Living With Emunah (Part 220) - Uplifted and Lifted Up

good morning boca tov welcome back to our living with emunah support group on wednesday mornings great to be together really it's my uh therapy and you're a lot less expensive for me so i just lie on your proverbial couch and uh share what's ever on my mind and shockingly somehow you must love the donuts and coffee and granola bars and that's enough to come back each week want to thank our generous amunis series sponsors for the year dr xavien bella morgan in memory of rabbi dr brian galbraith in memory of bella's mother dr ellen schanzer al-asham uh both examples of emunah inspirations of emuna this morning she is sponsored by carol the memory of her brother vaynerfall ben benjamin where's carol is carol here here where's carol hiding oh thank you carol thank you by joni and said abrams in honor of susan sidler's eurotight josef sidler's beloved mother susie was a wonderful member of our community she was really an example of living with emunah she did not have the easiest life but she always had a simcha the topic we're studying simcha joy and zest and enthusiasm for life is the barometer it is the metric through which we measure how aramuna is doing and if that is the metric in measure then suzy zamuno was off the charts she believed in hashem she lived with hashem she talked to hashem she advanced hashem's interests and our community misses her in the shadow and aliyah and her beautiful beloved son yosef should have should have strength and comfort and also this morning by a veterinarian cowboy commemoration of the other side of aaron's mother sorry about motion thank you to the cowboys for all they do for our community those neshamas should have and aliyah thank you yvette okay we're gonna dive back in but first one housekeeping note tonight was supposed to be the next segment of rabbis on the run i was supposed to give it but i'm on the run i'm not going anywhere i'm just not giving it so we are postponing and uh it'll take place in two weeks february 1st speaks supposed to speak about the rebel the rayats the friedrich rebben is running from europe saving his life we'll talk about that in two weeks so tonight is postponed do not show up we're gonna send an email i wish there were more ways to let people know undoubtedly someone will come and then we'll send the angry email that they came and no one was here so let it be known i apologize in advance and um if anyone wants to come and entertain whoever will show up feel free to do that okay we are back in revitamire first of all his name is not ravicha meyer's name pronunciation and an affectionate loving nickname pronunciation of yitzhak is itchy and instead of mayor is mayer sort of ichimeier is ravitzhak mayer last week someone said who's richard meyer we're learning this we keep learning the safer of richard meyer who's richard meyer really this richard meyer has such as he's written such beautiful books richard meyer so it's not it's my fault it's because i wasn't pronouncing it clearly it's not anyone else's i'm not making fun it's not uh richard meyer it's ravicha meyer ravitzhak mayor morgenstern was originally from london went to school in america ultimately now today lives in eritsel in you shalom i told you i had the privilege of meeting him last month two months ago spending a little bit of time with him and the simcha was just he was exuding everything that we're learning about that vegas and it just dripped off of him it came clearly right from him so again just to catch you up to where we were we said simcha the sense of joy can only come when you feel whole a person who feels broken is something is missing in their life somebody's struggling confronting challenge conflict tension in their home in their medical life mental health physical health spiritual if you feel broken if you feel something is missing you can't be basingha how could you have joy well that's the case how can anyone be baseball because everyone's missing something you have yet to meet anyone who will tell you i have everything the person who has the closest thing to everything often feels like they have the least person who has the least often feels like they have the most it's the crazy world in which we live but nobody has everything on any given day what do we have this frigid weather all of us woke up today we're missing something what is it like 68 it's unbelievable the rahmanus the people around the world should have for us we're not ready for this so we're all missing something so how if you're missing something can you feel somehow sorry mr myers told us the answer is whatever we're missing you completely that's the new coffee cup we're getting the coffee cups the next one is going to be you complete me hashem you complete me hashem you complete me whatever i'm missing whatever i'm lacking in whatever way i don't feel whole you complete me i attach myself i connect i lean in i latch on i grab on to you and in that way you complete me there is only one thing shelling there's only one thing one being one entity that is whole in the world and the only thing the only one who is wholly who is complete is hashem the further we are from him the more incomplete we are and the more we attach ourselves to him the more we talk to him we thank him we protest him the more we feel his presence in our life then the more connected we are the more connected we are to him you know as a rav barak hashem i have the great privilege of being involved in many simchas and people's happy news and joyous occasions and great things but also a lot of sadness it's not a day that goes by it's not dealing with someone who's challenging pregnancy a diagnosis of an illness a relationship that failed that was so filled with hope and that dissolved that broke off there's such sadness in the world there's such brokenness in the world there's such incompleteness in the world and it sounds like a cliche but the only way to survive the only place to get the resiliency and the strength the only way to endure is to make room for hashem is to invite a menace to talk to him and i always say if i get in trouble when i get upstairs for it so be it but i always say because i believe it is true and i believe there's lots of lots of evidence that's true that believing in hashem does not mean that you just accept everything oklahoma and sinker abraham avinu says to hashem how could you destroy stone i'm bothered i'm protesting i'm objecting i'm asking you to reconsider and rethink i'm challenging you hashem how much says to hashem show me your face why do bad things happen to good people i'm challenging you i'm not satisfied to live in a world where there are good people and bad things are happening to them hashem reconsider i'm begging you i'm protesting we have a masonry talks about and describes when someone we love and we care about when someone we're close to is going through a hard time it should and it does impact and affect every one of us hashem if they're incomplete i'm incomplete if they're in pain i'm in pain they're struggling i'm struggling so i'm protesting when we have a to him gathering what are we doing we're raising our voice in protest not only in request hashem please reconsider we are here in a protest we don't understand we don't accept we're begging we're pleading change your mind change your mind so the only way is to attach ourselves to hashem the only way is to assume to believe the only way is to be confident to grow confidence that whatever is happening there's a reason it's not it's not chance it's not random it is by design it is for a reason we may or may not understand in this lifetime and in this world but ultimately please god we will we're on page 148. mayor of ichameir says the following the more that a person enters a world of finding happiness and joy in faith barack you want holiness you want sanctity you want meaning you want purpose do you want immortality what is brokenness where does it come from it comes from the feeling of mortality when we confront our own mortality we're not going to live forever and the people around us are not going to live forever and we can't control everything and micromanage and manipulate everything when we confront our mortality when we confront our limitations when we confront the fact that we're not in control that's when we feel broken and incomplete that's when we feel sad and down so how do we feel happy what is the opposite immortality when we make contact with our immortality when we're able to recognize that i will live forever that my soul is not just the here and now and this world is not the end all and be all this is a temporary stop i'm only passing through there is a world there is an eternity there is an immortality that i have and how do i achieve that and what makes me believe in that when i feel connected to hashem so what is kedusha what is holiness what is sanctity holiness and sanctity is feeling spiritually alive spiritually alive physically you could feel alive a good workout after a good workout your juices are flowing you feel alive you were a little sluggish you were a little slow you were dragging a little bit and you had a physical workout now you woke up and you feel alive a good schluff a good sleep a good nap you could wake up you could feel physically alive but what makes us feel spiritually alive what makes us feel not spiritually sluggish not spiritually half asleep not spiritually dragging what makes us feel spiritually alive i'm alive i'm ready to greet the day i'm so excited to be here what makes us feel it kadusha holiness sanctity touching a piece of ourselves which is the best piece of ourselves being in contact and nourishing and allowing the very best the most real the most authentic part of ourselves to come alive last night at our fabregan at artis at our typical average tuesday night at the booger it's on synagogue hundreds and hundreds of people packed in arm and arm hand in hand dancing moving spontaneous nobody scripted okay we're gonna sing this at this point we'll get up and dance and then we'll break into this there's a point where the music plays and you just can't sit still it's the point that your neshama's dancing so your body has to match it and keep up with it there's a point that you hear something rewindberger's vivid beautiful torahs vivid beautiful stories the images painting of who we could be and what we should want to be and then our feet start moving again and we can't help but move and sing and dance if you missed it you could watch it online the whole thing was live stream multiple angles was a beautiful beautiful night thank you for everyone who came thank you for everyone who made it happen and what made us feel alive what made us stand and sing and dance what made us not want there was one thought that kept going through my head the entire time one thought don't let this end just keep going ron esteban phenomenal our music i just kept i didn't want to turn my head and look at him because i thought maybe he would misinterpret it that that meant time to wind it down so i wanted to turn and give him the biggest smile encouraged me like this is unbelievable but i was worried it could be misinterpreted he would think that meant stop and all i could think was never stop i just wanted i just want this moment to go on forever forever that feeling that there's not i realized two hours went by i don't know if you felt this way i felt this way two hours went by i didn't look at my phone i didn't look at the clock i didn't think about how much else i had to do there was nowhere and nothing else to do when the world was just there was just there singing and dancing slow and fast listening and dreaming and picturing and imagining and nowhere else and nothing else to do and that's the that's the most real part of us coming alive the most real authentic part of us coming alive now earlier in the day yesterday making good on a promise to one of my children who needed a new piece a new piece of technology starting college needed a new laptop so against my better judgment and arguably against my will i took her to town center mall to the apple store to get a laptop the idea that somehow going to the mall will fill in whatever's missing is mama i think root canal would have been better possible you got to fight for parking and then you gotta go inside and then you gotta find the store you're going to and now the store you're going to decided there's a quote of how many people can be inside and you really can't come and did you make an appointment and why are you there and is it neiman marcus nordstroms macy's bloomingdale's that's what's going to fill the hole in your heart for how long will it fill it how long does the new pair of shoes feel good don't answer that question it's a rhetorical question it's a rhetorical question but for how long for how long and it's not for some it's the new pair of shoes for others the new bottle of scotch or the fine wine for others taking the next vacation for others it's when we try to fill that hole in our heart with something else that's fleeting and that's temporary and temporal it doesn't last it's not real it's not real you're not a neiman marcus i want this moment to last forever i don't want this to ever end when i'm here there's nowhere and nothing else in the world that matters i feel so alive i've never felt so alive and if you do that and if it makes you feel alive it's an escape as soon as the credit card bill comes [Laughter] you're going to pay for it literally and figuratively nobody paid a penny to come last night our sponsors generously enabled that to happen but there's not a cost you feel alive feel alive that's kedusha mikabha kalahakadusha that's simha everyone in that room had things on their plate everyone in that room has things on our mind everyone in that room has things to worry and be concerned about but in those moments where anashama is touched our neshama is nourished our neshama is brought to life they just sit on the side for a little bit hashem we'll get back to that hashem i i still have some things to talk to you about that hashem i still want to protest that i'm still angry about that i still have some comments on that but not right now for now let's just be together for now i'm immortal for now i'm alive hashem's presence doesn't come to an environment of laziness hashem doesn't hang out with the cynics and the scoffers hashem doesn't hang out with the sad and the depressed and the downtrodden that doesn't mean hashem is not there for them and he doesn't lift their spirits he doesn't support them of course whatever mood we're in whatever stage of life wherever we are hashem lifts us of course of course but it means that hashem lahavdil is no different than us where do you want to hang out you like to be around the people who are miserable depressed negative nothing's good always complaining that's not a club i want to belong to that's not a place i ever want to visit i'm allergic to that the bender who is here this past shabbos was describing that i try to maximize each of our guests so first you hear them when they say it then i repeat what they said then i want to make sure we're getting the most out of everything that they say i know i know that's my thing so when rebender was here he talked about that rebecca talked about dark the shiva that he leads just boys has 2600 students every other grade has its own principal 400 staff members 2600 tell me them of boys just boys it's mind-boggling so they built a big magnificent beautiful campus several years ago and he said there's one rebbe one rabbis one teacher there's one staff member who just every time he sees them there's something wrong the door doesn't close entirely the window's a little bit stuck the light the thing it's like he fundraised they boarded in tens of millions of dollars they built the campus there and this every time he sees him there's something wrong so he said when he sees that rebbe coming he always he finds the closest door because then he just can't deal with the negativity he just can't deal with it he said recently saw him coming he found the closest door and he found himself standing in a broom closet [Laughter] that's what he said but we're all like that aren't we who wants to be around negativity complaint negative what's wrong what's missing what's we want to be basement you want to be around the people who are happy and joyous and amazing not obnoxiously so it's got to be moderated a little bit but the people who are generally happy happy people that happy energy positive energy positive thinking positive bias positive disposition positive positive because it's contagious it impacts us hashem is no different so the shrine has not showed hashem doesn't want to hang out with the sad and the lazy and the cynic who wants to be around the cynics you know a cynic is you know the price of everything and the value of nothing who said that ralph waldo emerson somebody famous that i found on google said that i don't remember who he said that the cynic knows the price of everything but the value of nothing the cynic is there they shoot arrows you know there's no question there was someone there last night who i'm describing to you i hope what we all felt there's no question there was someone who said what's this all about enough with the music start with the speech i didn't understand the word of the speech can we get this over why the light's off what's going on isn't this almost over i'm just have to be or someone drink those people are always there you want to be sitting next to them those people are always there by the way they're the ones who need it the most they're the most broken they have the biggest hole in their heart they're hurting the most they need it the most those are usually the biggest cynics so just make a joke out of everything poke a hole in everything shoot arrows at everything that's okay you know weinberger did in the middle of a speech he spoke about he said i saw you people in the back you weren't dancing so as soon as he finished speaking the music came back on he made a beeline everyone thought let's go to the bathroom he has to go to the airport he has to get out he went right to the back and he put his arms around and he danced with the people in the back he grabbed the cynics and the scoffers and he just said let's dance let's dance that's how he danced it was unbelievable i got an incredible email last night from one of those people sitting in the back not because he was a seneca scuffer but he was shy and he's new to this and he said it changed his life that weinberger came to the back put his arm around him danced with him right to the bit not to the front where the cameras were he went right to the back he went right to the back so there are always those cynics and scoffers they're everywhere everything that's okay my question is do you want to be sitting next to them you know who else doesn't want to be sitting next to them hashem he's not interested we're not interested in negativity so if we want shkina to be shorter if you want contact with the divine if you want to feel you're in the presence of the divine if you want to feel connected to immortality to eternity then you have to be basimha because that's what hashem wants to hang out with you have to be happy and joyous and positive sadness is the source of all the mistakes and all the iniquity and all the sins that we do of all the indiscretions the ego remembers whenever we have a fall people who fall to disgrace people who fall in life people who fall what leads to that fall sadness often it's sadness look at so many recovery rooms addiction what led to the addiction with sadness there's a hole in the heart there's something missing like i speak about this all the time we had an incredible malava malcolm last week celebrating this program we have called adopt which is a partnership of brs bogarton synagogue and onward living a recovery program members of our shul have adopted some who are in recovery they're all from elsewhere they're here living in patient recovery and we have this incredible adopt program and we talked about we celebrated we honored the people who made it happen and the host families got together it was a beautiful malava this past week so in addiction and everyone's an addict speak to great people speak to mental health people and they'll tell you some addictions have stigma and labels so we create programs for them alcohol gambling drugs pornography we have names for them it's less of an addiction if you're in the mall every day and you're deep in debt because you're spending money you don't have is it less of an addiction when you have to work out in the morning and the afternoon and the evening and you can't stop is it less of an addiction if you're a workaholic who can't stop working complete we all they're all addictions that we have so where does the addiction come from there's a sadness there's an incompleteness there's a hole in the heart so recovery it's a mistake you try to treat addiction by treating the addiction it's not about the alcohol it's not about the drugs it's not about the gambling those are an escape those are the way we numb ourselves those are the way a person doesn't have to think so you can go to the mall and lose yourself casino doesn't have a clock a casino doesn't have windows casinos don't have windows because they don't want you to know what time it is there's a day is it night is it evening is it afternoon is it morning just get lost in here don't even lose any sense of time casinos don't have clocks because you're not supposed to know any sense of time so that's a horrible way to lose yourself or you could sit like last night and lose yourself in kedusha in taharah in holiness and sanctity and happiness and enjoy lose yourself in hashem so the shoresh kolavonos what happens is you feel sad you feel down you feel out of it you feel depressed you feel unworthy you feel inconsequential you feel incapable you feel dismissed and then you reach for something to fill that hole a substance a behavior an action a credit card who clipped a gemura atlas is a clipper you know in the world of kabbalah the world has not just it's not just kabbalah it goes back it's basic judaism but there's an inner light in oregano's there's a sense of a light that we have our core in the summer the shores of the root and the source of the foundation of light we are a piece of god literally he has pl placed and planted a piece of himself in us in us if our children are our dna if our children look like us if we love our children because they're an extension and a piece of us then that's what we are to the rebounders that's why we are hashem we have his dna in us we are we are literally a piece of hashem literally a piece of hashem we're literally a piece of hashem so we have the light of hashem we have the holiness of hashem with the purity of hashem with the positivity of hashem what happens clipa calipa is the shell khalifa is a shell khlipa is a is a is a peel it's a clipper it's an even in modern hebrew if you have an orange with a with a peel you have a nut with a shell and you have to peel it you have to open the nut you're removing the clipper the cloth you're you're peeling you're removing so we have this inner hashama it's pure and it's holy and it's the source of light all kind of shamash you gave me it didn't have all the shtick didn't have sadness it didn't have my in idiosyncrasies it didn't have my inner conversations in my head then shaman you gave me it was pure it's pure and then there are clippers that cover it there are layers so like an onion we have to just peel back keep peeling away peel away sometimes something just penetrates right through that onion goes right to the core a night like last night i'm not exaggerating i think those who were there last night would tell you i'm not exaggerating what it was like and the merits of shame we repeat that and we create that for ourselves and our families every shabbos our shabbos table is supposed to be like last night our singing and aardvar torah and our stories and our doesn't have to we not to rely on others and outsource it to others we're the rabbi men and women where the rebels at our at our shabbos table where the rabbis at our shabbos table i saw online i'm going to get this wrong belzer and bubba i don't know which rabbit's in right now is in london and she has a t the way she's being treated somebody posted that not which it was the rabbitson is like a rebba she has tissues the women come and like royalty and they're treated and what they do and how they share and what she looks like and what she wears i saw a picture we're all it's all of us we all have this responsibility to transform our shabbos table in our lives to create last night not once a year not once a week but regularly but regularly to peel back the onion to peel back the clipper and to penetrate and to get right to the core to that light and to reveal it and to remind ourselves that yeah i'm gonna go to work i got to do homework and it's midterms i'm going to kill them they're going to kill me i don't know she'll come first yeah life's going to get in the way life's not always going to be amazing and hunky-dory and light and singing and dancing sometimes it's going to feel down and out and sad it's going to be bad news sad news i'm going to confront another thing someone's going to ask me to go to the mall la leno so yeah there's going to be those moments there's going to be those moments but you know if i make contact with the light on the inside even when the clipper comes back but i remember i know what's inside i know the real me i know the most authentic me i know the truest me i know the best me i know the me i dreamed to come back to over and over say goodbye to weinberger this morning i said can you take out your calendar you can't we have to find the date for next year now i don't want to reach out next year and say i'll try maybe i don't know i have to see it's busy now we got to do this annually we have to do it again and again let's do it again and again why because we've we felt something real so there'll be layers of khlipa in between but we want to go back we want to get back to it and those layers those clippers those peels those covers those shells they cover and they cause us to forget torah we forget that torah is our anchor we forget torah is our compass we forget torah is our there are glasses they're our vision the way that we see and navigate the world the gamma goremase sadness being down and out being negative and critical and hypercritical and hypercritical caused us to forget our torah and our avodah rahman al-islam this was last week's parsha last week's partial two weeks ago last week's parashat the jewish people came they went three days without water they came to mara and they complained why they complained kimarime because the water was bitter simple understanding of the torah is the water was bitter so they complained about the bitterness of the water but the cutscore our helicoc it wasn't the water that was bitter says kim marim heim you know what was bitter the people there's a phenomenon called the missing tile syndrome you walk into this room recently redone you did a beautiful job ariel gets fired so you can look at this beautiful mosaic on the wall you look at the tiles in the ceiling so naturally psychologically we walk into that room and our eyes are not drawn to everything that is there to everything that looks beautiful to everything that's coordinated to everything that's synchronized you know where our eyes are drawn did you see the stain in the corner tile that tile's missing where's that piece of the mosaic it's called it's not it's a psychological term you can look it up it's called the missing tile syndrome we see and we feel and we think about the missing tile kim marime we see what's missing now what's there we make a bigger deal inflate instead of looking the church cover says why was it called mara bitterness hashem ended up making it sweet if you want to commemorate memorialize a miracle that happened in a place then call it the place of sweetness why do you call it mara bitterness so if you look at the pasta it says that he was yimtakua mayam she made the water sweet he didn't say pour out that water get another glass he didn't say get rid of that pitcher i'll bring you new water he made the same water that it tasted bitter he made the water sweet you find the sweetness within the bitter you don't have to look elsewhere and you don't have to replace we can find the sweetness within the bitter how can we do that when it's not mari mahem if we're bitter everything will look bitter the missing tile but can you see the tiles that are near and they're not the ones that are missing you know la shabus we um there was an event at someone's house and we got a name wrong in the weekly there was a good reason it was given to us wrong by somebody and we had the wrong name so she will call to apologize that's what we're in the business of we are professional apologizers so we called to apologize sabar hashem the person who answered is such a wonderful person who cares nothing that's what you're apologizing for and he said let me tell you a story he said i once used to live somewhere and there was a older person in the shul and it was a small show and the rabbi used to wish people a happy birthday and the rabbi forgot to wish the person a happy birthday forgot to wish them happy birthday person was so upset so angry they stormed out a shul and they started a minion in their house and they began to break away because the rabbi didn't wish a happy birthday so some from the show went to the house to try to reconcile make him feel better not threatened by a new shoe but come back let's be together you belong in shul so the man said to him the man said to the person the emissary of the shul said you know in my entire life i've never been mistreated like this my whole life i've never been treated so badly so the person from the show looked at him and said weren't you in auschwitz it's a holocaust survivor he said weren't you an auschwitz this is the worst you've ever been treated so the man said after auschwitz this is the worst i've ever been treated in my life it's a true story it's a true story there's no judgment anyone has been through that there's no judgment no judgment at all anyone has been through that khalillah zero judgment of anyone who's been through that gangnam zero zero but you miss a birthday kim remember is it mara or is it matuk can we find the sweetness within the bitter which are we so goremashev sadness bitterness resentment negativity hyper criticism we destroy our whole world no one wants to be around us no one wants to be around us our relationships aren't real our relationships aren't deep they're not filled with love and you know who else among those who don't want to be around us not our spouse not our children not our friends not our co-workers maybe the humorous or maybe they're obligated to but no one really wants to be there and you know who else is on the list who doesn't want to be anywhere near you hashem says good luck god bless go to the mall go to the mall if we want hashem to be with us if we want to feel his presence if we want to feel connected and attached if we want to have mental health spiritual health physical health if we want to draw love and happiness and joy if we want to find meaning and purpose smile a joy even when we don't feel like it put that smile on our face kikasha we'll do one more paragraph sahara drags us down and knocks us over and brings us to a place of sadness the gorilla of shulo tov veloshava says you're no good you're not good and you're not equal you're not valuable you're not the same um it says you have no talents and no skills and no assets you're nothing you're a garnish you're an isvert forget tries to cause us to forget you ben royalty your prince ha who told you that you're a reject that causes us to give up to despair i guess i'm a reject i guess i'm hopeless i guess i'm i guess i'm inconsequential i guess i'm unworthy i guess i'm incapable so why bother um i guess if i have no space and there is no room for me in the world of holiness and sanctity there's no place for me in the world of serving hashem there's no mission for me to serve at his army in this world i guess i'll just go try the drugs and alcohol i'll just go immerse myself in gambling or we're in acting out bashar and philos all the other ways that we fall down all the other ways that we fall down so that's why richard meyer will come back we'll continue we will not continue with this next week it's yeshiva week we're on break next week it's yeshiva week everyone should spend time with family so we're on break next week you can listen to one of the old hundreds of ones online if you need a little shot of a muna but in two weeks amir hashem will continue that that's why simcha is a foundation of avodah i don't care how hard you shackle i don't care how much you say barak hashem i don't care how scrupulous and vigilant you are with mitzvos i don't care which era of or castro's you don't even hold of but you're not really a religious person if you're not basima if you're sad and depressed and miserable and critical i don't care how righteous and religious your kid's resume says you are but you're a fraud to really have a voda to really have a munna is to be basimha until next time stay happy stay healthy holy tonight nine o'clock go behind the beam with your vietnamese you will not want to miss this conversation he's the director of interfaith relations for simon wiesenthal we'll talk about which missionaries we raise our voice to drive from the neighborhood who can we cooperate with for good causes tonight nine o'clock be well