Living With Emunah (Part 174): From the Head to the Heart

good morning welcome back to our weekly living with amuna our support group our friendship group whatever you want to say without a stigma to remind ourselves that we are living with ammuna that we're not trying to make our way through this world on our own trying to figure it out by ourselves but there's a god and he loves us and he created us and he has expectations for us and he's watching over us i want to thank our generous sponsors of the series the living with the munna series for the year dr xavier and bella morgan in memory of rabbi dr brian galbet and in memory of bella's mother dr ellen shanzer thank you so much for your generosity and for your sponsorship this morning as well this particular class is sponsored by the wax family in commemoration on the earth side of canter laser wax end of simcha wax on tabis cantor wax of course was a dear beloved member of our community a dear friend an amazing role model we miss him we miss his voice his literal voice and his figurative voice in our community it's also sponsored by our dear friend yvette cowble in memory of her stepfather with whom she was so close solomon shai benefi mosho passed away this week she and her family are in mourning we wish them comfort and consolation through the wonderful memories they have of this special man okay we are continuing our study of dwekas in the sephora of morgenstern the uh say front vegas how we can cling to how we can stick to it we can connect to god that's the essence of life he says all of torah and mitzvos are all a platform for how to live a mindful life with god of god with god to know that he's in our lives to turn to him to lean on him to depend on him to rely on him to think of him in those moments and so rivets amaya has described to us first of all why we need vegas that's the essence of all that's why we have torah interests it's why we're doing what we're doing all of those are to advance and promote the awareness of and the connection to hashem no matter what's happening good or bad but to stay calm because it's what's meant to be relax that's what's meant to be i was talking to someone last week who because of corona regulations got stuck in new york away from his family and i said clearly that's what hashem clearly that's where hashem wants you to be now your job is to figure out why so you could sit there and cry and moan and be resentful and angry of why can't i get back and why can't i be with my family or you can stop and say it's pretty frustrating pretty disappointing but my job now is to stop and ask why am i meant to be here why does hashem want me here that's vacus when you cling to god you know that he's behind everything he's orchestrating and organizing and choreographing curating everything in your life and now the mission is to figure out why when we see his hand try to understand what does it mean for us what's meant for us what can we learn from it how can we grow from it so he's been describing the different uh ways the path to how to acquire this this life of vegas and the first thing was emunah if you don't have an awareness of if you don't really believe and you're not cognizant that hashem is in our life then you're not going to cling to him you don't click to a figment of your imagination you don't cling to something that isn't real you cling to something that you know to be true and how do you achieve amunah how does one live with ammuna study think learn and then we spend some time talking about attaching ourselves finding that person who has deep faith and attaching yourself to them being with them spending time with them because the moon are living that awareness that energy is contagious it's contagious so find that person and be connected and be aware and be with them because that is because that is contagious that was all the first path which is edmund and then we moved over to the second which we started last week his bonus a year of advacus hispane in us do we make time do we take care of time to think how are you gonna have a relationship if you don't make time every relationship in life parents children spouse friends even the people you work with if you want to be efficient and productive every relationship demands time and if you don't allocate the time if you don't have hispanics space to think and to reflect and to plan to interpret to absorb then you're never going to be awake you're never going to be aware we have so much noise coming in all the time this little music or a speaker playing in our head reading a book we're running we're going we're doing from the moment wake up to the moment we fall asleep some people wake up with something playing and some people can't fall asleep unless they left something on that's how badly they crave and need the noise but the noise is clogging the noise creates static we need this bone in us you need time you need time when i spent the summer at kellogg management school we um one of the professors who spoke to us really one of the visiting professors was the ceo of baxter a company that had tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of employees and the ceo told us he did it through a whole exercise but he asked us what do you think is the most important part of my day what do you think is the most important thing that i do so everybody guessed of course as the ceo the responsibilities what he would be in charge of so he told us and i was shocked he said the most important part of my day is what is on my calendar that i leave my office i leave my phone behind my secretary knows it cannot be disturbed and i either go for a walk if it's cold i sit in my car but i have allocated dedicated time to think dedicated time to think does anyone have on their schedule outlook google whatever keeps your schedule do you have on your schedule time to think to us that would be like torture time you might as well put in root canal or colonoscopy because being alone and by ourselves and shutting down the noise and being forced to have nothing but our own thoughts sitting there and thinking is a form of torture so you might as well put in something much more torturous than thinking but imagine if you had in your schedule every day just think just think that is what you're doing you're just there to think and he said that's where the breakthroughs and the creativity and the vision and the imagination so when it comes to our relationship with hashem we need to allocate time to think to think about him and to look for him and to reflect upon what he means to us and where we can find him and then to cling to him so again these are all the methods these are all the strategies these are all the necessary ingredients to living a life of devacus if ultimately we're going to cling to him and feel connected to him then you need to have a muna you need to know he's there you're not going to cling to something which is make-believe so number one is that number when a person is contemplative when you think that god is the king of kings who fills the entire world omid allah virab he stands over us and he sees everything there's an eye watching and an ear listening it's not just being recorded by google it's being recorded by the almighty immediately you will recoil with a sense of oh wow wow that's hashem all of this all of this you ever gone and we have this luxury in florida that others don't have you can just drive east till you can't go anymore and you are over the ocean and just look at the ocean and look at the waves and the immortal words where the ocean meets the sky and you realize you just keep looking as far as the eye can see is water is ocean is waves is a beautiful sky it's clouds he's in charge he's in control he is the creator of all of this of everything every grain of sand every speck of dust every human being all of us he's intimately aware of everything going on in our lives and he's not just aware of it as if he's just recording it or observing it he's intimately involved in orchestrating all that's happening and he does it he does it for our best he does it for us he does it with our interest in mind that's what life is about but you got to make time to think got to make beach time or going for a walk time or the three minutes of meditation time or however you want to put it in your calendar it's not going to happen that relationship it won't be nourished it won't grow unless we make the time because the core way to merit vegas to cling to god again let's just talk about what are the benefits the cheating to take us why are we fixated on trying to do it what's the purpose the benefit is calm happiness fulfillment physically you're going to do better emotionally spiritually so how do you get to that place of vegas where you have the confidence and you have the comfort of knowing god's always got your back that he's always in the room that he's always part of the plan how do you get there idea by being diligent in our thought patterns and allocating that time you give his bone in his belo and to contemplate about hashem who is he what makes he tick to learn to be curious to fall in love with god and to feel his presence to feel his presence in our lives he writes here in the footnote rivets he says there are some people who feel it more naturally they are the yosefs of our lives barak hashem there's a young woman in our community unfortunately just got up from shiva you're around her she's a ball of amuna energy she just talks about hashem and hashem and mighty hillam and my diamonding and my connection even as she lost her beloved father hashem and hashem and i love hashem elena and i feel hashem and hashem is my best friend i can never do it without hashem and for her it comes naturally for her it comes easily not to suggest she didn't have to work on moona and davening but first of all again it's contagious when you hang around such people a but there are others for whom it doesn't come so naturally yes there are some who by nature are cynics are sarcastic some are doubters and skeptics some it's much harder what do you mean that was hashem in the red light what do you mean that was hashem in that gust of wind what do you mean that was hashem in the iguana that fell out of the tree it's going to be 40 degrees in florida this friday what do you mean it was the iguana that fell what do you mean it's hashem in the waves of the ocean or what do you mean it's hashem in my in my flight taking off what do you mean that's science it's nature so for some it takes a lot more effort to overcome that instinct towards cynicism or skepticism or even only scientific thinking which judaism embraces of course torah embraces it doesn't reject the game it's not only that different people are different it's not just that some naturally see and feel hashem and others will struggle it's that all of us depends on the day there are days we wake up and it's all hashem day i see him everywhere and i feel his presence and i'm in love with him i can't get enough with him i want to spend more time with him i want to dab it and talk to him i want to look at the world and hear him talking to me and there are other days you're like hashem who what hashem sitter's just not flowing the talema is just not opening the mitzvahs are just happening by rote you look around and you don't see him anywhere because why would he do this to me and why would these things be happening and why would i have to struggle through this so it's not binary it's not all or nothing you don't either live entirely with a muna or you're an atheist a doubter who has no faith and it's not that all people are equal it's not that all days or hours in our life are equal every moment is different but we have to work on it takes this effort you got to invest time energy place the time to thought diligence in what we're thinking about and we've got to build that amuna muscle build that amuna muscle but i'll give you a story about a munda muscle i always tell everybody to send me in their stories so that i can share them to mkhazeek ourselves to one another about seeing hashem in our lives about feeling his presence so one of our wonderful listeners one of the members of our chabura growing in our moon shared with me a greater moon story that she's a teacher she was in a panic she didn't know how she was going to get her evaluations done at school and had work with her students on a certain online platform because we're living in crazy times and our teachers are heroes they've had to adapt to whole new systems overnight and learn a technology which may not be their specialty they're really extraordinary major shout out to our teachers so she said she panicked and she knew she needed some help she was never going to get done by the end of the school's term and of course her job relied on it her job was on the line it was critical she came to school and had so much had to get done had to get online do the virtual had to get the evaluation to get everything done she was somewhat panicked but then she took a deep breath she thought about hashem and when she got school turned out the internet was down and didn't get fixed the entire day and her conclusion was it's not a coincidence i was able to do my assessments i felt it was only thanks to hashem's guiding hand she felt his presence in her life so there are examples you could be like oh internet was down what a coincidence on the very day that i needed the internet to be down it was down what chance how random what a coincidence or you could be overflowing you could be elevated by wow i i panicked i turned hashem on my way to work i didn't know how it was all going to happen i told them god i'm clinging to you like glue devec vegas i'm sticking with you and lo and behold he found a way sometimes the way is we get more work done than we thought we could sometimes the way is that the internet goes down who knows who knows the amazing thing is she sent me this email because she saw hashem's hand in her life which means that the next day she'll see it again and she'll see it more but it only happens if our antenna is extended it only happens if we're looking and this requires tremendous diligence it requires real hasmada it doesn't happen if we're not looking it doesn't happen if we're not trying it doesn't happen if we're casual in our relationship with hashem you know again i'll come back to the metaphor of all the other relationships in our lives there are gestures that husbands and wives our parents and children make to each other all the time but do we notice do we see them are we grateful for them in a good marriage in a healthy relationship you have to make the effort so let's say one party always takes out the garbage but the other surprises that i'll take it out does the other one come home and say i noticed you take out the garbage thank you i appreciate it my antennas extended i see the small gesture the little things that you did you either didn't do the thing that i hate that happens or you did the thing that you know i deeply care about hashem is doing those things for us all the time the internet's down so do you think it's random coincidence that you move on do you just curse out comcast again or do you say the internet's down it's exactly what i needed the internet is down hashem i love you you came through and i needed you and i needed you icca so that's setting aside time investing ourselves to think about these things the circle is housed in these bonuses we will fulfill so spend time putting your outlook putting your google putting whatever you're doing i don't care you're in the garden you're on vacation i don't care if you're home i don't care if you're at work wherever you are whenever you can put in the calendar three minutes i'm talking three minutes a day out of a 24-hour day you can't find three minutes what's 24 times 60. you can't find three minutes one minute start with one minute put in your schedule one minute when you brush your teeth you're gonna think about god when you when you do whatever activity you're going to think about god unplug disconnect and determine that you're going to place your thoughts about god where was he in my life what has worked out what did i ask for that i got what do i still need and i want to protest him about i want to think about him i want to talk to him i want to confide in him i want to listen and hear and feel him talking to me and when you do that you're going to grow a relationship what is vagus if not a closer bond vegas is a closer and closer relationship devegas clinging sticking connecting to hashem feeling him in your life but let's say you're married and you never ever talk to your spouse you have children you have a friend you have a neighbor you never ever talk to them and you wonder i don't know why i have no relationship i don't know why i don't feel close i don't know why i don't feel their presence in my life um you never talk to them you never spend time with them you never make yourself vulnerable to them you never listen actively to their talking to you of course you have no relationship so why should i be different with god and people tell me all the time you know i don't feel hashem's presence in my life i don't know if he's there i don't really connect with him have you nourished and nurtured that relationship at all of course you don't to to you god is a complete stranger so i also don't have a relationship with the guy or the girl over there on the other side of the airport or the train station or public supermarket i never met them never spent time with them never invested in never confide never vulnerable i never went on the journey to discover to learn about who they are or to let them learn about me of course there's no relationship so why should it be different with hashem you have to talk to him confide in him spend time with him and think about him because if you don't of course there won't be a relationship don't be surprised later when there's no relationship so when you live that way than vegas then you feel them all the time um and one completes we're all capable of knowing about god today and to place it in our hearts that is our mission that is our mandate that is our message that's what we're trying to get to that's what we're trying to achieve that's what we're trying to arrive at the adata home every day know vashivasa to put it in our hearts why does the pasta get to say this is an alino it's part of our daphnik first of all the knowledge it should be believed today believe today take the leap of faith today believe today feel today what do you mean viadata you can know today and place it where where should a muna happen where should vegas happen i would have thought you know where they happen should happen i'm sorry shopping in my heart i feel god's presence in my heart i have faith in god in my heart in my head rather confused this morning i would have thought where should i happen in my head and my brain that's where i'm going to contemplate god's existence that's where i'm going to explore evidence for god's existence where shouldn't it happen if you would have asked me i would have thought it should happen in my head and yet the pastor tells us where does it happen put it in your heart why in your heart because you know the farthest distance between the two things in the world is the distance between our head and our heart you can know intellectually and academically a million things talk to you to your blue in the face about evidence for god's existence saint thomas aquinas the first cause argument there's a million arguments a million pieces of evidence of god's existence i could read permission to believe permission to receive i could tell you a million arguments intellectually for god's existence but if it's going to remain in your head the farthest distance from any other object from your heart it never trickles down it never comes down it never penetrates it never transforms you then it will remain upstairs aristotle when challenged that he was this great uh authority on morality but at times didn't live a moral life said i'm aristotle from the neck up that was his answer aristotle from the neck up in my head i write books i philosophize i teach i'm aristotle from the neck up but the neck down where the world of temptation the world of action the world of distraction there i'm only aristotle from the neck up so do we only have a muna from the neck up that's really the question do you have a muna only from the neck up emunah from the neck up means i went to the discovery seminar and i read the books about the bible codes and i've read permission to believe permission to receive and i've read every book on the planet listen every lecture with all the evidence that there's a god that hashem is here from the neck up i can tell you everything check i dive in three times a day i learned that daf yeah i give my stukka check i subscribe to goldberg zamunda what's app group and four hundred other um what's app groups and i have every book ever written on imuna from the neck up amuna king i'm the queen but what about from the neck down what about when the rubber meets the road what about in your life do you panic do you get angry do you get envious do you get frustrated do you feel anxiety and overwhelmed do you have a moon of the trickles down from the head trickles down all the way to the heart and now my heart is calm cool even keeled stole from hashem i'm meant to be stuck not me the person i was talking to i'm meant to be stuck in new york it's where i'm meant to be i'm leaning in now i just got to figure out why i meant to miss my flight i meant to go through this struggle i'm meant to have this hard time i meant to forget to press record on my shear last night not me somebody else who i love very much who gave an extraordinary sheer and then afterwards says i didn't press record so you could either panic and get frustrated you get angry and you can't sleep and that's all you could think about and you're upset at why it happened and who didn't help you from from making it happen or you said it's what's meant to be that version was not meant to be recorded how do i know because it wasn't that's how i know it wasn't i could re-record it or i could move on to the next in the series but that version that class was not meant to be recorded does it trickle down from the head from intellectual from wednesday mornings from what's app groups does it trickle down to the heart and what is meant to trickle down to the heart what needs to get there from the head that came that hashem is god anode ain't owed back in the beginning of the moon sharon we're talking how many hundreds we've done back towards the start we focused and we learned a lot about ain't nova though the possibility the song you know uh one of my daughters just wrote me a beautiful card and she included her memories with me in one of the memories she said you know she has the little could get nervous and anxious and in challenging times so she had this major problem that she loved rollers coasters but she hates roller coasters it's a real problem if you love when the roller coaster ride is over but you hate before it starts you got a real dilemma because you look at the roller coaster when you're with your family in the park and you want to go on every one when it's over but what about but what about at the beginning when you're online so we were online and i taught her the song in ode malvado and uh like a bunch of uh weirdos she and i stood online i forgot which amusement park it was and what insane roller coaster she was dragging me on and as we stood online we were singing david i believe look it up i'll share it with the group ain't no movado so she wrote me in her card years later said i'll never forget how you taught me that when i'm nervous for situations where i'm anxious just sing ain't novada you you're being slipped into the mri machine and you know movado they're drawing the blood from your arm a node movado forgot to press record ain't no mobile you missed your flight ain't that's our mission that's our mandate that's why we're here it's what it's all about the adatahayom to know today it's not enough that i once knew 10 years ago and it's not that in two years i'll know the adata haiyom today i know and i'm living and i'm practicing and i'm putting it in my heart and what am i putting it in my heart ain't a node effect there's nothing but him ain't ode ain't no vado there is nothing but him and if there's nothing but him and we are all just a piece of him and it's all just part of his plan for this world then it's all meant to be it's all meant to be so you could panic over failing to press record you could panic over getting stuck somewhere or you could just lean in and say that's the way it was meant to be now why do i need to re-record should i just leave it it wasn't meant to be recorded now why now what's next what do i learn from it a node he says every time that you merit every time that a person merits let's say every time you merit to leave a little bit from the look the outlook of teva every time you can get out of the perspective of teva what's teva tev is the natural order now do jews believe does the torah believe in nature sure we have laws of nature we have biology chemistry physics of course we believe in nature we study nature we manipulate nature we master nature hashem gave us nature absolutely of course we believe in nature but there's a philosophy and an outlook of nature and the philosophy of outlook of nature says it's all part of the natural world everything is just nature there is nothing but nature and and that's the philosophy and attitude that we're meant to be rising above that were meant to be transcending is not just a philosophy an approach and an attitude that it's all it's natural now that wasn't god it was natural it was meant to be that way that just happens it's part of the natural order we need to rise above that that's what hashem said to avraham get out of the house and get out of that philosophy get out of looking through the horoscopes get out of that approach which is an approach of of teva nature natural everything is just natural ullah yo so nothing's nature nothing's nature the snowfall that white powder i happen to have gone to a wedding coming back today and outside this room there is white stuff everywhere i didn't recognize it at first even though i grew up with it because i haven't seen it in so long still selling apparently it's called snow so when the snow falls let's say and delayed your plan it changed your plans and compromised your plans that's nature it's part of the ecological cycle the natural cycle you know just if it's cold and water evaporates and condensates and then it gathers and then it falls and it's just the way it happens it's nature or do you say no it's not nature it's no this is hashem giving us a hug falling from shania it's what it's meant to be it's by design it's a plan for whatever reason so there's two attitudes or approaches two philosophies to life there's teva there's nature it's all natural and there's the mabata the mitsia there's the spiritual glasses so you put those spiritual glasses where you look around the world and you all you see is hashem i see hashem in everything i see hashem in the car in the airplane the traffic light i saysham and the people i see hashem and the things i remember ashe hashem and the things i forget i just see him in technology i see him in the bottle of water i'm drinking i just see hashem everywhere it's not water is not natural what do you mean what is the most natural thing it is most of the earth is covered in nature most of mankind is made up of covered in water most of man is made of water water is the most natural thing no water is hashem this clear h2o this liquid which sustains and causes us to survive this is hashem it's a shackle wow it's hashem nothing's nature it's hashem so the more degree the more that we can do that as i shower i love odysseus the light of god will shine down we bear the countenance that light of god we illuminate the world when we live that way that was yosef it's the partials we're reading right now the brothers come down to egypt and yosef doesn't take revenge and yosef doesn't take a moment to give him the greatest muslims of all time and yosef doesn't blast them into the heavens you know what he says boys relax brothers take a deep breath don't worry i'm not going to get even i'm not angry you think this was you this wasn't you now he could have held them accountable people are accountable someone damages their car steals your money of course you're entitled there's a base then there's closure of mishpot and you're entitled to hold them accountable but yosef says you know you think i'm in egypt because you sold me to egypt that's pretty arrogant of you i'm in egypt because god wanted me to be in egypt and yes your very wicked and evil choice to sell me here says a lot about you and you've got to atone for that but i'm in egypt because that was hashem's plan so don't worry i'm not going to take revenge and i'm not going to hurt you because i'll tattoo don't get angry don't get upset don't get depressed it's all hashem's plan hashem wanted me in egypt and he wanted me to rise to the level of viceroy and wanted me to be in charge of the economy and he wanted us to bring our family down here and ultimately to be enslaved here but to be able to emerge and come out a nation from here and that was all hashem's plan he orchestrated he organized that was all from above what do you think that was you you think that was you don't be so arrogant don't be so pompous it's not you it's not you so josefa sadiq he lives life he sees and he interprets everything that's happening i'm falsely accused i live in prison so that wasn't pleasant to go through i'm sure 12 years 12 years of an unjust sentence 12 years of languishing in prison but you know what he tells the brothers the 22 years were wonderful it was all part of hashem's plan i understand the last 10 years were part of hashem's plan the 10 years of of being in charge of the economy of egypt the 10 years of being the vice president of the viceroy i can understand why he thinks those are pretty pleasant but the 12 years in prisons were also good so jose says yeah you know why because when i look back i realized that those 12 years in prison they made me a kinder person i knew what it meant to be hungry i knew what it meant to be down i knew what it meant to be need to be vulnerable and to need others i knew what it meant and when i came out it positioned me to better treat and take care and to care about other people and therefore those 10 years those 12 years of prison were also part of the plan of my 10 years of when i rose towards towards greater towards greater greatness so do we look at our lives and even the hard parts of our lives and realize they contributed to make us who we are they made us who we are they cracked open our heart and they enabled us to feel they enabled us to break through they enabled us to grow they enabled us to become who we are and the best version of who we're meant to be the one who's created feels our creator but holy bow with all of our heart with all of our heart the kirby's name is and one feels with every fiber of their being the pleasantness the beauty the brightness of the light of hashem the glory of the splendor shakota that any pleasure you have in this world and there are pleasures none greater than the cup of coffee in the morning you know i'm in love with that cup of coffee there are great pleasures of this world there are physical pleasures and emotional pleasures there are pleasures that we experience but they all pale in comparison they're negligible and nothing compared to the pleasure of connecting and feeling hashem to know he loves us he's in control there's a plan to know that we see him everywhere to feel we are in his embrace to know that we are have his love but sarah is and he ends the section which amaya and he says if you put in the time three minutes a day one minute a day put it in your schedule one minute a day of hispanics if you put in the time and you make the effort extend that antenna look for him feel him talk to him confide in him be vulnerable listen to him talking to you he says if you search i promise you you will find i promise you the most hardened cynic or skeptic but if you talk to god you let him in your life and you don't panic i forgot to press record it's part of his plan i'm meant to get stuck here it's part of his plan whatever one is going through i'll just i'm the roller coaster i'm gonna have a great time it's part of his plan or nobody told me you have to go on it but whatever it is don't just know it like aristotle don't just have amuna from the neck up where do you have to put it put it in your heart crack open that heart let your heart feel elokim a node that hashem is god ain't there is no one and there is nothing but him wishing everyone in a moon a filled day stay happy stay healthy stay holy tonight 9pm we're going behind the bema with the great mayor k mayor k does youtube videos positivity love faith it's mind-boggling he has 350 million you heard that correctly 350 million views on his youtube videos go check them out and if you want to see amuna and you want to talk about positivity and a great energy tonight at 9pm looking forward until then have a fantastic and phenomenal day everybody