Being present in the here and NOW!

[Music] over life Sheldon welcome to practical spirituality here in the city of Jerusalem an Asia tour overlooking the Western Wall today we're going to understand something really amazing and that is that that the secular world is right that the highest thing is the highest thing possible is no obligations no obligations is the highest thing now how do we know they're right how do we know that that that the highest thing that could be is no obligations is we just finished the day of all the three weeks the climax day of the entire three-week experience of the High Holidays this is called show me neots eres jhemini and Sara's the highest they had no obligations there was nothing to do because in fact it's called that Sara's because you stop doing everything you stop praying I mean we do the normal prayers but but there's no like none of that like intense like save me stuff and there's um there's no there's just no more no more of all that it's not we're done with all this that we're praying for it and there's nothing to pray for you we did that already the the prayers the prayers stuff where we pray for stuff climaxed and ended on hoshanah Rabbah the day before and then we like go into this much higher place so we go through this big t : it's big like spiritual rectification from rocoto shovel till the end of hoshanah Rabbah the seventh day of Sukkot and then we're done with all the things that we would have asked for everything we were missing whatever might have been necessary in our lives we we did all those so that's all the prayer stuff so we ended that we have no mitzvahs to do at all an entire day with no mitzvahs to do we have it's just it's just be with me they it's just be with God day and you know what being where you are and with what you're doing is is super special no it's super special they we spend a lot of time especially in the observant community trying to get somewhere but we forget a lot to be there we're always trying to get somewhere and we're never there we know we never get there we're always trying to get there which is fine for certain things like for example understanding God which is a lifetime of study do you ever get there understanding God you never get there which is fine that's something that's meant to be like that another thing meant to be like that is knowing all of Torah will we ever get there no and that's fine that's that's good it was built to be that way that it would be eternal you would never get there but but there's so many things where we you should actually be there and I I've told the story twice as here but I'll say it again is that I we were missing one guy for we wanted to pray and we had nine men and we needed one more man and we couldn't find anyone with a keep on his head the only person we found willing to join us for the 10 minutes of prayer was was a guy it was long hair and he was covered in tattoos and piercings and stuff and and he was willing to throw on I keep on and be the tenth man so we could do the things that you need 10 min to do so and we gave him a prayer book and thankfully it was Israeli so he like knew all the Hebrew and you told him you know just stand with your feet together and say these words and anyway this guy like took off like a rocket ship like he was he just really went for it and we were all / done praying we were not just done praying we were done with typhoon the morning little section we were done with Elena Lucia baya we were done with everything and we all left the guy he was the last one in the room and he had barely gotten to like the fourth paragraph of the silent meditation because he was busy like he was really there whereas we were all trying to get somewhere now it could be we were trying to get to our next appointments or get to wherever we had to go but but we also prayer is like something along the way like we're trying to get somewhere as opposed to really be there and this guy what does he know from such thoughts like he's always where he is the guy doesn't have anything but where he is he didn't have a lot of goals he didn't have a lot of he's not like searching after some place he's trying to get to he's really in his own skin right there so he out prayed us you out prayed us and so so that level of presence is super important and we have a holiday to prove it two of them actually there's two AIDS Day holidays Shmi neots eros the eighth day of the holidays we just finished and what's the other one it's called Shavuos otherwise known as at saris she was has also called that saris which is the 8th day of Passover Passover has seven days the eighth day is Shavuos and all the counting of the Omer the 49 days between Passover and Shiraz is the that's called whole annoyed that's the interim days of the holiday until we get to the eighth day which is shaboots it takes fifty days to get there and then that holidays called Shabazz and guess what no mitzvahs there's no mitzvahs on that day cuz no mitzvahs attached to the holiday of Sheila's it's just I know it's another utz Aris and what is that saris and saris is being with God stop doing because think about it six days a week we work we do and do and do and then come Shabbat we stop doing in order to be with God and so we just had the holiday of its eros which is just being with God and Shavuos how does that work you get Passover night you get to be with God from this like freebie zone where God just gives you this freebie light of Passover but then he dumps you down to level zero and you start the count first in the second day of forty-nine days you rebuild based on the sphero's if you rebuild and once you've rebuilt all the way to be to the 49th day then we go again into its eros where we're built and now we're gonna be with God just like we just those three weeks we built and now we're gonna be with God so we build things and then we're being with thing and there's similar thing in marriage when you get married we have newlyweds right here Russian don't worry we're not gonna film you so we got new beds how long you guys married three months four months Mazel Tov love ya some people clapped so not everyone why does it feel warm in here it doesn't feel like it a lot of air doesn't it feel like there's no way Aaron let's just open these windows a beautiful day out there might be a little loud let's try just try turning the thing I like another turn that thing a lot another millimeter there what are you from LA Persian or something she's like it doesn't open yeah try turning it like a millimeter I'm just how you do whatever you are you a breaker girl I have a breaker girl in my house feel so bad for breaker girls but you know it's great about people who break everything he's oh that's too loud yeah yeah clothes out we'll put on these so you handle some a/c on low fan on low the thing about breaker please the thing about breaker people is you put them outdoors give me real space like a park maybe it's on heat trade change the mode to air-conditioned anyway you put them outdoors in space and they're like the best answer like in the dance floor they're the best answer like suddenly they're not breaking anything unless they're breakdancing but they don't break anything are you good outdoors like with space what you're good at dancing are you like like real good motor skills and stuff climbing things I noticed my same kid even when she was a little kid she literally broke everything she'd come to the table and just knock over everything and it's terribly embarrassing you know especially with guests cuz it was every time and and then I took all the kids out like rock climbing and she was the first one to the top like she just she's just an an animal that needs more space you understand and didn't do well with the space that the confined space of a dinner table or should take up dancing though she's my best dancer my kids are all dancers you're not gonna take up dancing it's very healthy therapeutic okay and back to us is marriages similar like that is that when you get married that's the freebie right you get your freebie and then you get to work and after you get to work then you come to these vistas once in a while you know it's hard to predict when they come but but if you do the proper work and you get into it you work it through and it's a lot of work like people who don't want to fight in marriage or are the ones they want to fight in court later we're in marriage to work you know and how are you supposed to get two people with two totally maybe not totally different but quite different stories of their background quite you know each person comes with their own narrative their own family culture that none of which is based on anything real or true but it's just the way things are in that house which is very different than the way things are in that house which making different of that as every house is different and you're gonna put these two stories together and they're supposed to both somehow think their stories true about the legends of their home of how things came to be I said how are they supposed to Mich with the legends of someone else's news but they're not and they're not supposed to and there's and you have to have it out so that you can create some poor legend for your kids you know sure you know your own kids are gonna deal with that kind of hybrid legend in your home unless you have a really clear clean home which is pretty rare and hard to do I mean I didn't pull that off and I'm I'm like running international level seven you know and I my kids are definitely hybrids of my culture from my home and my wife's culture from her home and just some kind of hybrid so but you work things out and that's why in Judaism we don't celebrate weddings as much as we celebrate anniversaries we don't celebrate birthdays as much as we celebrate yurt sites although Chabad celebrates their rebus yours they they celebrate anything that happened to already think about it like it's always some kind of holiday face it wears every other Hasidic group only celebrates the yard site that's all you get you know although the one it's funny I'm saying that because the toast of us jumped up there is we do have a holiday I'm named after the toast was Yom Tov and we do have a holiday for when he was freed from jail which is one of the holidays you get with Chabad rabbis who were in jail they weren't jailed they were in jail it was persecution it wasn't like they were like smuggling weed or something no they were just being persecuted that's one of the famous stories is the the founder of the Habad movement I don't think he realized he was founding a movement but this great Rebbe named the mullet Anya who was just one of the greatest minds in all of Jewish history he-he-he-hey and one boy the guard just said he's gonna kill the Jew in the cell you know he knew he was an important you but what does he care and he was gonna kill him he puts a gun in a ball Tania said to kill him as he probably killed many inmates in that boat Anya was like unfazed at all so he has some why aren't you nervous and he says you believe in one world so that's why death scares you I believe in - so you wanted your fast-tracking me yeah make my day you know and the guard was like well I guess I'm not gonna give him that you know took the gun away and walked out you know not gonna give him - give him the joy of fast-tracking him to the next world so the anyway but Judaism and one can get married but not everyone can create anniversaries to get married you need a pulse to have anniversaries you need you need a good line for that to get married you need a pulse to have anniversaries you need come on who where's my script writer okay so we'll go with until we get something better I like kids you got to work and I'm not gonna go with a vein but hard to get married you need a pulse to stay married you need to have anniversaries you need okay we'll call it work how are you you still win I'll come up with something better anyway I'll try to look at the comments of this class someone came up with something so we really celebrate anniversary in fact tonight's funny we're talking about this tonight's my 25th anniversary 25 is yeah which is why of course I'm disappearing again we're going we're going to Europe for a few data fair next week nice seeing you again I feel like I just visit this room these days and then I'm back for a week and then I'm gone for two weeks what's Shabbos this heaviness now be in your obscure shops Prague okay hey it's 25th wedding anniversary you got it you got to play big on me it was already too much information thank you what countries you know the best I really put the pro tours in Portugal now that we're surfing Pro Tour yeah they're there in Portugal but there's no waves now so they're on hold till tomorrow tomorrow and Friday okay okay that's basically all I wanted to say was that was that there's there's the being that comes from the work and and so simplest are is a very high day what it has to do with dancing around with the tour which basically just breaks people know people who are really in Turin dedicated inter they they love simplest era but anyone who's not in Tour like that is just broken on simplest or and that's why there's two ways to celebrate simple star one is you dance with the Torah and the other issue gets smashed drunk and that's for the broken guys and and it's really a pretty good idea actually so this this this idea of becoming smashed drunk on on simplest Tara is is a good thing in that there's no Mitzvah of the day it doesn't have a mitzvah so the fact that you don't feel good about dancing with the tour all day because you haven't been so involved in Torah all day every year you know this last year so it's not like the most exciting thing for you to be holding a tour and dancing around all day so when you get smashed drunk you just start dancing anyway which is you know which is the point is that we're being with God just like people who get to those vistas in their marriage are being with each other and just like being with God after the Pesach and the counting of the Omer it's there's the there are these moments of camp like you know it is like it's like the Jewish people who travel that was when all the camps mixed in there was no forbidden place to go but then they set up camp 42 times where now all of a sudden there's a Levite area in a Cohen area and and the tribes are in their locations and and there and there's suddenly there's rules here where you can and cannot go and they're like it's moment of clarity it's a camp we're camping now we're experiencing the work we did and where we've come to at this point so that's at sarrish meaning at Sarah Sarah Lewis our camps where we can't now and we are in the full experience of what we've achieved and again the this whole idea of dancing with the Torah in Israel is a new idea it's only about I think it's about five hundred years old I have a few scholars who watch my class so they always fix these dates but something like five hundred years old because the rest of the world that keeps outside of Israel where they keep two days so the first days the regular holiday on sareth that's saris and then the second day because I have to keep two days they dance with the tourists so here in Israel they took on to take that dancing with the Torah date on at Sarat and so we now dance with the tourists on that date with the pointer but for us when you see people dancing with the Torah you can't help but say wait am I really dancing with the Torah and then I'm like oh really dude and then someone comes with a bottle absolute vodka next you know you aren't answer with the tar so so it's an alcohol is pretty good for that day there's a third category there's a third category and that's that's just people can't fool themselves with vodka and they just are completely bummed all day and there are people like that who just they're bum the whole day but but that's only because they don't understand what the day is about it's not about dancing at the time it's about being with God after this incredible thing we've done for the last 40 or 50 days really more cuz till Yom Kippur is 40 days then the four days of building suckers and stuff that's 54 plus seven days of Circus is 61 days so we just spent sorry 51 days we just spent 51 days to get to this day and so not a day to be broken not a day to be broken at all but there are people who don't even understand that what the day's about they just can't help but notice everyone's dancing with the Taira and then they get all broken and don't believe vodka helps okay I'm done