Towards a Mindful and Meaningful Jewish Life (Recorded for Aish.tv)

I'm often asked and if we're honest with ourselves it's a question that's bothered many of us why does Judaism place such an emphasis on all the minutiae all the details so many laws with so many small measurements and obligations and time responsibilities and laws they seem so restrictive and constrictive they hold back our lives if Judaism wants us to have the most joyful and happy life then why not allow us to live in that live do what we want and do what gives us pleasure and our time together I want to share with you what I think is the most compelling and persuasive answer to that question the Judaism in fact is a platform for happiness but happiness is not defined by the pleasure of the moment happiness is ultimately defined by the fulfillment of meaning and meaning comes from a mindful life being present and all we think and say and do and all of Jewish life and all the Jewish law and all of Jewish living is there to reinforce and to elevate and enrich our lives with mindfulness and with meaning let me tell you the story of Christopher Reeve we know Christopher Reeve as Superman and when many of us to picture him we think of a strong handsome man brave how stood out with being able to save the world and yet Christopher Reeve died disabled severely limited and impaired and he once described the accident that left him a quadriplegic what went wrong that changed literally the course of his life see he was riding a horse in an equestrian race he took that on as a hobby and the horse fell on top of him effectively changing his life forever leaving him paralyzed he said before that race he knew that there was one hurdle that was particularly difficult but the accident that changed his life forever that left him a quadriplegic was not on the difficult hurdle it happened on the hurdle just before the difficult one and Christopher Reeve explained it was because in the one before the difficult one he took his mind off what he was doing he failed to focus he wasn't living in the moment he wasn't mindful with what he was doing and that cost him his mobility a costume segment a component of his life Superman was brought down he lost the use of his body because he was so focused on the future he failed to live in the present and the same kryptonite that brought down Superman threatens to compromise and deplete our lives of meaning and joy the joy that we deserve that were capable of the Gemara the Talmud and hagigah on page 11 B teaches Yahoo ye shall Adam Mala Mala Mala Mala Mala Mala a a person my wonder a person might ask what is above and what is before and what is behind the four things what is above below before and after and such a person concludes the Gemara it would have been better if they weren't born because you see a person whose only concern is what was or what will be loses what is and God put us in this world in order to experience the moment and if our lives are defined with nostalgia for what was or with living in anticipation of what will be then we forfeit and concede what is which is the only dimension that really matters because it's the only dimension that we are in what happened already happened and what will be of course we should plan and of course we should influence but it's not yet here the only dimension that really matters is the here and now this term mindfulness has taken on a lot of popularity in our time in every area of life there are books and magazines and self-help gurus and there are countless conferences and seminars to teach how to live a mindful life we need it maybe more than any other generation because in our time the technology that distracts us the technology that takes us away the technology that interrupts us there's so much noise and Static in our lives were struggling to have mindful and meaningful interactions mindful and meaningful conversation mindful and meaningful prayer experiences mindful and meaningful recreation recreational experiences and so there's an influence on on mindfulness but my dear friends mindfulness is not a new age term and it wasn't invent at any time recently mindfulness is exactly what the Torah are all about I take you back to a PASOK in our beautiful Torah the teachers ich Martha MS de Vera breezes owes their our CMO some observe and keep this covenant keep it antoshka lu is colla shirt as soon observed the words of this commitment the relationship between us and the Almighty perform them why Lamont asked illu so that you will succeed in all you do this benign often neglected and overlooked verse really captures what is the essence of Judaism and Jewish life Jewish law Lamont ask Allah is color shirt as soon so you will succeed in all you do the ibanez rrah one of the great medieval commentaries are about Avram ebin Ezra translate estilo as Kim mo tat Lee ho success who doesn't want success we want success materially financially success in our health success and our mental health success in our relationships success for our family everybody craves success were driven for success the question is how do you define success the Torah here promises embrace an observant lifestyle keep God's sacred timeless Torah lamont a skill element at legal so that you all have success but what does success look like and how is success to find the targum euros xiaomi a very ancient commentary translates that word task ela differently and says I'll read it to you in the Aramaic and translate this is bone and Yasko madam is Abram guard the words of the Torah so that you will be contemplative in all that you do what is the essence and purpose of Torah the Torah itself tells us you know why it's there so that we can be mindful and contemplative so that will be present and thoughtful so we'll be conscientious and conscious in all that we do tasks e leu for the targum doesn't mean success in the way that we measure it in society at large but it means his bonus to be contemplative the purpose of Torah the essence of a life of Jewish law and Jewish living is to promote and support to be a miss boning to lead a mindful conscious life to be aware in present in all that we do not to be distracted and not to be fragmented and not to be interrupted by all of that noise but to learn to live life you see most people indeed most of us if we're willing to admit it we're on autopilot we're creatures of our habit our custom and our tradition and our routine and our pattern are we late on time are we early are we chatty are we quiet what are our eating habits what are our exercise habits do we get angry are we calm and are we patient in all these areas of our life most of us once we forged and form that habit now we're on autopilot it's as if our bodies have been pre-programmed to know exactly what to do whether our minds are on or operating or not maybe you can relate to pulling into your driveway but you don't even remember the experience of driving home you don't remember a particular time you stepped on the gas or the brake or the turn signal maybe it finished an entire bag of potato chips and you don't remember how you got to the bottom you just remember opening the bag maybe you've closed your your sitter your prayer book at the end of experience of diving and you know you made it to the end but you don't even remember one moment of the journey of how you got there we are mindlessly and frantically going through our lives and we're absent present our body is there but our mind is elsewhere and therefore were forfeiting not only our lives our physical well-being our spiritual being our mental well-being all measured more positively when we learn to be mindful and present and everything that we do when we speak carelessly or when we put food in our mouths thoughtlessly we allow the passage of time mindlessly when we're not present and all we do we're asleep even while we're still awake being a creature of habit or routine leaves us feeling like we can't change or we can't grow this is just who I am I fly off the handle I get angry I get envious I get jealous I'm arrogant I struggle with ego and we think we're locked in to whatever habit we've formed but it's not true that helplessness and that hopelessness it leaves us feeling in a very dark place but it's not true we are all empowered and we are all given the tools and we are all given the support from above to break out and break through and to become the best version of ourselves to be the people were meant to be and the people are capable of being and the answer to it all how to lead a more healthy life and what we eat and when we exercise how to improve our relationships to be more thoughtful in what we say and how we say it how to be more thoughtful in our financial spending how to be more thoughtful in every area and arena of life the answer secret the foundation and prerequisite to it all is to learn how to live a mindful life Harvard professors Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert published a study in the journal Science and they found this on this statistic it's really mind-boggling they found that night that forty six point nine forty seven percent of their waking hours people are thinking about something other than what they are doing did you hear me maybe some of you aren't listening right now it's on and it's streaming but your thoughts are elsewhere they found that almost fifty percent of the time that we're awake we're thinking about something else other than what we're doing so we're brushing our teeth but our mind is elsewhere we're showering our mind is elsewhere we're driving but I mind is elsewhere we're praying and our mind is elsewhere we're pushing our child on a swing or we're chopping up the food that we're making for dinner or were even out with our spouse and there supposedly in conversation but our mind is elsewhere fifty percent of the time that we are awake we're thinking about something other than what we are doing that is a shocking shocking statistic so my friends this is the answer why the emphasis on the minutiae and the details who cares about the rules and the regulations why is Judaism trying to so regulate and legislate our lives the answer is it's not trying to hold you back it's not trying to prevent you it's not trying to rob you of happiness it's doing the exact opposite all this attention to detail in each area and arena of our life is encouraging and reinforcing it is promoting and providing a platform for how to lead a meaningful and a mindful life the entire framework of Jewish life and living is designed to bring us into the present to teach and cultivate within us how to be mindful to live at a higher state of consciousness and let me give you a few examples if you learn in the daf yo me we just encountered recently the Talmud and tractate Shabbos teaches in fact the very order that you're meant to get dressed in the morning you talk about regulating your life you talk about attention to detail or minutiae the Talmud tells us you put your right shoe on and then your left shoe but you tie your left shoe before your right shoe the Talmud there even tells us this part is practiced regularly but what order that you should wash your body when you bathe or shower which emphasis what you give precedence to the symbolism and the meaning of the right over the left so you'll say who cares the goal of getting dressed is to be dressed isn't it measured by the result who cares what order I put my shoes on and what order I tie my shoes I wash my hands the words that I say who cares what I put in my mouth and what comes out of my mouth who cared what matters is to be a good person a kind person a moral person an honest person and those things are all true in Judaism in the Torah and the Almighty also care deeply about being a good person and a kind person but how do you define who's good and what's good how do you know what sensitive and what's cruel because you know if you're kind to the cruel you'll be cruel to the kind how do you know what's moral what's ethical it changes in every culture in every generation is it determined by democracy by vote do you know that Hitler and the Nazi Party were elected in a democratic election but of course we know that what they did was not only unethical it was the greatest moral atrocity in the history of mankind and so who defines what's moral or ethical when we say isn't what matters to be a good person it's our sacred Torah it's it's teachings that illuminate the way that guide us in the decision-making that helps sharpen the judgement were meant to have and how does it do that by helping us make a plan to regulate our very lives from literally the moment we wake up in the morning until literally we close our eyes at night the Torah has something to say about how we wake up lie in bed for a couple seconds sit up and say modani we begin our day with an expression of gratitude an attitude of gratitude Tony Robbins talks about if you begin your day with gratitude you're on your way to a successful day but long before Tony Robbins the Torah told us that a Jew wakes up with the words modani we don't say an emo day I am grateful even though grammatically it seems more correct because the first word on your lips when you wake up can't be i i am grateful life in this world and our day can't be about i me my ego it's not an emo we begin our day with Moda and the grateful mi our day is inspired it is informed it is charged with the theme and the energy of Moda I'm grateful gratitude an attitude of gratitude it sets me on the path for a great day well if I don't feel grateful what if I don't want to say those words it's too bad Jewish law tells us when we wake up we teach our children when they're very young the first word you wake up in the morning Madani I woke up we're living in a terrible pandemic at a time where not everyone is so fortunate and blessed to wake up there are people who pass away in their sleep they're people who wake up to a new threatening reality they can't breathe on their own you woke up there's air in your lungs you can breathe MoDOT nila phonetic I'm Elif I think IM grateful am i before you the master the king of the universe just for waking up the fact that I'm alive the fact that you've renewed my contract in fact those words modani end with raba emunah Sokka your faith is great which is peculiar because usually when we talk about faith it's our faith in Him why are we talking about God you're in whom does God have faith the answer is if you woke up today God has faith in you that you have yet what to contribute to this world you have a difference you're meant to make you have a meaningful mindful life that yet you can live and how can you believe in that for yourself because you have the ultimate confirmation the ultimate endorsement raba Emunah Assefa God your faith in me is great and how do I know that God didn't write an endorsement for me he didn't renew a contract that was checked by a lawyer the answer is if you woke up this morning if you're breathing if you live to see another day rubba and muna suffer his faith in you his faith in us is great so from the very first words on our lips to the last words in our lips when we're falling asleep at night how do we go to sleep we go to sleep by uttering a beautiful prayer in which we forgive those who may have heard us and ask forgiveness of them we say a beautiful blessing how not be alone we say Shema we go to sleep with a commitment of God we go to sleep reflecting on our day and a commitment to see God mindfully throughout our day oh that parking spot opened up the thing I didn't think would work out oh that thing that seemed like a coincidence it was really you Oh I'm alive and I have the same headcount in my home at the end of the day I had at the beginning then Sh'ma Israel ICU Hashem ICU God in my life and I want to live a God driven life a Purpose Driven Life I want to see you and connect with you I want to have an intimate rendezvous and a loving relationship with you so in the first words on our lips in the morning to the last words at night and everything we do in between it's all regulated it's all taught it's all governed by our system of Jewish law not to rob us of happiness and not to overly be restrictive and not to focus on minutia and not to try to turn us into some OCD people it's all there to reinforce a sense of mindfulness and presence and all that we do so for example how I tie my shoes and how I get dressed is gonna tell me don't mindlessly tie your shoes tying your shoes is enormous in fact we have a blessing that we make on the ability to take steps on making mid/side day God our God you give me shoes you enabled me to walk which is a symbol for independence without shoes I couldn't operate I couldn't travel I couldn't get around God you give me a sense of Independence the ability to achieve the ability to aspire to have ambition the ability to impact and influence this world and that is represented symbolically by the fact that I have shoes in fact you don't wear shoes when you're in a holy place when God recruits Moshe to be the quintessential leader of the people he says take off your shoes you're in a holy place when the cornyn when the priests would serve on the Temple Mount in the temple they couldn't wear leather shoes those who believe it's ok to go on the Temple Mount today can't do so while wearing leather shoes when you're in the presence of God you take off your shoes as if to say I have nowhere else to be and there is no place I can go and I have no sense of Independence I am nothing without you but God in between being in those places you let us put on shoes you give us the impression you give us the illusion so to say that I am independent that I'm capable that I'm competent all symbolized in shoes so don't put your shoes on mindlessly you could go a lifetime 40 50 80 90 years and not have one memory of putting on your shoes and Judaism says no you've got to be thoughtful from the moment you wake up mindfulness right shoe left shoe tie the left shoe then tie the right there's beauty and symbolism and deeper meaning in each of those but just the fact that you're going to have a sense of mindfulness that you are promoting and reinforcing mindfulness in the very first act of the day if they have something on your head you begin with an attitude of gratitude we say a series of blessings from the very moment that we wake up to the moment we go asleep we are focused on these minutiae and details why because they all reinforce a sense of mindfulness cassius making sure that we only eat kosher food what are the criteria for kosher food what are the symbols of kosher food what are the rules about meat and dairy and separate utensils and how does that impact my microwave and my oven and how does that impact my stovetop and where do I store my food and how do I wash my dishes all of this is cultivating and reinforcing within me a sense of mindfulness you know one of the biggest enemies or areas of battle in life is with eating my own life I struggle with eating I love food I'm a foodie I love the taste of food I love the crunch of food I love tasting different foods I love big quantities of food I love food so food becomes an enemy food becomes a challenge because not all food loves us back especially you have a ashkenazi gastrointestinal system so how do you maintain an awareness and a mindfulness of eating how do we continue to enjoy and savor food there's nothing wrong with that but do so with a mindfulness that food is the nourishment for the soul that we eat in order to live we don't live in order to eat what will give me that sense of consciousness and mindfulness while I eat well if I have to think about everything I put in my mouth does this meet the criteria of being kosher I can eat that I can eat this okay I'm giving thought I'm cultivating mindfulness in the area of eating in the area of eating not only do I have to think about is the food kosher and eligible to eat did I make a blessing did I make a blessing on the food our rabbis teach that if you eat food without making a blessing it's like walking out of the supermarket without paying this is God's food he created it and he created this amazing ambience that we get to eat it in and the way that we pay the way we compensate what makes it ours is with abraha with a blessing it takes a millisecond but if you're mindful when you make the blessing then all of a sudden you've transformed this mundane act of eating into a spiritual act of holiness God this cup of coffee Oh unbelievable first the coffee beans were grown somewhere they're delicious beans someone had to plant them and harvest them and package them there was a driver who had to who had to truck them and there were distributors and then they were stored and someone ground them and turned them into a pod it's someone invented a Keurig machine and I'm able to put it and with the push of a bluff of a button I have and coffee snobs out there to forgive the fact that it's a Keurig but I have now a freshly brewed delicious cup of coffee so I could take that for granted and fail to thank the farmer and the manufacturer and the distributor and where I got it from and the inventor of the carrot and most of all the one who provides all of it the material and the wisdom to be able to to give it to me or I could stop and say bro Hitoshi McKenna McCallum choco niet bit Varro everything came to be with your word God everything wouldn't mean everything is just a cup of coffee no it's the ambience of the world in which I'm enjoying and savoring that cup of coffee is there anything better than when you wake up in the morning the smell the taste the temperature of a delicious cup of coffee that revives you so how could you take that for granted you have to say thank you we say thank you to the company that provided it by paying them they measure the thank you by their bottom line but we say thank you to God in fact we only take ownership of it when we make Abraha so think about how Judaism is providing a platform and reinforcing the value of mindfulness and meaning in the area of eating eating is a base animal act the Talmud tells us that we do three things in common with animals we eat we eliminate the food that we ate and we reproduce but what distinguishes us what differentiates us from animals is that those three things we do we do with mindfulness we do with a sense of meaning we do with a sense of purpose animals just do it intuitively and instinctively we do it because we're fully present and disciplined and all that we're doing so all of Torah and all of Judaism all of Jewish law are a platform to reinforce that because in the end of the day our relationships our accomplishments our health our spiritual and our mental health our emotional health they will all be enriched they'll all be enhanced they'll all be so much better if we can learn to be mindful and conscious in all that we do so tying your shoes in what order it seems insignificant but it helps to cultivate that kind of life making a blessing I'll show you out so when you come out of the bathroom a blessing on the bathroom you talked about an animal act eliminating the food that we ate is the most base animal thing that we do everyone does it's the great equalizer and yet we Jewish people do it differently we come out of the bathroom and we don't take for granted that everything worked that everything was supposed to happen everything happened the way it was supposed to you know the human body is the greatest chemical manufacturing plant it knows how to eliminate the waste and knows how to absorb the proper and the valuable it's a brilliant brilliant system an intricate detailed brilliant system you're gonna take it for granted you know who doesn't take it for granted somebody on a catheter or somebody who's had to have a colon surgery on a colostomy they don't take it for granted if you're able to eliminate your food properly and live healthy then you walk out and you pause how long does it take to say ah she yachts are this short tiny beautiful blessing that makes us mindful even of the blessing of being able to go to the bathroom well so our entire day is informed and inspired by reminders little triggers that say be mindful be mindful what you put in your mouth be mindful what you pray be mindful to be grateful be mindful how you dress be mindful about time you have to pray before this time and pray by the end of that time and you know what that does it creates a mindfulness time is not endless time is not limitless time is finite and we are all bound by it and we operate within it and so will live more meaningful lives if we're punctual and if we're conscientious and if we're mindful about the time that we have and we imbue and embed it with a sense of meaning time doesn't allow us now but it's true for every area of Jewish life you give me a Jewish law and I will show you how it is there in order to remind us and reinforce within us and bring out the best of us to live a meaningful and a mindful life and so my message to you is slow down slow down and savor life be present be present in a sunset be present with your children be present and a cup of coffee be present and savor a walk be present and savor a song be present that savor the greatest experience of life that are meant to be taken slowly and meaningfully and beautifully and if you do I guarantee LeMond tascela lamont at sleek ooh we will lead more successful lives by any measure and in every area of our lives you're not the passenger you're the pilot choose to be present in everything that you do and you'll see your life get even better