Introduction to kabbalah: Explaining the sefirot with a guitar.

You know, and we're just like "Why does my life suck?" And then you go you go speak to someone who's standing like more like here and sometimes it takes you to speak to that person. So, they grab you by the back of your collar and they're just like pull you away from it a bit. So, you're just like you're just like "Oh. Yeah. There's a There's a There's a bigger picture." Let me show you this on a guitar cuz this will hit the intellectuals and the interpersonals and the instinctuals. Cuz it's going to hit your eardrum, which is your you know, your physical body. Cuz this can turn into a pickup. Not this. Anyway, if I just play the guitar with open strings. Now, don't forget everything I was just doing was being run by here. Flow totally. Like I had no idea where I was going to go with that. But enough structure that I decided to do some kind of funky rhythm and blues type thing, which was you know, my there was a decision made. But I But my right brain is very strong, just like my flow is very strong, which like my head is strong. You're generally strong on one side or the other. Everyone's stronger on one side or the other. So So I I'm stronger on the on the right side. Associative. Flow. Uh Netzach, meaning perseverance. I I I like something, I'll do it forever. Okay? Which is part of the reason why I'm playing guitar. Cuz I picked up the guitar as a kid. Mostly out of a fear of rejection. And uh everyone likes a guitar player, you know. Who's going to reject a guitarist, you know? So, um anyway, but watch what happens now. I make the strings flow. Tell me, how does this sound? Nice or not nice? It doesn't sound nice. That sound like it's beautiful? It's not beautiful. It's out of what? Tiferes. Remember we said beauty is Everyone's Let's make Start You guys get Look alive, okay? Everyone say Tiferes. Is this in or out of Tiferes? In or out? Say Yeah, say your Rabbi, you're out of Tiferes. Try that. Rabbi, you're out of Tiferes. Now, what it What did I do by letting all the strings flow? You can even see them moving. That is flowing, man. That That's 440 oscillations per second there. Full flow. That's I don't even know what that one is. It's uh 300 or something. Oscillations per second. Now, what are they flowing between? This bridge, you see that white piece thing? That bridge and that bridge. Full flow. And it sounds horrible. And that's why flow, the attribute of Hesed, is is generally destructive. Like a tsunami, for example. By the way, when you're when you're studying Kabbalah, get rid of your regular definitions. Hesed doesn't mean you're delivering cookies to the neighbor, okay? In Kabbalah, Hesed means full flow. And it sounds terrible. And a tsunami is full flow. See, the seashore is normally what attribute? The seashore. That's the relationship between the sea and the city is the seashores, you know, that's Tiferet. But the seashore is usually Hesed or what is it? No, it's Gevurah. The seashore keeps the water back so people don't die. That's the job of the seashore. It stops the sea from coming in. But when there's a tsunami, what attribute is that? That's Hesed. Full flow, just like the strings. That's Hesed. Now, this is one bridge, that's the other bridge. But what if I use my fingers and make an artificial human a human artificial bridge, skip the E string, hit the A string, and do this? How's that sound? And notice the power that I hit it with was very gentle cuz it's a soft chord. It's it's a kind chord. Artificial bridge based on Let's say I was leading a meditation. You know, if I'm playing a rock song, that's one thing. But if I'm leading a meditation, might as well burn some incense. That's where if we really want to be into Ferris, we can burn a lot of incense. I don't know how much I have left of this. Oh, I have some. Okay, you're in charge of incense. Just press that button once in a while. What? What is this? That's my little uh my little lavona burner. I carry around a an incense burner. Jews are very into incense. I mean, we had 11 spices, you know. So, this is one of the more popular spices from the Temple Mount, the Temple. You can press the blue button, too. They'll smell it in the back after a while. Just once. Just enough. Yeah, just let it go on. You can see it's burning. Smell it yet? It'll move its way back. You're in charge of the lavona, okay? All of Jerusalem smelled like this, but plus many other smells. So, by me What am I doing, though? This my fingers here are gevurah, cuz they're limiting flow. They're limiting flow based on the recipient, which is you. That's malchus. That's the 10th. And I'm choosing what to play by making sure what I play is relevant to you, which is the USB cable. That's your soul. So, what I would play would be based on you. The one of the greatest your soul bands in history was called the Grateful Dead. And the Grateful Dead was was a band that's their their USB cable was so strong that people in the audience, which could be 30,000 people strong, would actually write down a song and then pass it around to get to get enough people conscious of that song so that the band would start to play it. And when they played it, the crowd would go bananas that the band got it. They got the message. That's how That's how in your soul. Today, bands, they have their own set list. They're They're connected to some light system all on a computer. It's like they can't even They can't even play the guitar solo can't double his guitar solo cuz it would mess up the whole lighting for that your your little digital show. But, you know, back when music concerts were actually just a band playing music with a a light guy, you know, just doing his best over there. The um you know, that the band would actually play the song that the crowd wanted. When enough of the crowd started thinking about the song. And that was your soul. And that in a way for many of us is love. Like, wouldn't you wish that your spouse could guess what you need before you ask for it? Wouldn't that be cool? A lot of females want that. And you should know what I want before I request it. And which is cruel and unusual to husbands. Cuz we don't know what you want before you want it. You must ask. And and just ask. And you will get. But, uh sitting there just shooting yourself in the foot all day trying to hope that he knows what you want. You know, when poor guy is, you know, he's just a guy, you know, like give him a break. You know, like that doesn't make it more romantic. It would be sweet if it happened sometimes. It's a bonus. But that's not where romance is. It's extremely romantic to have someone guess what you need. But it's a great way to ruin your life. Because you'll just sit there going, he doesn't get me. And you know, it would be a perfect way to never have love and to always want it. See, most people prefer to want love than have it. I'm not going to go there now for a while, but most people prefer to want it than have it. And when they have it, they have to shoot themselves in the foot. So, one of the common ways women shoot themselves in the foot is, why didn't he know? Why couldn't he have figured that out? And whereas a a woman who truly has good marriage would say, the advice is, always tell your husband what you need. Straight out. Not in hints, not in poems, not in, you know, not in passive-aggressive text messages. But just be really straight with what you want. And especially with what you need. Just tell him straight. And then you'll have a beautiful life. You'll have an amazing marriage. And you'll stop shooting yourself in the foot. Playing dramatic games to make yourself miserable so that you can want love instead of have it. Now, um So, now to go through it all is I have to make decisions before I strum this thing. That's the head. And I can be enough kind of flow with that, or I can be very structured with a set list. I'm sorry, just that's uh I can be I can play anything. That's ahma. But there's a list of things I know, and and stuff I don't know, and that's me. Now, I have to know that list. And then I can make my decisions. That's That's das. Okay, everyone say hochma. Together, everybody, hochma. That's the associative mind. Okay. Everyone say bina. And that's the analytical mind. And I've got details, I got to analyze which one to play here. Okay, everyone say das. Das, that's the decisive mind, okay? Hesed is I'm going to play. I'm I'm going to strum that baby. Okay, everyone say hesed. Gevurah, I'm going to limit the I'm going to limit the I'm limiting the oscillation of the strings. That's gevurah. Everyone say gevurah. Everyone say tiferet. Say tiferet. Why? Cuz I'm going to look at the recipient, get a sense of them, and know what song to play based on who's going to be listening. That's the recipient is malchut. Everyone say malchut. Tiferet is going to inform gevurah where to put the fingers, how hard to strum, meaning limiting this hand, too, so that it sounds beautiful to the recipient, to the listener. Netzach is the strings don't just go on and off. They ring. They keep going. Netzach. It's called sustain. To have something sustainable is netzach. God created a sustainable earth, but we don't sustain it well with all our pollution and disposables fossil fuels sustenance sustain And And then there's hod, which is focus, cuz I could play a solo. There I'm like I'm soloing. I'm very pinpointed at laser beamed onto specific strings. You know, that's that's a very hood move to make is to play a solo. And Yesod is is that is that I really get you guys. Now, that'd be very hard cuz I got like the seminary girls and then I got like this dude back there, Bryce. Like Bryce probably just wants to hear like Lynyrd Skynyrd. Sweet home Jerusalem where the skies are so blue. Sweet home Jerusalem Lord, I'm coming home to you. So, I it's really hard to be in Tiferet with a group like this cuz we have there's a lot of recipients. And to be in Yesod properly would be, you know, it'd be difficult to to play the right concept for a group as diverse as you sitting here would be next to impossible. Now, what's interesting is that there's a Hasidic world that that used to have its leaders being the masters of Yesod. The master called Yesod. In fact, to this day we still give leaders of of Jewish groups like Hasidic groups, we give the leaders of those groups the sixth aliyah at the Torah. Like they come up to the Torah at the sixth aliyah cuz that's Yesod. You know, they they have the best interface. And with the people. Yesod. And um And you see that that it's the sixth. It's right? Hesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Hod, Yesod. Netzach, Gevurah, Tiferet. Hesed, Gevurah, Tiferet, Netzach, Hod, Yesod. It's the sixth attribute. And what's what letter in the Hebrew alphabet is is the sixth? It's a vav, right? Aleph, Bet, Gimel, Dalet, Hey, Vav. What's a vav? Well, vav is really just a yud which is Hochma's, that original brainstorm, which is the yud. It just connects an idea to earth. It draws it It's just It's just a an extended yud. A yud A vav is an extended yud. It takes things from above and draws them into the world. It's It's a um executor. It executes the mission. It's an implementer. Vav's implement. And think of what the What is the definition? Cuz vav is actually a word. It's a one-letter root word. And we don't have a lot of one-letter root words. What's vav mean in Hebrew? And, right? What's Well, what is an and What is and doing a sentence? Connects. It's a USB cable. Zeh veh zeh. It connects things. And it's by no coincidence the shape of that part of a man's body, which is which is the connector that creates life. And and true true physical expression of inner connection. That's all the vav. That's all the attribute of Yesod. So, traditionally, Hasidic leaders were always the masters of that that particular attribute. I met a rebbe like that recently. There was a rebbe in Ashdod, which is a beach community in Israel. He's still there. He's should be well. His name is the Pittsburgher rebbe. Here in Israel. Pittsburgher rebbe. You guys ever met the Pittsburgher rebbe? So, you met him? At our wedding, right. Yeah. Did you meet him? We saw him. You saw him. So, I went to the Shabbat cuz of my daughter married a Pittsburgher hassan. So, I went to the Shabbat before. And we're sitting at the tish. Tish is the the Friday night event where the rebbe sits with all the hasidim. And I literally watched this one rebbe love every person in that room. There was no one in that room. And there were a lot of people in that room. There were hundreds of people lining bleachers at this event Shabbat night. It's called the tish. Every single person left and went to bed that night knowing that they have a relationship with this man. They have a relationship with this great man. Every person went to bed knowing that. And and and this goes on every week. No matter how many people they develop, you know, cuz there's a lot of babies being had and they're growing up. I mean, even little kids got their time with him. Everybody No one left the room. Not even the little little uh you know, parental rats down there, you know, like in between the bleachers, you know, playing you know, playing games with their friends under there. They all had their moment with him. He was the ultimate example of his love. But today there's many many rebbes today are have no relationship whatsoever with their hasidim. Now, you sometimes that's just a function of how many people there are. There's 80,000 of them. You know, and they can throw an event on Friday night that could have as many as uh How many people could be at one of those things? I mean, what How many people could you see at such a thing? Usually a thousand. But like a younger person. Few thousand people. And if it's bells in that giant place, could be 10,000 maybe. So, good luck with that. Yeah. But anyway, that that is the job of of the rebbe is is that level of connection with the people. To be a person who can look someone in the eyes and and know. Know what to say, know what to what what advice to give and and how to carry that person's load for them or with them for a moment and give them a sense that they're they're not alone with this and that it's part of a plan and that's not it's not all bad. It's part of a bigger and better picture that they just got to get through to see it. To be able to see it, you know. Sometimes we're standing so close to you know, sometimes we're standing so close to the wallpaper that, you know, we're just kind of staring at it like like this. You know, and we're just like why does my life suck? And then you go you go speak to someone who's standing like more like here. And sometimes it takes you to speak to that person. So, they grab you by the back of your collar and they're just like pull you away from it a bit. So, you're just like you're just like Huh. Yeah. There's a there's a there's a bigger picture. And that's that's a yesod kind of thing to do for somebody is to connect to them like that. Help them see that. Shalom. If you enjoyed watching this, well, watch some more. Send it, click it, forward it, join it, subscribe to it. You know, keep coming on and joining me in this amazing movement to make a big difference in the world. and the biggest thing you can do of all is to join the Yom Tov Media Club.com. Please go online. Yom Tov Media Club.com.