Living With Emunah (Part 228) - A Happy Yiddishkeit

good morning anne boccarito welcome back to living with amuna including special guest tamar goldberg apparently an alternative to school living with emunah i'm surprised the more i'm surprised the more responsible parent is allowing it but it's okay the amunis series is generously sponsored by dr xavier bella morgan in memory of dr brian galbet secretary and in memory of bella's mother ellen shanzer and we're very very grateful to them we are very excited this morning to share with you we have previously shared our permanent mug caffeinated with cavanaugh we now have our disposable cups i'm going to spill this all over myself let's see they can see it online those who are watching disposable caffeinate with cavanaugh we uh made these cups and again big thank you to anna landa for this logo caffeinate with cavanaugh charcoal but the idea we're supposed to make 100 a day 100 bid for connections 100 check-ins with god a hundred times a day we reorient and recalibrate and remind ourselves what matters to whom we report that we are not alone and revolver we learn said a hundred is the obligation start by having kavanaugh with ten to which we said start by having cavanaugh with one the first one of the morning this is actually my first cup of coffee so far today it's been a busy morning so our handy dandy cups remind you to caffeinate with kavanaugh when you're waking up your body wake up your soul caffeinate with kavanagh that everything comes from hashem i want to thank our generous sponsor of the disposable cups for the refuse of ozer ben leia should have a complete reform shleima big thank you to andrea zucker who as well uh co-sponsored these cups uh in honor of cara friedman and her sidekick ben the well-deserved upcoming honorees of the brs dinner for all they do for this community we'll get her when she comes back in so big thank you you have to come live in person if you want to get the free disposable cups and use them the coffee tastes so much better doesn't it out of this cup what come to the dinner we're giving these cups out of the dinner oh come to yeah of course come and honor ben and kara prs dinner so thank you very much but caffeinate with kavanagh come in person you can buy the permanent cup you can use the disposable cup is on us uh big uh expression of gratitude last night we didn't only hit we surpassed our goal for the global campaign nobody's happier than i am trust me and all of you who can finally stop hearing about the global campaign just so you know the bank account's not closed you are still welcome to give however you will no longer be hearing about it from us this year we've hit our goal and we're very grateful to all those who enable and support us to share our torah and our teaching before we dive back into biamd before we get into simcha and smiling i want to share with you another amazing emunah story and i love the emails if you're listening if you're watching if you're live in a person keep them coming they give me personally enormous physique and i know when i share them they give others as well so this email really had an impact on me somebody writes to me um the following i don't remember how i find your sheeran blah blah blah blah blah my wife and i every tuesday morning gear up with my hummish sometimes i make myself a coffee and grab a granola bar just to fit in for some reason between life family and work i wasn't able to join the live shear yesterday i got this email a couple weeks ago so someone writes that they normally listen live on tuesday mornings to the parsha shear they grab their coffee and granola bar and they listen live but they weren't able to yesterday they write i know i had a good amount of driving to do i figured i'd listen in the car last night as i was driving to daf you owe me see them and say to moed you opened up about a challenging painful personal experience you and your wife went through the bidding of parshas vayikra i told the story about the stillbirth that we had many years ago in between our second and third child there was a reason for it i told the story of ayikar vayikra the difference between something being a coincidence or feeling that it is god calling out to you and that one finds comfort and feeling that it's not random or chance you're not just subject to some data point or nature it's not vayikar it's not random but it's vayikra god is calling out to us and all that happens to us so i used that story to illustrate that idea that even in that time even in that time the uh there was no explanation that was offered the chromosomal analysis and all the anatomy analysis there was no explanation about why it had happened which in some ways makes things worse but someone comforted us by saying it should make things better because you realize through the natural order there's no way to understand what happened so clearly it was meant from above that doesn't mean it's not painful it doesn't mean you don't grieve a cry or mourn doesn't mean you're not fearful of what will be in the future which hashem us thank god blessed us so many times over but it means that it's much more meaningful and you have much more fortitude to confront whatever you're going through when you feel that it wasn't random or chance but it's by design so i shared all that in the parties here say right yesterday morning at about 11am my wife and i received the news from her doctor that unfortunately she had miscarried barak hashem were blessed with four other beautiful children i have a tremendous gratitude and thanks towards the kurdish borehole but yesterday was a tough day all i needed was that insight message that connected with you some 20 years ago when it's unexplainable it's clearly by design in the way of hashem it was meant to be sometimes all you need in life is just a little in parentheses parsha perspective had i heard that live at 9 30 a.m yesterday i don't think it would have made such an impact on me you never know where your words land they cannot uplift another person thank you for enhancing blah blah blah so it's an amazing story because he normally listens on tuesdays for whatever reason he didn't he waited to listen and then he only listened randomly after he received his own difficult news and i happened to speak about exactly what he was going through and the physique that we found which was physic for him and i don't share any of that for you to talk to you about our story or my insight but the practice for him imagine when he turned it on that day really uh really amazing really amazing you know someone else that told me did i tell this story this is a call already a couple years ago in the ammunition there's a woman in lakewood who listens and she went into labor and on her way to the hospital she was trying to distract herself so she's put on living with emunah it's a new uh playing in labor rooms everywhere living with emunah just joking anyway so she put it on in the car and punked whatever random episode of living with emunah she happened to put on the way the hospital i was talking all about labor and we go through pains but it's because hashem at the end has something and it just happened to be the random episode of living in the munich she put on on her way in labor in the hospital i was talking about again i take no credit for it it's all a hundred percent him he is programming organizing he is the great dj in the sky and he's uh he's figuring it all out it is really incredible okay back inside simcha living with ammuna living with ravichammer so again i keep reviewing every week we build upon what we've done until now why do people feel unhappy we feel unhappy when we feel incomplete something's missing in our life maybe the brand new model tesla or the latest iphone maybe for some people they're missing their health and their wellness maybe for others they're missing a relationship they crave maybe for others they're missing companionship or children or grandchildren but people are unhappy when something is missing when we feel incomplete can you ever feel complete in this world in this life never never because every day that we wake up there's another reason to feel incomplete until there's peace in ukraine tell us peace in israel four innocent people murdered in cold blood yesterday such beautiful images and beautiful people and it seems these tragedies keep happening to the cream of the crop and the best of who we have unexplainable and so devastating each and every time so every day that you wake up what will be that day with us something else cracks and hurts and aches and you know getting to be that age so every every day that you wake up there's another doctor's appointment there's another the kid didn't get ready for carpool didn't brush their teeth you're waiting you're losing your mind you can run out of energy to fight with them and beg them to get every day you're incomplete so how could you ever be basement how is one ever basement if the prerequisite to being basement is feeling whole and you can never feel whole in this life and in this time so then how can you ever be baseball and amir's answer is we can attach ourselves to the source of wholeness and the source of wholeness is hashem hashem hashem is complete hashem is perfect hashem is infinite hashem is omnipotent hashem is every other big word i could use to impress you hashem is all that and more he is whole so when we attach ourselves to him we are not incomplete that is our source of in other words go hand in hand if you feel like you are navigating your way through life on your own by yourself for your own then you'll never be happy because there's always so much to worry about is there not there's so much to be anxious over every day our children our parents our siblings our parnessa our health our life you live life waiting for the other shoe to drop you live life waiting for the other shoe to drop i read recently a statistic i don't want everyone here to get very upset but a statistics that one out of three people are gonna get cancer so you just do the math of how many people there are in your family your immediate family you just do the math about the concentric circles of your family and you say it's not if it's when so every day you wake up and you say i'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop who will it be you hope in a bizarre way let it not be people i love if it has to be anyone let it be me you have these insane thoughts and then you just want to pull the covers back over and not get out of bed for what just to figure out which day it will be and who it will be the one out of three people in your family that i just ruined your day or what yeah so if that's the way you live your life then you don't get out of bed you pull the covers over your head but if you say you know what maybe that's a statistic that ain't mazeless or the jewish people we live above statistics we live above data and we believe on a higher plane and you know what whatever will be will be and will confront and deal with it then and even if we are bound by the same statistics and data and rules why worry about it it won't make it go away even eating kale won't make it go away i'm still pretty sure i wouldn't eat the kale no it won't make it go away that'll take you away the simcha of your life but um it won't make it go away all i'll rob you of is your mental happiness and you're being present in that moment so every day that you wake up there are reasons to be anxious unless you say hashem i'm letting go i'm letting god you're the driver i'm the passenger i'm along for the ride i can't wait to see where you take me today let's see what exciting adventure are you taking me on today will be a pipe in the wall or a crack in the windshield thank god relatively minor things in life what is the adventure you're going to take us on today because i know wherever we go you'll be right by my side and you'll be driving the car i know you're not abandoning me i know you're not bailing on me i know you're not jumping out so when a person attaches themselves we're just talking mrs hashem about vegas attaching yourself to god so that you are the passenger on his ride and you're with him wherever he goes now you have what it takes to confront whatever comes your way it doesn't mean it'll be easy and it doesn't mean it'll be pleasant it doesn't mean it won't be painful it doesn't mean that you want it it means that we have him by our side and we are ready and we are ready so we went from there which meyer told us that any voice in our own head that tries to sabotage our happiness and success is the voice of the etoro it's the voice that says you're a failure you're inferior you're incompetent you're incapable you'll never be more you can never grow you'll never be better you'll never lose that weight you'll never have those friends be that popular person you'll never break through and have that parnosa you'll never you'll never you'll never such a voice is not a voice of growth such a voice is not a voice of positivity such a voice is a voice of the eight zahara get rid of it on the bottom left paragraph on page page 153 bottom left paragraph if that thought arouses you awakens so if that thought inspires you if you say you know i've hit a rock bottom with my health and wellness i'm not going to get back any more lab reports with high cholesterol and high a1c and high blood pressure i'm sick and tired of getting on the scale and seeing the number climb and climb and climb i'm done i'm done so the voice that says i'm sick and tired of not fitting in my clothing i'm sick and tired of that lab report and the lecture from my doctor i'm sick and tired of that scale then you know what and it's going to make you change you finally hit that place where you're not going on a diet you're changing your lifestyle as i said mode that's great that's great it's a positive that's a positive but if you're going to get off the scale and you're going to say i'm just a fat pig i'm just the ugly duckling i'm just gonna always be that person i'm miserable i hate myself i have no control i look this way i am that way that's not a positive voice get rid of that voice silence that voice extinguish that voice any voice that brings sadness and brings you down and makes you depressed is the voice of the atahara so yes we are a religion and we are a people who embrace introspection and self-reflection and self-awareness those are all human qualities uniquely human qualities animals have no self-awareness animals do not talk about i think i've gained weight what do i look like will anyone like me do i fit in animals do not human beings uniquely do we have that suffer so self-awareness is great self-awareness is wonderful but self-awareness should not make you feel bad or down about yourself self-awareness should inspire and motivate to uplift and enrich yourself that's not what hashem wants he does not want a group of sad miserable resentful angry depressed despondent negative people walking around he doesn't want that he wants us to be happy you know why he's having he's our father let me ask you as a parent do you want your children walking around miserable for this and a complaining negative or do you want to come home and find them happy hi abba how was your day the big smile and a positive demeanor and a positive spirit hashem wants us to be happy now just like with our children we want them to be happy so it doesn't mean we say you never have to go to school again you can buy whatever you want here's an unlimited credit card because all we want is your happiness so do and buy and take and get whatever you want we want them to be happy but we don't want them to be happy at the expense of their own success we want them to find happiness within a life of value and meaning and purpose and the same is true with hashem he wants us to be happy i don't think you can see it on the camera but it was hashem that is the motto in the mission not just of our community of all of our people hashem says here's the framework here the boundaries near their expectations you got to go to school you have to do well in school you got to shower you got to brush your teeth you got to help out at home all these things are going to turn you into a mensch and a good person and lead a meaningful life and within that find happiness hashem says here 613 rules by the way i created you i designed you and i therefore know what brings you happiness do these things and find happiness he wants us to be happy he wants us to be happy look at the footnote rational alif omaka the depth of the issue is shim shamely it's listen to that voice of self-sabotage we listen to that voice that says you're nothing you'll never be in anything you're just a pathetic failure you're incapable you're incompetent if we listen to the atari hashem doesn't want the self-awareness and introspection to result in sadness and if it does it means that we're not worshiping hashem we're worshiping ourselves we're measuring ourselves against others we're measuring ourselves against others our happiness should not be determined our happiness should not be influenced by others my happiness with my car should not depend on the car in the neighbor's driveway my happiness with my relationship should not be relative to the relationships my neighbors have my happiness with my health or my appearance or my size should not be relative to those around me and when my happiness is dependent and conditional on where it stacks and where it rates among those around me then i'm not following the will of hashem i'm just in this rat racing chase to compete and to indulge and to follow my own will by the way this week the new u.n has some index some scale of which are the happiest countries in the world israel went up two slots finally broke into the top ten israel is the ninth happiest country in the world by the way ahead of the united states and england and france and every country you know all the scandinavian countries take up the top slots you'll notice there's not a lot of inventions and innovation coming out of those countries not a lot of they're not leading the effort to liberate the ukrainian people there's not so they're happy because okay whatever but israel do they do they okay they're very happy and i guess you're either happy or killing yourself and somewhere in between israel is number israel is number nine i'm gonna write about it this week because it's startling a tiny little country smaller than new jersey in the middle and surrounded by 27 arab countries who want to kill and destroy and eliminate who have to deal with coming out of a mall and four people getting stabbed in a car ramming who are surrounded by tens of thousands of rockets from the north and from the south and iran to the east who are threatening to build a nuclear device to exterminate them and they're walking around night and by the way you would never know this if you actually went to israel that they're not happiest if you actually had to negotiate with something or purchase something or pay your cab driver you wouldn't necessarily know that it's the ninth happiest country so you see that happiness is not entirely expressed outside externally but happiness is an internal measure satisfaction happiness i think there's an enormous correlation when your life lays on the line when you're fighting for your right to exist when you are fighting for who you are and what you stand for it's going to entirely recalibrate your priorities what matters and what means something and it turns out that living for meaning gives happiness when you pursue happiness it eludes you and when you are willing to stand up and fight and build a country for meaning and purpose and continue a legacy of a people and you find the meaning in that that is the source of an enormous amount of happiness so richard meyer says if you're competing with people around you if your happiness depends on getting more things and looking a little bit differently and so on and so forth you'll never be happy you can never have it all and no matter how much plastic surgery there is in boca raton you can never turn back the clock as far as you want to and stop trying because embrace your age and be grateful and happy that you're alive and that you got out of bed so if your happiness is dependent on what you see in the mirror your happiness is dependent on what you see in the driveway your happiness depends on what you see in your portfolio you'll never be happy because you could always have more but if your happiness depends on what you have and you say i always have something i always have something here is imagine someone says someone's dying there's a life-threatening issue on shabbos and the law the is that saving a life supersedes observing shabbos but you decide you're firmer than god and you say shabbos the helico shabbos you know how much teaching i do about shabbos we turn friday into arab shabbas and shalashires ravi derivan and mozai shabbas mava malka i love shabbos how can i violate chabous to save a life so you say you're not serving hashem and you're not keeping shabbos if you're now worshiping shabbos more than you worshipping hashem who says save the life of shabbos you're no longer worshiping hashem and the same is true here that if you are living a life where you're sad and depressed and despondent because introspection and self-awareness is not making you a better person and a bigger person but making you a sadder person then you're not serving hashem you're not serving hashem so turn the page kosair lorac all this is not only referring to thoughts about the past we're not only talking about how we review and think about the past maybe i didn't do well on a test yesterday maybe i didn't have a conversation i'm proud of yesterday maybe i ate a lot of sherlock mothers very late last night because the entire community ganged up against us and placed kryptonite all over our home maybe somebody bought us a bag of cape cod potato chips [Laughter] and taped to it a big sign that said stay strong don't touch that was the shell of manus big bag of cape cod potato chips with taped with a sign stay strong don't touch and so far i've been eating the other bags and not that bad so so far so good so maybe yesterday you had a bad moment you had a bad reaction you lost your cool you yelled at your children at your spouse your co-worker maybe you looked in the mirror and yelled at yourself and now you're beating yourself up and you're sad and negative and down and now you're going to get into this vicious cycle that you can't break out of that's not what hashem wants remember we're working on our notebooks it's alana here this morning we're working on our notebooks right the turn the page every day's a new day turn the page image every day is a new day wake up and smile how could you wake up with a smile do you know what's in your stomach from the shell of monash at midnight the answer is because it's a new day my stomach doesn't know yet it's a new day but it's a new day it's a new day it's a dash and if you are paralyzed by the thought maybe i'm not doing it right maybe i need to do it better maybe i need to embrace more and it's beating you up and it's knocking you down and it's holding you back that's not the will of hashem if it's making you sad that's not the will of hashem hashem gave us a blueprint for life he gave us the formula for living and when we follow it it should bring us happiness and meaning and purpose and joy and when we ignore it and when we neglect it and when we're looking to discover on our own how to live then we're in trouble it's a counterfeit life it's an inauthentic life then we're pursuing a happiness which is elusive and which eludes us the called up if you're violating you're not going to get close to hashem with it and sadness is a violation of being said being down being out of it so now richard meyer puts in it's a very important disclaimer so let's say you'll say well if there's such an emphasis on happiness hashem simra if it's so important to him that i'm happy i'm only happy with cheeseburgers i'm only happy at the beach on saturday i'm only happy with things that are not what he wants from me that's not real happiness that's not real happiness it can't be you can't find your happiness and satisfaction genuine authentic spiritual metaphysical existential simcha does not come from neglecting or negating or violating what your iker neshama the show rish of neshama really craves and really wants it can't i can't live near the ship it's really small if you see her you feel that in order to be happy you have to violate hashem's will it's a mistake you think it's what you want you think it's what you crave you think it's what's going to make you happy but it's not and my dear friends you see this all over the world today people who are engaging and employing all kinds of substances because they think it's what's going to make them happy they're indulging in substances to escape and to numb themselves thinking this will be the source and the answer to my happiness if only i can have you know we we interviewed we interviewed two courageous young men you can find it on our youtube channel which goes back already a year and a half maybe now who went through recovery two young yeshiva graduates who went through recovery one was married at the time one was single and they were courageous without blacking themselves out or their name who allowed us to interview them about the experience what got them hooked alcohol and drugs the experience of recovery and so on and so forth and i'll never forget one of them described he said he never felt like he fit in growing up he was missing something again we're talking about the lack of simcha is i'm missing something he was just uncomfortable in his own skin all the time he never felt at home comfortable accepted like he belonged ever among friends within his family at school and once at a friend the parents were at home the liquor cabinet was unlocked the friend said you know i was eight nine years old whatever age he was when he first started i don't remember the age i could be off and they tried a little bit and he said he had never felt that that relief imagine you're walking around with a throbbing headache and you finally get relief for the person who's mentally in anguish there is a throbbing pain that gets no relief it's there in the background all the time forever it's unbearable it's unbearable and then all of a sudden you discover something drug and alcohol a behavior or all of a sudden you're numb there's a little relief but it wears off and it comes back so what do you need to do more and you need to intensify i need to do more often and that's what happened and the second guy said the same story and many people in recovery will tell you the same story and look around our world that athletes and celebrities look around at the wealthiest top 1 percent in the country and you'll see so many people who think it's all supposed to bring them happiness and when it doesn't they turn to substances and behaviors to numb themselves from the lack of happiness that they thought they were meant to discover and you can now get involved in alcohol drugs gambling promiscuity you can get involved in shopping people workaholics there are people who exercise to numb themselves now some of these are even more dangerous than others because the workaholic we all admire wow they have such a work ethic they work so hard they work 22 hours a day they're never at home look how hard they work it's an addiction they're numbing themselves from having to avoid facing whatever's the source of the unhappiness in life their unhappiness in life so we can mistakenly think that the very substance the very behavior that's going to bring us happiness it's fleeting it's fake it's counterfeit it's not real and it won't make us happy and the same is true says if it's your meyer spiritually we think the cheeseburger or the driving on shabbos again there's no judgment here everyone's at different levels and whatever path of growth and judaism is not all or nothing i'm not trying to describe you're either doing everything you're not a real jew and you're unhappy it's not what we're saying everyone's on a path whatever level you're on whatever area of growth you're up to it's not an all or nothing i want to be very clear in saying that but but the point that we're making is hashem created us to be a religious person a person of faith is to believe that hashem didn't just create this world but he shared with us his formula his prescription his blueprint for this world he knows what is a source of happiness meaning and purpose and he knows what's not he knows what's a distraction to it so if we think that we're going to chase the distraction and that's going to make us happy at the expense and the cost of not doing the formula we are mistaken we are mistaken says it's good to be strict and it's good to be stringent and it's good to be scrupulous and vigilant in observing you want to fulfill the halacha see what he said this is already by the way part one of the pre-pay stuff workshop this sunday pre-paisa workshop is sunday morning 10 a.m join us live and in person or you can join us we'll be streaming but this is part one here what ravichammer victor meyer is a hardcore khasid in the heart of you shall i am in a very hardcore what the media would call haredi right-wing orthodox neighborhood and did you hear what he just said if you are following a humra if you're following astringency and it's causing you to be sad don't do it stop doing it that's what you might write let me read that again there is the core law there is what is expected of you and if you're going above and beyond if you're following a stringency and a strictness because you're keeping up or the pressure is on you or you want your kids to get a shidduch or whatever other reason and it's making you sad and negative and depressed and resentful to yiddish kite drop it stop it and stop blaming judaism for it this is my pep talk every year i begin the pay stock workshop the truth is i could just press play on last year's workshop every year i essentially say the same thing we just have to find out about same at a costco this year is basically and every year you got to figure out what the questions for that year but this is the opening statement i make do not confuse spring cleaning with cleaning for pesach you want to find out how to clean your whole house i don't care if you live in a mansion how to clean your entire house in three to four hours come to sunday morning 10 a.m will enable you to clean your entire house in three to four hours by the way that's twice as long as it should take i just get beaten up by my wife and mother if i say two hours so three to four hours if you want to figure out how to clean your house in three to four hours if it's taking you more than that you're doing spring cleaning you're not following if you're on a ladder or you're on your hands and knees or you've moved to heavy appliance you're doing spring cleaning you're not following so don't blame judaism and don't blame god and don't play malach and don't blame the rabbis when you show up to the seder as a shemata exhausted and wasted and aged and angry and resentful don't blame judaism and the rabbis and god that's spring cleaning that's not so this is an incredibly important principle so this is how he's distinguishing i can't violate halal to find simcha you can't violate or neglect or abandon halakha to find simcha you have to keep halacha but if you're keeping in such a way that it's depleting you and robbing you of your simcha then you're also not following the stringencies are so exacting if you're accepting stringencies that are robbing you and depleting you of your simcha then that's also not the will of hashem stringencies are not like the law the shem rats and hashem they're not always what hashem wants mama says if you feel sadness or pressure from those stringencies um and now you're going to lose your ability to cling to hashem you don't feel his presence you don't feel his love you don't feel connected to him as a result of hashem says don't be strict don't be stringent stop it this is not what i asked and the same is true in measuring every other area of our religious life religion is meant to bring joy and happiness and pleasure and if it's making you sad you're doing it wrong if it's making you sad you're doing it in the wrong ways re-examine and recalibrate and rethink the way you're doing it there's not a mitzvah to walk around all serious and sad and strict and neurotic and fearful and angry and anxious and worried that's not a mitzvah that's not a yire shamayim the yirey shamayim is not the one who's second guessing that i make the bracha the diamond with enough kavana is beating themselves up regularly who's being so strict that they don't do anything i have a cousin in benebrach who went too many years ago i said that everybody has someone to the left of them and to the right of them but this is the cousin they're the end on the right there's nobody further to the right they're the end of the line they're wonderful people i don't say that in a negative judgment they've chosen a lifestyle for themselves which is very beautiful and in many ways admirable and it's not expected of any of us and i don't feel at all bad that we don't keep it but when we were first married we spent the shabbos there and they make everything in-house they don't trust or buy anything from oil to wine to anything outside of their own home it's a level of stringency they're also walking around joyful and happy and serving hashem in that way with the choice they've made for themselves so imagine we left that shabbos and i said your heaven this is the way. see how happy they are see how joyful they are you see even though the poverty they're living in the happiness that they have or seem to have let's i like that let's do that let's be like that from now on i'd like you to press the olives and the grapes grind the flower from now on yeah i'll be learning at the cola what do you mean i can i won't have time so for now on and if that lifestyle would make us miserable and depressed and resentful and angry you think that's the rats on hashem for the person is volunteering to do it and they feel that's the rats on hashem for them beautiful and by the way we shouldn't sit in judgment of them but if we impose that upon ourselves and it robs and depletes us of our happiness that's not what hashem wants from us that's what hashem wants from us we did this fly in a couple weeks ago two dozen guys went into new york for 48 hours and we met across the spectrum of mama shkidola israel you know what every one of them had in common every single one of them had in common certainly from a veithan finder who we started with and giddaya shore who's a very starkid even that we ended with they were joyful they were happy they were bisimra yiddish kai wasn't making them miserable and so serious and so angry and so worried and so mahmeer and so neurotic yiddish guy was making them happy because hashem is walking with you what are you worried about you have nothing to worry about he's right by your side he's going to help you and support you and lift you and hold you cry with you and laugh with you what are you worried about they're walking with hashem there were a couple commonalities of every one of them now one of them not one of them took out their phone and was distracted or seemed like they had somewhere else to be or they were putting their attention somewhere else some of them carry the world on their shoulders but they were all present in the conversation we were having with them also an extraordinary quality they were fully present in the moment and in the experience they were all also filled with joy rav david cohen a premier preeminent posik in america in the world david cohen was like he was i i feel bad saying it's about a gun he was jolly he was like jolly it's unbelievable so if you're living a yiddish kite which makes you neurotic and resentful and angry and bitter and worried and anxious that's not our yiddish guy you're not serving our god you're not living his torah re-examine and reflect and figure out where it's going wrong figure out where it's going wrong because that's not what it's meant to bring out that's not what it's meant to do making breakfast and the opportunity to dive in and being careful what goes in and out of our mouths and regulating our time it's all meant to enrich and to uplift that doesn't mean that when you have to pay the bill for the handmade shimura mata you're going to struggle to be baseball you know there are moments when you're sitting on the floor on tish above when you're finishing the fast of yom kippur there are moments that are not so geshmaq i'm not going to tell you that every moment of yiddish kite is easy and pleasant and pleasurable and you're singing and dancing your way through them there are those moments there are those moments but on the whole and overall and even in those moments you can prepare for pesach in one of two ways and i want to tell you i haven't done a study but i don't need to do a study the attitude in the atmosphere in you your home as you prepare for pace off i believe will have an enormous impact on whether your children will be observant or not that sounds like a radical statement it sounds like an incredibly radical statement is it a joy and a privilege and a pleasure are you taking out the pesach items your bubbies cutter to cut the harossas and you're so excited are you going ah and the miserable and the cleaning and i hate we're going to go into debt for the matzah and it's miserable and pesach again can't we cancel it this year can't we take a year off i loved corona we didn't have to have guests for it is that what your kids here because i'll tell you if i'm a kid and i heard that i'd say i am out of here like vladimir the second i get a chance to not have to keep pesach why would i want to because that's all i earn but if you say come kinda come come we're gonna divide the responsibilities put on the pesach mix put on the music we're going to sing we're going to dance we're going to grind the more we're going to chop the charosis we're going to prepare the salt water don't buy the salt water in the store i don't i don't know i honestly don't know if there's a greater sign of being pathetic i really don't know if there's a lower form of humanity than buying salt water i don't know the fact that stores are selling i don't blame the stores because there's obviously a market for them there's a market for it salt water salt water i'm not a master chef i don't think you have to be julia child to make salt water salt and water mix it's not it's really not hard so again all of this this is such an important message about simcha such an important message about simcha let's just finish one more paragraph and i know we're over time and we're done here is the principle richard meyer what leaves us with the his mates the koshi navi you have to be strong and dedicated and devoted and principled and passionate and pursue a vibrant yiddish kite but in a way that makes you happy not sad in our homes it has to be lifted it has to be lifted it has to be lifted i'll end with this story and my brother-in-law's offref goes back many years not that many years if he's listening he's not listening but many years so um there was a friend of his stop me if i told you this story he was a friend of his i just come back from my second year in canada i was on fire religious kanoi whatever and i was hanging out one of his friends that is loved that about me i gravitated to the young brother-in-law just came back on fire and we were sharing divrei toro the whole shabbos we were sparring in ashkafa and we were talking and we were on fire and then i found out accidentally over the shabbos do you know that this friend of my brother-in-law he's not religious he doesn't keep shabbos he said what are you talking about what do you mean he's sharing torah and we're talking and he's nostalgic and yeshivaday's what are you talking about he's not religious i understand it talk to my brother-i said and so like i don't understand that i'm having the most uplifting shabbos talking to him and learning in a torah and what are you talking about he's not religious he said yeah when we went to israel for the year which was a few years before i did he said he's the flip out he got really into it he got really intense he got really overnight and he came back and he's a kitsoni personality he's an extreme personality whatever you do you do to the extreme and you're all in at an extreme extreme extreme and he got so extreme and intense that he just beat himself up all day over what he wasn't doing right what he wasn't doing best what he wasn't achieving what he wasn't the best as and he took upon himself like crazy there are kabbalistic things rolling in the snow naked to punish yourself the cold they're all kinds of crazy practices and and you know what happened he got to a point where he said i can't live like this i'm in all or nothing all i do is walk around with guilt and shame all the time i'm beating myself i can't be better and do more and i'm not doing it right that i just can't do it at all so here he was quoting divrei torah and he really was obviously having a strong connection and emotional connection to a yiddish kite but his version of a yiddish kite was so unhealthy that he couldn't even live the yiddish kite that he had this version of and you fast forward i recently had a conversation with somebody else who also had inspired me with how intense he was and now he's doing nothing and said to me rabbi just because you don't see me doing it anymore you should know i still love it i just can't live it i said what do you mean if you love it don't you want to live it and he said i love it but i don't know how to live it without feeling guilt and shame all the time so from my own mental health i need to not live it i love it but i can't live it at all that's an unhealthy yiddish kite that's not our yiddish kite that's not our torah that's not our rats on hashem that's not what we have to teach it's not what we have to model that's not how we have to aspire and what we should live for ourselves it comes out with pesach most acutely in the year it's true for every holiday and it's true for every halacha and it's true for every law ours is a yiddish kite which is geshmaq which is beautiful which is enriching which is uplifting which people want to run to and not run away from we'll talk more about it hashem next week stay happy stay healthy stay holy have a great