Living With Emunah (Part 163): You Can't Achieve Forgiveness Without Talking About the Relationship

good morning bokertov welcome back to our living with a moon series our weekly sheer slash support group to remind ourselves what really matters what's really important what's really true namely that there's a hashem in this world that he's in our lives and that he loves us i saw a quote yesterday from moshe weinberger who said isn't it the most amazing thing in the world that the same one who judges us is also madly in love with us that it's our father turns out we're coming before the judge this weekend it's rosh hashanah says imagine you're summoned to court god forbid some violation you need to appear before a judge you're shaking you're trembling you're worried you're prepared and when you walk into the courtroom and look up who is it on the bench none other than your father now obviously in a human court that would never go he has to accuse himself there's an inherent bias and yet in our case we come before the judge and we should have that mentality we should have that imagery we should be trying to grow in that way but we look up and who is it standing on the bench it's none other than avinash it's none other than our father in heaven it's none other than hashem and so what an amazing feeling that's what we get together to reinforce and to remind and to grow i want to thank our amazing friends avian bella morgan who sponsored the amuna series this year in memory of rabbi dr brian gabba berksville nassan and as well as in memory of bella's mother dr ellen shanzer thank you so much for the generosity and the sponsorship today's particular share is also sponsored by heidi fuchs in commemoration of the year inside of her beloved father al amsell heidi fuchs when i grew up she lived around the corner from me i babysat for her children that was my childhood spending money and more significantly today shears in memory of her father al amsel al was a very special man and a very special part of my childhood he was a real icon and fixture of our shul of banay sherin and tina new jersey growing up not only did al make the greatest potato kogo he had the biggest heart and he loved children and he showed us a great affection and he built us up and we sorely miss him our learning should be so dedicated in his memory so thank you heidi and alan fuchs for that sponsorship as well okay we pick up where we left off last week we've been learning a short piece and we should finish it this week by the author of the belvae mishkan efna we learned from him previously of itamar schwartz who has been taking us through a magnificent this has been for me transformational understanding of something we say every year every year in salinas we recite we ask hashem that don't cast me away don't cast me away don't throw me away attach the hainu don't get rid of me don't give up on me don't move on from me why and ruach don't don't take away from me the ruach hakodesh that i have to which rav schwartz was bothered that he was bothered the ruach hakodesh that i have are we so arrogant we just finished messily social we talked about the quality of arrogance are we so arrogant to presume that we have ruach that we have some divine inspiration that we have some sense of divine wisdom so we established last time that perhaps what it's talking about is not ruach hakodesh in the formal sense in the culmination of messily susharam that if a person perfects their character if a person becomes most complete or whole that we're capable of achieving a life of ruach kodesh that's not what it means what does it mean then ruach so the bavaria said the following if you remember what makes us uniquely human what elevates or distinguishes us from animals bahira the ability to choose animals have an impulse animals have an instinct animals have an appetite they follow it they're hungry they eat they don't determine do i own that do i not own that will it make me fat how will it make me look in these pants and this dress they don't have such self-awareness they don't have discernment they don't have free will they have an appetite and urge an instinct and intuition and they pursue it human beings have the capacity to have self-awareness to step outside ourselves to look at our lives and to say is this a good choice or a bad choice what will the consequences what will the implications what will the results be of the choice i'm about to make the thing i'm about to say the thing i'm about to do the choice i'm about to make what will be the next row what's going to come out of it what happens as a result that capacity to choose the kawaha bahira the ability to be discerning the vilnigon says that's what ruach who breathed life into us we were simply molded out of clay out of earth out of soil we were a golem we were a wax figure in madame tussauds and chose to take a deep breath in his own lungs he breathed into us that expanded our lungs he put a piece of himself in us and we became alive dynamic alive vibrant we became alive animated we became alive the ability to choose the ability to choose yes i'm drawn to eat that but i don't have to yes i want to say that but i won't yes i want to go there but it's not good for me yes i want to look at that but it's wrong we have the ability unlike an animal who follows its instagram impulse to pause and to ask ourselves what will come out of this and to make choices the ruach the peace of god that he inserted within us that each of us is a shtick ribonus alone reach a piece of hashem how does hashem manifest himself through us certainly through our unique qualities and attributes and skills and talents and blessings but most of all he exhibits or manifests himself through us in our ability to have bahira to choose to choose that's what rosh hashanah says that's what this time of year is all about look in the mirror and evaluate the choices that you're making forget the past it's not about being judged for the past year aimed at allah right now when we walk in on rosh hashanah is going to look at us right now and say based on right now what choices are you making how are you self-defining who are you and where are you going and what is your destiny what is your identity and what are your priorities and what are your values and what are your ideals what are the choices you're making because i gave you the power to choose don't forfeit don't concede don't pretend don't point a finger i would be different if only no don't blame your spouse your children your rebbe your teacher your dna your genetics your neighbor don't blame everyone around you look in that mirror and say i have a ruach i have a telemall of kim you breathe life into me you gave me the power to choose now that doesn't mean we don't need help sometimes they're often we need help when we choose and we're allowed to turn to others for help but we still have to show that we still have to exhibit that when we ask for that help it's a great story of a boy walking with his father through the forest and they come across a log and the log is incredibly heavy and the boy turns to his father and he says do you think i can move the law can i lift the log and the father says if you use all your strength i think you can so the boy tries to move the lock and it won't move it's so heavy it's so embedded he can he turns to his father he said i thought you said i can move it he said i told you if you use all your strength i think you can so the boy bends down again and tries to move it he tries to lift it and it won't move it won't budge he's not strong enough he says to his father i thought you told me if i use all my strength i can his father said yes if you use all your strength you can he tries the third time it doesn't move he turns to his father incredulous and he says i thought he said i can move and his father says i told you if you use all your strength you could but you didn't use all your strength you didn't ask me for help using our strength is asking others for help it's not a sign of weakness to need help it's a sign of strength to be able to ask others for help but we have to take the extreme ownership exhibit the responsibility make the choice to ask for help so when i say that we have the choice and we can forge our destiny i'm not suggesting that we can't ever ask for help or use help there's something to be ashamed or guilty about about help the stronger you are the more help that you ask for it's not weakness it's strength but we have to be the ones to do it so so far i'm just reviewing what we said last week of shorts the bilvavi what does it mean don't remove my bakhira my power of choice point number one point number two he said was at the root at the core of all mistakes if you've learned with me for any amount of time you know that i hate the translation of sin sin is a christian catholic word it's not a jewish word i don't even know what the word sin means sin iniquity i have no idea what those things are i know what a hate is it's a mistake it's a mistake said that i should've eaten without the slept it's a mistake i made a mistake i made a mistake a hate in marriage i made a mistake i didn't listen i wasn't sensitive i was cruel what i said i wasn't helpful it's a mistake it's a mistake a hate is a mistake again it's a missed opportunity shoot an arrow you miss so every time we perform a hate every time we make a mistake at the core of the mistake we've made the reason we make that mistake is we allow ourselves or worse we choose to be absent or free of god in that moment in other words if i felt god's presence his hand was resting on my shoulder felt he's in the room felt he has an awareness or supervision of what i'm doing i could never make that mistake i would never make the mistake what enables me or empowers me to make that mistake is that i allowed myself or even worse i chose in that moment to say god stay outside god go to another room i want to watch this or i want to say this or i want to eat this or i want to go there or i want to behave in this way so but it's uncomfortable and it's incongruous and it's inconsistent to do it with you here so do me a favor step outside now we don't consciously have that thought pattern we don't consciously express that or articulate that but in our subconscious that's what we're doing we're saying god you're back at shul god you're in the basement you're in the mid rasha you're inside my sitter you're in my towels bag you're next to my candlesticks god but in the thing i want to do right now it would be inconvenient or uncomfortable for you to be there you're not here you're only over there so the foundation of the prerequisite to the mistake that we make spiritually and not only spiritually is our subconscious ability to divide or distinguish or segregate or retreat from an awareness or feeling of presence that hashem is right there we forget that's what it means when hazard say that a person who performs a hate if you make such a mistake nichnas you became a fool for a moment you've become a an idiot you've closed your eyes you've closed your eyes you know i'll make a comparison which could be painful i don't mean to for some unfortunately it is but you know the person who on the business trip god forbid flirts with someone of the opposite gender and god forbid god forbid makes a mistake a deeply painful and damaging and hurtful mistake sometimes irreparable so what enabled them to make that mistake what enabled them to go to that room of the associate that only led to problems in that moment their warped manipulated distorted way of thinking was i'm not really married on this trip i'm not i don't know the status of being married in this hotel in this place at this time in other words if a person sat and said i stood under the hoop and i made vows and i took a promise and i have children and i made a pledge and either i need to get out of that marriage and move on or i need to honor the marriage and repair it but doing this to violate not only violates the other person but it violates my own integrity if a person actually sat and had that whole thought pattern they could never do what they were going to do lmi what happens they don't have that thought pattern instead they feel and they say well maybe the marriage doesn't apply in this bubble called this business trip or wherever i've gone or whatever with whomever i am so that's the nickname such thinking is moronic such thinking is idiotic such thinking is foolish and stupid you'll excuse me any otherwise really intelligent and brilliant and bright people suspend their normal logical rational thinking to allow such moronic thinking to enter into them leading to self-destructive conclusions that sabotage their whole lives their whole lives are thrown away as a result we are in a marriage we are in a loving relationship we're in a romantic encounter with hashem and when we allow that hate that we are making that same choice consciously or subconsciously articulated or implicitly we too are saying you know what i'm not married to god in this moment because then i couldn't do what i really want to do i can't really follow through on what i want to do right now so what do we do instead we say god you're in shul you're my sitter you're next to my mitzvah but where i am right now with what i want to do right now you're not really here so what is he building up to what is the main point where does amuna come into chuba this transforms my way of thinking this ello never thought about it in this way not only never understood this possum not only never understood this this fila of atash don't cast me away don't give up on me don't take my ruaka kodesh i never thought i had ruha kodesh so this pasak was applying to the person next to me i was saying it because it's in the maksar but it applies to the person next to me don't take my i never thought i had rocha kodesh but now no this applies to me and how does it apply to every one of us because as we reflect and think about the mistakes we've made we need to own up to the fact that the foundation the prerequisite the core central to every mistake we made before even that mistake that we made was allowing ourselves to forget there's god allowing ourselves to be distance for god pretending for a moment that we weren't married to god forgetting for a moment that we're accountable to god in other words a breach and failure of ammuna a breakdown of a feeling that he's by my side he's in the room his hands is on my shoulder is what enabled me to say or eat or do or go or think that thing that was the mistake but even before the mistake was the bigger mistake of forgetting to be connected to hashem so that break that breach of the connection with them is the core essential to what led to that problem to begin with i forgot so varua that ruach that you're inside me that you're forever with me that your presence is always felt with me the mindfulness of you which is of your holiness of your sanctity of your presence in my life the ruach the ruach we've got ruach yes we do we've got how about you to live my life with a ruach i've got a ruach you ever see people who are on fire with ammuna they've gotta they don't usually walk around like this i love hashem there's hashimoto they're not usually like miserable their head down they're mumbling person who feels their life for that moon and they're like ah i love hashem he's everywhere and i should have amazing they have a ruach they have a spirit there's a joy there's a zest there's an enthusiasm there's a zeal there's a ruach so we are meant to have that ruach the ruach the ruach in me the spirit the joy the enthusiasm the energy of kachaka of your holiness of your sanctity of your presence the ruach the mindfulness that you're here that you're with me that you're everywhere don't give up on me yes i stand before you today and yes we're taking an inventory of every way i went wrong and yes at the core of each time i went wrong it was because i forgot i was married to you that spirit that joy that enthusiasm that energy of kachaka that you're always with me don't take it don't take it away don't give up on me don't abandon me don't walk up don't walk away from me okay back to this text and i'm happy to share it with anybody afterwards it's very short but i'm going to read it to you and translate to you all so when we stand before hashem kippur and if you're listening to this in a february march april it applies any time all year round whenever we want to repair that relationship we come and we say two things number one allah myself i'm really sorry hashem i did x y z the mice the act i'm sorry i spoke to la shmura sorry i slept in indian davana i'm sorry i failed to make a bracha when i ate i'm sorry i didn't keep shabbas the way i could i'm sorry i didn't give away stucco generously as you asked me to i'm sorry for the mice i made a mistake i'm sorry but not only am i sorry for the mice of the reaction asiba the reason the cause the driver that led me to the height um and do you know where i went wrong you know what led to this mice and to this act do you know what led to it was that i allowed myself to be without you i stood and i confronted it alone i looked in the cabin at the cover to the shelf in the supermarket and when i was fighting to eat healthy i didn't invoke you and say hashem give me the strength when i had that juicy lashing hara on the tip of my tongue and the edge of my lips i didn't say i sham help me i know you don't want me to say it help me i looked at the challenges and i confronted the nicunas the tests of life and i thought i can do it alone i tried to do it alone i acted arrogantly as if i am alone and i forgot to invoke you and draw from you i forgot to welcome you and invite you so not only am i asking forgiveness machila for the mice there's the particular act of where i went wrong but also there's the siba the drive of the reason the reason ultimately i violated that act that indiscretion and i was wrong is because i allowed myself to forget about you you weren't there in my in that moment again if you come back to my metaphor maybe it's not exact i just thought about it now so in other words yes says the husband could be the wife i allowed myself to flirt at the bar inappropriately on the business trip but you know why i spoke inappropriately and flirted because i didn't picture you i forgot i'm in love with you i didn't have your picture as the home screen on my phone i didn't carry your picture in my wallet i wasn't texting you once an hour to check in and see how you're doing what drove what enabled what allowed that mistake of the act for which i need forgiveness is the fact that i forgot about you i forgot about you it's a totally different way of thinking about so if you stand before hashem and you say forgive me for this forgive me for that forgive me for the other thing but you never included forgive me forgetting about you forgive me for the fact that at times in my relationship i went at it alone i forgot to invoke you draw from you talk to you listen to you spend time with you remember you then you've never really asked for forgiveness you've never really asked for forgiveness if you come back and you say yes i flirted with her it was a mistake i'm so sorry for the mistake but you don't say you know what i'm really sorry for i'm sorry that we're not more connected and there isn't more romance and i didn't make a gesture and i didn't check in and i didn't respond to your bid for connection and that i'm not thinking about you all the time and that our marriage is not part of my very core identity then what was the what was really the what was the sincerity of the i'm sorry about the particular act of being flirtatious we've got to change radically in our way lim so derek is not just to promise and pledge not to repeat the act but it's to work on improving what enabled or allowed that act to begin with in other words if you come out of rosh hashanah yom kippur and you're not stronger in yamuna bitahon and vegas then you didn't have rosh hashanah and yum kippur if you just clapped all the alhaits and you turn the pages of the master and you're saying depending what minion you're going to you're saying but you never actually paused and said hashem i need to evaluate my relationship with you if your whole attitude to this time of the year is let me think about where i went wrong let me apologize let me wipe the slate clean and i'll try again but nowhere in that conversation did you say and how am i doing with you hashem do i talk to you do i spend time with you do i feel your presence in my life am i calm and confident that you've got it all covered do i let go and let god if all you do is clap the akhid and all you do is focus on the litany list of what you went wrong but you never stop and say underneath it all where am i where am i one of my favorite therapists to listen to is a woman named esther perel a traditional jew not observant she's from austria a survivor i think she may be a child so her parents were survivors she's become very very popular famous she's a prominent therapist and she has an amazing podcast called where should we begin where she listened into her therapy sessions on couples who've had a breach in the relationship and i find as an amateur counselor i always refer to an expert i never deal with it alone but who spends a lot of time trying to help couples it's very very helpful to me and it's an amazing podcast she has a famous ted talk with millions and millions and millions of hits where she talks about how to recover from infidelity how to recover from infidelity and it's worth watching it's a few minutes long and what she says is every act of infidelity reveals a brokenness to the relationship that could be repaired and you can either bounce back and having having that window into what needs to be repaired repair it and come back stronger than ever or it can spiral and compound and disintegrate and represent the end and if you listen to her podcast she uses that same attitude in her counseling and she of course never concludes that everyone should go out and have an affair so they could learn about their marriage and improve it god forbid of course she doesn't endorse that nor do we or halacha however her point is when there's a breach or a brokenness of violation you could either focus just on the act of the violation ask for forgiveness make up for it beg a tone or excuse me dry throat not corona or you could address it's like if you cough today you have to run out of a room apologize to the world when i'm a children i have to sneeze i run out into my office it's a different world we're living in today anyway talk about the evil eye so of course you shouldn't experiment in order to learn from it but if god forbid it happens the attitude or approach the response you can have to it is to learn and grow or to allow it to disintegrate quickly and the same that's exactly what the bible is saying it's exactly the same theory and thesis in every violation of hashem and that's exactly what a hate is that's exactly what rosh hashanah yom kippur we come to say hashem i violated i made mistakes i ignored your will i was not obedient i wasn't compliant i hurt you i hurt myself so do i just focus on the list or is the act of infidelity to god a window into what's wrong in my relationship rosh hashanah kipper do i come back again any time of the year do i ever sit back and say i'm not just going to focus on the abc i'm not going to go through the ah god news and say what exactly i'm going to first begin or i'm going to complement that by asking myself what is the state of my relationship what's the state of my relationship with god is it better this year than it was last year or is it worse do i feel closer do i feel more far more distant what is the state of my relationship to him because if i don't address that if i don't mismodate if i'm not addressing evaluating measuring if i'm not asking myself what is the state of my relationship do i feel his love and do i love him back do we spend time do i talk to him do i hear him talking to me do i feel his presence do i let go and let god if i don't stop and ask what's the state of my relationship then i haven't really done shiva even if i've asked forgiveness for the particular things so again coming back to our metaphor so if the injured party says thank you for saying you're sorry you flirted with someone else but can we talk about our marriage what allowed that to happen obviously you don't feel so in love so connected so close what enabled you to forget that i'm here or forget me or allowed you to hurt me in that way you say look i said i'm sorry i don't want to talk about those things what does have to do with anything i said i'm sorry for the act of 30. i won't flirt again i flirted it was a mistake i regret it i apologize i won't do it again why do we have to talk about that so that injured party's gonna why do we have to talk about that that's everything if we don't talk about that what's the value of your sorry you're sorry for the particular act you're more likely sorry because you were caught in the act or caught having done the act if you're really sorry then you're willing to stop and say let's talk about the relationship how can we impair repair how can we improve how can we grow even closer than ever so in that moment when you're tempted we have to feel i'm not alone a person is tempted to flirt you have to say one second i'm madly in love i'm not going to hurt the other person i'm not going to throw that away is taxes i want to gossip about somebody else but i i i want to feel your presence if you're here i can't do that if i know you're in the room i find the strength and i know i'm accountable to the degree and directly related and proportional to our awareness and our closeness to hashem will be our strength and ability to withstand the temptation and not to in fact violate violate his will more we go through life and we're alone the more we go through life alone thinking we got it we can handle it the more vulnerable the more fragile the more likely we are to fall so if i'm looking back and saying you know what i was tempted i was tempted and i failed i made a mistake i gave into the temptation i failed i failed so part of overcoming the next time i'll be tempted is to say i don't want to be alone again the reason i failed in my temptation is i was alone you weren't with me i forgot about that relationship i took off my wedding ring to you and i went at it alone and i thought i'd be okay so you know hashem i'm putting it back on i'm never without you i always will have an awareness of you the antidote the answer the strength the power to do better in the future is to work on that relationship the mindfulness the presence of hashem you know part of is not just about okay i was caught okay i'm appearing before the judge i'm sorry i'm sorry to know whether it's a sincere i'm sorry is to say what's your plan what's your plan okay i appreciate your saying you're sorry i appreciate it i believe you it's sincere i believe you have regrets and remorse i believe you feel bad i believe you when you say you're sorry good what's your plan for it to not happen again what's your plan plan i don't know i haven't thought about it i don't have a plan well then what's the value of your sorry because you're gonna end up doing it again if you don't have a plan to make sure it doesn't happen again then you're not really sorry following my rosh hashanah this is not just his ovaries this is not like a mushroom i want to get you psyched for rosh hashanah so listen to this this is life this is all about life this is relationship insight it's relationship 101 it's relationship in marriage it's relationship in the human realm and it's our relationship with hashem this is relationships 101 101 do you say you're sorry what's your plan in the future when you made a mistake it reveals a flaw in the relationship that needs to be repaired that needs to be upgraded that needs to be updated that needs to be improved if you turn this into a way of life if you focus on hashem not about mistakes and apologies but you turn it into evaluating a relationship and improving it hashem is opposite me he's next to me he's part of every area of life and particularly when i'm in a challenging situation particularly in the moments i'm being tested that's when i most feel his presence that's when i most lean on him that's when i most remember i'm in a romantic relationship with him then you have everything then you have the tools then you have the power then you have the strength to overcome anything and so as we go into this new year this was the last year of the year the last year of the year the good news is the first year of the new year is next week as we go into the new year as we finish the last year of this year to draw that strength we have it inside us to re to reflect on our relationship we're about to enter the period we started saying don't just use this time of year as a list but think about that relationship and the next time that you feel challenged and tested don't go out alone you don't have to be at it alone the more that you have the easier it is to overcome i once called dr pelkovitz a mentor of mine mentor of everybody with a particularly challenging question really challenging psychological question and i didn't know what to do the scenario the circumstance was overwhelming so he listened to me and he paused and then he said to me the following he said studies show that when you're standing at the base of a mountain of an incline that you need to walk up the degree of difficulty of the incline is directly proportional to whether you're alone or with other people when you're all alone it looks much steeper and it looks much harder and you have much less confidence you can climb it but you're with others it looks more shallow it looks easier and you believe you can get to the top so he turned so he said to me dr pelkins he tells me that says i don't have an answer for you i don't know what to tell you but i'm standing at the base of the mountain with you that's what he said to me it was a beautiful imagery it didn't really help me with the question i had but it was a beautiful imagery that you're not at it alone and i love that imagery that's what three bonuses saying you're going through life you're going through corona pandemic you're going through loneliness you're being tested in whichever and whatever way you're not at the base of the of the mountain alone hashem says i'm right next to you you still have to climb the mountain you still have to make it to the top you still have an incline and it's steep but it's going to look less steep and you're going to have more strength and vigor to climb it because i'm right next to you so let's invite hashem to be right next to us so that we can climb to the top of every mountain that we need to mr shen get to the top of a good game all of hashem's blessings and uh join us tonight the last behind the beam of the year rabbi yeshi kamanetsky or bistrol kaminetsky the men of drs will be our special guest it's going to be amazing we're also going to premiere a new video tonight exclusive showing on behind the bema nine o'clock tonight until then stay happy stay healthy and stay holy