it's not even a character trait or a muscle but a life of beitahon is entering a lifestyle it is living a lifestyle with a perspective you know what a life of bitcoin is it's like the difference between putting on glasses corrective lenses so for example i've become an old man i need a root canal i wear glasses i've become an octocopter i'm in that category so uh now i need to put on glasses to see the fine print i can't see one day all of a sudden i found myself going like this and i looked like i didn't want to look like and i realized i could either pretend it's not true or get a pair of glasses so now i got to put on glasses to read so generally i can see and when i want to read i put on the glasses or you can go and get lasik surgery i'm not saying for your reading purposes but generally speaking you can get lasik surgery it can not only put on corrective lenses you can literally correct the lenses so similarly with ammuna i can view a moon as a pair of glasses that generally i live without it generally i confront the day and think that i can conquer it generally i take credit generally i feel independent and when i need god when i really need him i put on those glasses and i express a little bit of bitter home or you can have lasik surgery and you can change your very lifestyle your very living habit your very perspective where it's not a pair of glasses i take off and on beta on faith but rather it's lesek i now can only see in this corrected way that wherever i go and whatever i do all i see is hashem everywhere whether it's the bad news on root canal whether it's a challenging confrontation with someone in my life whether it's a disappointment whether it's a joy and success and great news whichever direction whatever it is i live my life that it all is from above i see him everywhere not i see him nowhere and not i see him sometimes but i see him everywhere and i can't see any other way because i've had lasik surgery it is the only way that i see those are our choices here's the metaphor i thought of this morning i don't know if it works for you or if it's good but here's what i thought of this morning you know sometimes we struggle with our eating habits and we're only we're trying to to eat healthy food not eat the wrong foods and you don't know how many carbs are in the sauce how many carbs are in the side dish how much what is this good for me calories bad for me what's going on but what if you hired a cook a chef a nutritionist who put that plate in front of you so you don't even know what's in it but you don't have to look at it and say can i take this can i not have that how much portion can i have what's the scoop of it how much of the of the pie of my plate can it take up how much volume can i eat of it what if you had a nutritionist what if you had a chef who knew what was best for you to eat and by definition when they put that plate in front of you for each meal you knew you could have the whole thing and you didn't have to think about it and you have to worry about it you didn't have to second-guess it because you knew that if it was given to you it's good for you to eat i think they have programs like that where you can pay and they leave meals at your door and they deliver them daily and it's exactly what you're meant to eat the portion that you're meant to eat and so on probably best for the company who's selling it their pockets i'm not sure the rest of it but that was the metaphor that i thought of you could live life where you're trying to cook and you're trying to prepare and you don't know how much you could eat what's good for you and what's bad for you and at what proportion of what ratio and in what volume or you could say hashem is the chef hashem is the nutritionist i'm subscribing to hashem's program where he leaves me my mun at the door and whatever he gives me that day is what's best for me so i can eat it and enjoy it's the difference between eating with guilt it's the difference between not knowing if it's good for you it's the difference between eating with worry or it's the difference between diving and joy eat no this is the portion meant for you and this is the these are the ingredients that are meant for you so good metaphor bad metaphor i don't know but i think those are the two choices of how we live life we can either experiment and try to figure it out on our own and not know what's good or right for us or you could live life that because whatever you throw my way and whatever happens i believe and i trust that it is the measure for me and it is what is meant for me it is what is best for me okay got to put the old man glasses back on and continue yellow you see if you live life where you don't assume that god is delivering the amount and the quantity and the type and that whatever happens is what's meant and it's what's best instead what happens then you crave and then you desire and then you have an appetite and then you and then you doubt and then you want and then you say well i want that where is it why don't i have it and this isn't what i wanted why do i have to have this not the one that i wanted and then you live this life of conflict and confrontation you live this life of tension and anxiety you live this life of worry and disappointment but if instead you say everything that happens i'm meant to have and the thing that i want that i don't have it's because it's not what's right for me and what i have even if it's not what i wanted the version i wanted that is what is best for me if you will all of a sudden have that lasex surgery of life and you look at life and say because providing whatever it is after i've put in my effort whatever it is it is what is meant calm peace happiness you're going to be humble you're not going to be envious and jealous you're not going to get angry you're going to say the root canal wasn't friday it's supposed to be wednesday i'm not going to fly off the handle i'm not going to lose my cool i'm not go by the way again the first instinct is your muscles tense up and you start breathing shallow and you're planning how you're going to rip the secretary and the dentist and the person who referred you and the whole world who messed up this communication and wasted my time and no release the muscles take a deep breath look up and say for a moment i forgot but i'm going to remind myself you run the world this is your design i wasn't meant to have root canal friday i meant to have it wednesday i don't know and here's the hard part i'll never know because i don't get that crystal ball and i don't get to ever find out what would have happened and what would have gone wrong and why wasn't it optimal for me to happen friday we don't get to find that out so what do we need to do instead we need to just live our lives with the confidence and the calm that what does happen is what's right and not look back after that now we can learn from it where was the miscommunication what went wrong i want to make sure to correct that try to avoid it happening next time we can hold people accountable nothing wrong if it costs us time money there's nothing wrong with accountability in torah and judaism in halacha but in terms of our own personal character and reaction in terms of our own medos we need to be careful with how we with how we react lumazos who is lasik surgery who lives life and sees hashem everywhere who interprets and incorporates everything that happens is coming from hashem there's no conflict there's no opposing force there's nothing to overcome yeshmah there's nothing missing there's enough for everybody the same is true by the way in business you don't see your competitive threat your your competition thriving while you're struggling you say you have enough for everybody my competition can succeed i can succeed you don't look at what others have and what you lack you say what they have what i have each of us have what we're meant to have because god sends us each what we're meant to have you know we're counting the omer i mentioned the partial shear last week we're counting the omer that word omer is a measure we use the word omer in the context of a carbon a sacrifice offered on pesach we use the word omer in the form of the count we use the word omer to describe the time period that we're in we use the word omer as a measure of volume to describe the amount of flour why are we using that word omer in all these contexts the bariose if salon says because the first time we find the word omar is in the context of the mom that falls hashem has the mon fall and how much mon fell in omer you know what the period of counting the omer is to realize you know when you tried to scoop up more mon than you were meant to have it was still only an omer you couldn't have more you didn't get less everyone got exactly the measure that was meant for them and this period of counting the omer is a period of looking at our lives and counting that whatever i have is the measure that was meant for me and if i'm only meant to have this much i can work twice as hard but i won't get more wallolla and you know if i have competition that's ruthlessly competing with me they can't take away because i can't have less than i meant to have either that which others are competing are trying to take away from me or even trying to give me more all that i can get is what i meant to have no more and no less so either i can scramble in life and live a life of tension and conflict and battle and battle and want and crave and pursue or i can say let me work a reasonable amount let me have ambition and drive and aspiration and work as hard as i can within that reasonable amount and when i'm done working as hard as i can with my entrepreneurship with my innovation with my strategic thinking when i'm done i'm gonna let go and let god because nobody could make me have less than i'm meant to have and no matter what i do i won't have more than i meant to have i will always have exactly as i meant to have it oh what a way to live life i can go to sleep with peace tonight i can live my life with comfort i can breathe easy because i don't have to worry i left money on the table if only i would have worked hard i don't have to worry that someone took from me because if only i would have competed more no whatever i haven't meant to have imrama sabita not only will you never ever worry about how much you have you'll actually run to help those who look like they're taken away from you we talked about this when we learned the khazenine where he writes that that let's say a competitor opens across the street from you you have a fish store and someone opens another kosher fish store across the street so your first instinct is to tell your mat your your um distributor if you distribute to my competition i'm no longer ordering from you you're going to tell your marketer if you mark it for them if you put their head in the same newspaper i'm no longer taking an ad there that's your first instinct i gotta ruthlessly compete i gotta fight they're gonna take away my business says the khazanesh you have nobutaku you could chuckle as long as you want and chul schweinsteiger could be as long as you want it to be but you have no butakon why because if you really had to be tahoe and you'd walk across the street and say to the competition welcome to the neighborhood do you need any contacts do you need any any numbers can i help you in any way because you know kurdish barclay has enough for both you and for me and each of us is going to get what we're meant to have and you can't take away from what i have i won't take away from you have let me help you i wrote this up in a story last year because in brooklyn there was a story of someone's fish store that burned down and a competitor around the corner invited that proprietor to operate his fish store from within his fish store and so you had two competing fish stores operating in the same space because the host was kind enough to realize i don't want you to be hurt in the meantime while you're rebuilding your store there's enough for both of us hashem provides for both i read that story and they were awarded um some award by assemblyman in new york for for that uh wonderful display of kindness and i said that was exactly the khazanesh's point if you really have bhitaron you know that hashem provides for each of us what we need and nobody can take away then you're never going to ruthlessly compete you're going to offer the help peace serenity tranquility nothing can throw you off your game nothing can make you overreact nothing can take away your peace of mind nothing can destroy your health and your wellness and your relationships because it's all from hashem so put on those pair of glasses get that lasik surgery don't only see hashem sometimes see them everywhere all the time don't second guess what you're eating and how much you can eat realize he's the one delivering it it's exactly what you're meant to have therefore lean in and enjoy it's not just a choice it is a lifestyle it's an absolute lifestyle that we live and when we live it we'll see and feel hashem everywhere and you know it's not just a religious result it's not just that at the end you get to be honored to show dinner get them after yonah not that you just give them a list of righteous people the results are tangible and meaningful and measurable and they are are livable in our lives you'll find yourself not getting angry not getting envious you'll find yourself calm you'll see your blood pressure is better your respiratory system you're breathing deeper you will see the results of this effort the hard part is catching yourself because the external sense of self wants to react and overreact but the internal sense of self says calm cool collect it's all from above and it's all going to be great so please god i'll see you tonight i'm behind the bema after my hopefully i don't have another story to tell about the root canal it's all going to go well and if it doesn't that's also from above so therefore there's nothing to worry it's all the way it's meant to be wishing everyone a happy holy and healthy day thank you so much for joining us if you're on youtube please subscribe to our youtube channel even if you're not go on youtube slash rabbi from goldberg and subscribe to our channel it will help trying to get the youtube out there have a fantastic fantastic day