The Haunting Story the Baal Shem Tov Told before Blowing Shofar - Rosh Hashanah Class 5786

[music] the yeshiva.net. >> First of all, I want to welcome everybody back after our long break. It's an honor and privilege to be back at our shir for a new semester of learning. May we be channels to bring into our lives, our hearts, our homes, our communities and the world the infinite love and wisdom and depth and authenticity of and godliness and yiddish. And all of you, all of us should be blessed with your most incredible year yet with abundance and blessings and joy and health and prosperity and all your heart's requests should be fulfilled in the [snorts] most beautiful and extraordinary way. Israel it should be a year of true peace and true redemption. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. A good gent to everybody and welcome back. Today's class is dedicated by Israel and Hindi Mozen in honor of the yeshiva.net team for all the inspiring and empowering classes. Thank you very very much. That means so much rabbis and Hindi. Today's class is also dedicated by David Barrett in honor of his daughter Talia and her husband Roy Marcus for all the blessings materially and spiritually and ashva. Thank you very very much. I also want to dedicate the class for a complete and speedy recovery to a child of one of the mothers who's here for and all the darkness and adversity should be transformed completely. the vanigla. We should hear only survas from him. Over the years, I've received many many letters from people, emails primarily or in conversations or feedback from very different demographics. And one common denominator was the emotional difficulty that many people have during the month of Elo especially during the time of Slickus and Rashana and Yim Kipper. Not everybody admits it and not everybody I'm sure experiences it but there are many many people and I know I had to work with this internally. So I'm not just you know being a uh mouthpiece for others but it's also something I'm familiar intimately experientially the whole concept the whole reality of the days of judgment and the days of repentance and the days when the verdict is decided for the next year it puts so many people into a state of stress. sometimes very conscious, sometimes more unconscious, but even when it's not conscious, its symptoms are conscious. A certain anxiety or or lack of of joy or certainly serenity. And some people are even surprised that the issue could be raised. Of course, somebody once told me, "These are horrible days. These are horrible days. I panic. And if I take it seriously, if I don't take it seriously, but if I take it seriously, like, of course, so it's so ingrained in in in many people's lives. And the truth is it's very hard to have a a beautiful loving relationship with Hashem when you see him as punitive. When you see him almost like this time of the year where the X-ray is coming, everything is going to be under scrutiny. Nothing you thought or said or did will be forgotten. Everything will be judged. be careful, be cautious, and be very, very afraid. And say, of course, it's a time of year. It's a time of It's like, what can be a more clear prayer? It's like, please make me terrified. That's how people even understand it. Please put your fear prayer and all the language and the it's very very emotionally difficult for people for a lot a lot of people um I can't tell you that in one class I'm going to heal this and if you don't feel it needs to be healed or it should be healed okay great but I want to hashem I hope I could be a channel open up a a window or at least penetrate a hole to be able to offer, I think, a much more expansive and authentic perspective. Um, I got an email from a woman not too long ago. [snorts] She says, "I listen to all of the classes, especially the women's classes on Tuesday, and I'll tell you the truth. I don't believe a word you say." Why? I love every word you say, but I don't believe it. You know why? It's too good to be true. That's what she says. It's too good to be true. I do not believe you are representing real Yiddishkite. Maybe you mean well and people like it and I love it but I don't believe a word you say. I don't think it's sourced in authentic Yiddishkite. And and the re and and the reason she explains the reason is for me Judaism is associated with a certain dread with a certain negativity with a certain heaviness. And I don't hear that in your classes. That means one of the two, [laughter] right? Either I I got it completely wrong for a long time or maybe you got it completely wrong. So, it was easier to say I got it completely wrong because this is ingrained. And actually, I was reading it and I I I appreciated authenticity. I love every word you say, but I don't believe a word of it. It's it's it's it's nice. It's whatever it is exquisite, but it's all uh it's not it's not truth. It's not real. And the truth is what this woman I think was describing very very eloquently is thousands of years of gullos of exile in which I can perform everything. I can say all the right words. I do all the right things. My intentions are very very noble and good. And yet often there's a certain core uh experience that is that is lost or is is is forgotten or is repressed or is buried. There's a certain essential existential uh darkness a kipa. It's called arlas halv the foreskin of the heart that literally blocks the heart in a very very deep way. And the tragedy is as my wife once told me brilliantly we don't know what we don't know. Think about that, right? It's deeper than we imagine. In other words, there are things we know. Whatever we do or we think we know. There are things we don't know and we know we don't know. But there is what we don't know we don't know. And that's the danger because if I know I don't know. Okay. But when I don't know that I don't know, I don't even have a reference point for a search. Sometimes I know certain parts of myself. I didn't know that I didn't know. Certain struggles that I had. I didn't know I was struggling because part of our part of our uh brilliant coping mechanism is to create substitutes that feel good and look good. Remember our biological template that Hashem created has one agenda. It's called survival and safety and comfort which every living organism has. You can speak to any snake, frog, chicken, bee, lion, mammal, fish, bird, bush, plant. Every living organism has that embedded instinct. Survive, survive, survive in the most comfortable way possible. Part of that is not to tell you that you're struggling with something. That's part of survival. So sometimes there may be an internal torturous experience that is completely buried and I don't want to go there because to sit in the pain is very very uncomfortable. But to challenge is as we once learned if I don't go back to the place of the rupture I could never discover the light that is under the rupture. So I want to address this in inashem in a somewhat thorough and comprehensive way at least as I said begin to open channels and I'm not really preaching to anybody else. I'm first of all talking to myself and uh hopefully other people can uh listen to my conversation with myself. Rabbi Jonathan Saxs of Blessed Memory was the chief rabbi of Britain. So he once said, "What's the difference between a party, a sermon, and an authentic faban?" So he said as follows, "At a party, everybody speaks and nobody listens. At a sermon, one person speaks, the rabbi, and nobody listens. At a real fabbrangan, nobody speaks and everybody listens. So, uh that's really that's really what a real uh sh what a real class should be like. The harim was the first alter and he once said something astonishingly beautiful. The says everybody knows in mish's also a famous song. So, if you don't know it from the verse, you know it from the song. My son, listen to the muser to the rebuke of your father and don't neglect. Don't abandon the of your mother. And he asked why by your father does it say m of and by your mother. You would think it's the other way around. Your father's supposed to teach you and your mother is supposed to knock some sense into your head which we call muser. Teach you how to be a mench, how to be a man, how to be a woman, whatever it is. But by the mother it says by the father it says mus also by the father it says listen to what your father is teaching you. It doesn't say listen to what your mother says. It says don't abandon the of your mother. It should say or your mother doesn't talk only your father talks. It's not the experience of most kids. Father talks and mommy talks. Sometimes even a little more than tati. So he said as follows. He says there's two that you learn. There's there's the etiquette, the manners, the direction, the guidance, the mentorship that a father should mentor his children. And then there's it's not mus it's the you learned in your mother's womb. Me is the says when we are in our mother's womb and the fetus learns the whole when there's a candle burning on its head and then as it leaves it forgets. So the first is it's what the father teaches and he teaches you it's not mus it's what you already know inside of you and that you don't have to listen to just don't abandon it it's already inside of you and the point here is as follows how do you know something is real authentic to you heard it already where did you hear it in your mom's womb it resonates if it's really really tora it resonates my system knows it may challenge But deep down there's a recognition of that of that deep truth. And that's why every real is really is this concept of faban of nobody talking and everybody listening because it's listening to yourself. It's listening to your own voice. It's listening to the innermost uh foremost consciousness the divine template before all the other templates. the the candle burning on the head of the fetus inside the womb where the entire was taught where the person has a recognition there's an authenticity here. There's a real real truth here. So now let's get in actually to the to the actual serious serious topic. The first issue I want to address is the day of judgment. Okay. Now we live in a world where nobody wants to be judged. If you come to me and say, "Rabbi Yway, I'm about to start judging you." I'm like, "Go find somebody else. I'm not interested." Nobody sends a text. Hey, I would like to talk to you because I'm in the middle of judging you. Even if you're doing it, sh you're quiet, right? You don't send a text to your husband or to your mother, to your sister-in-law, to your teenage child. By the way, I'm in the middle of judging you. How was your day? Right? I'm thinking about you. We don't Who wants to be judged? Nobody wants to be judged. Judgment comes with a certain uh negative connotation. It feels vindictive. Why are you judging me? It feels punitive. It feels aranging. It feels alienating, alienating, and whatever other adjective you want to use. But whenever anybody comes into a room, you know, I know, and you feel judged, you don't want to be there. I don't want to be in a place where I'm sitting at a table and people are judging me. Right? We all know how hard it is for a child in school, whether it's a girl or a boy at any age to be in a place where they feel they're being scrutinized and surveyed and there's surveillance and hypervigilance like leave me alone, just accept me, tolerate me, enjoy me, make me feel comfortable. So the very words yadid, the days of judgment or the day of judgment, it just before anything else, you don't have to say anything else. It's like a day where everybody is judged. Who likes to spend time in courouses? If you don't have a choice, I mean even jury duty is gone to find a headache. You know when you have to go to jury duty and you sit all day and in the old days when you didn't even have your phone, your mama sat like a goum for 12 hours, right? And try to strike up a conversation. You remember the good old days of jury duty. And uh and that's not even you're judging other people. You're you're going into the jury and even that's pretty uncomfortable. Never mind being, you know, the defendant or the plaintiff. It's just not an it's not a comfortable situation. The highlight of this comes in the prayer known as an is said both days of and it's said and we all know that prayer because it's one of the highlights of the which also means fearful days or awesome days how holy the day is and we describe here they're the angels even being overwhelmed and being terrified and everyone passes like the sheep just like the shepherd who watches each one of the sheep go by. Every person and their entire life is evaluated and counted like one sheep passes one at a time. One at a time etc. And then you have and the whole everything in the t. We have to remember two very very powerful principles here. And this is not just remembering it intellectually. I know I could say it all day to myself. I'm talking about internalizing it emotionally and experientially. And I know there could be a lot of resistance to this and it makes sense. But here are the two truths that are at the axiom of all of this. And that is when we hear the word judgment, it conotes a negative experience because of two reasons that we need to be able to shift. And that is most people who are judging me or judging you don't really know you. Even if they know you superficially, they don't know you at your core. And even if they know a lot about you, how much do they love you? How much do they care for you? How much do they want to see your success? But here's the question. What if I can go into a meeting with somebody? I could sit down at a couch in somebody's room and I know that the person sitting in front of me theoretically, I know it's not always possible, but theory the person sitting in front of me knows every single struggle that exists in my soul. Not from today. From the day I was formed, not only from the day I was born, from the day I was conceived. Before I became a fetus, what is it called? A zygote. before I bec before from that moment there's an unbelievable uh commentary of rashi in the month of we say every day which is chapter 27 and there's a very haunting line over there of my father and mother abandoned me they neglected me and hashem takes me in what does that mean we don't know that was abandoned when he was thrown to the wolves his mother threw him out of the house we don't have such a So Rash where did get this? In fact, his father Yishan was considered to be an incredible person. The Gmorra says he was one of the four people in history who died only because of the no other reason. In other words, he should have lived forever. Four unique people. One of them was the father of David. And so his father abandoned him, his mother abandoned him. We know there were challenges in the family. There's a whole medish about he spoke about it. But what does this mean? So Rashi says this. Okay, this is quite a Rashi. You can look it up. I'm not making this up. And Rashi says Malik was describing everybody's experience. Everybody's experience. Well, some people have amazing parents. Some people sitting here in this room, you know what amazing parents you have. And the answer Rashi says is as follows. Rashi also had amazing parents. And he says as follows. He says the way Hashem made the world is that a father, a husband and a wife are together as a husband and a wife. And after intimacy, people are tired. And as Rashi says, he turns his head this way, his wife turns their head the other way, and they go schluffy. That's the nature of the world. They go sch sluffy. Now, think about what's happening at that moment. That moment is the moment of conception. If we think about conception, essentially, it's the most fateful experience in the life of a human being. Because what happens at conception? The seed meets the egg. And it's the moment you're created from ay into yesesh from nothingness went into somethingness. After that there's of course an evolution and development nine months and birth and growing up until you become an adult at 82. But okay 62 whatever it is I'm still working on it. I'm 54 so I'm still not an adult yet. I can get away with everything and I'm also the baby in my family. So I'm anyway good. Even when I'm 70 I'll be the baby of my family. So we're good. So Rashi says they both go to sleep. And at that moment, this little little baby, not called a baby yet, is alone. Mommy, I'M SLEEPING. I'M TIRED. TATI, I'M SLEEPING. And he may even be snoring. So Rashi says that's the moment. Who's there? Who's there for for that moment of conception when you're you're like from nothingness coming into somethingness? And essentially it's like the most fateful and can be the most traumatic experience of life. It's not just a change. It's a radical quantum transformation from being part of ion infinite godliness INTO LIKE OKAY TIME TO BECOME SOMETHING. I was part of everything. Why should I become something? And that's the moment Hashem is like you're gonna be all right. You got this my kint. You got this. That's the hashemas. So when we think about Yeria Hanovi, a lot of the Nim struggled with their identity. You could see in Tanakh Yermia was one of them. They suffered from a lot a lot of internal anxiety. You could it's fascinating how vulnerable they were. You know, Yermia would curse him his life and he said, "I wish I was a stillborn and I wish uh somebody would have told my father that the child that your wife just gave birth to didn't survive. I wish I would have died the day I was born." And he was very very uh he struggled and in his first prophecy in the beginning of Yermia chapter one he says I'm not a prophet like get somebody else and the words Hashem tells him is which means I knew you before I formed you in the womb of your mother doesn't only mean know you means connected was intimate with before I formed you in the womb of your mother I I had a connection with you. And that's what he says. He says, "Before you were in the womb, I already sanctified you." So now imagine you're being judged by somebody who knows everything about you. every single experience, every single gene, every single cell, every single neuron, every gift, every resource and also every downfall, every challenge, everything in your heart knows your whole innocence, knows your light, knows your darkness, knows the struggles that even you don't know about because you may not be conscious of them. That's number one. Number two, the one you're sitting in front of, you know, judging you also loves you to pieces, maybe more than you love yourself because the whole experience of love comes from the source. So I love this person to pieces. I forgive them. I want their success. I want to see them fly. I want to see them having the most exceptional life in the world. Number one, and number two, they know everything about you. >> [panting] >> What a gift to be judged like this. I would do it every day. I could walk it. Somebody who knows everything. That means they understand me in the deepest and most authentic way. There's no assumptions. There's no you look this way, you look that way, why you're not showing. No, none of that. I know everything that's going on. Everything in the most powerful power way. every tear and every giggle, every moment of laughter and every moment of despair, every moment of vulnerability and every moment of pain, every moment of neglect and every moment of disassociation. I saw it all form and I'm crazy about this person. Wow. Give me such an appointment every day. When we hear yadin, you're not being judged by somebody who doesn't know 50% of your life or even if they know 50% of your life, they don't get it. And even if they get it, they don't experience it or they don't even like you completely or at least they're a little neutral. But you're being judged by somebody who knows everything about you, everything, and loves you like crazy. That's point number one. Now comes point number two. And point number two is what Nissan is saying is not just I'm judging you. Nobody else is judging you. As we get to point number two, let's lead it into point number two. And that is so what does a judgment look like with such a person? IT'S NOT I CAUGHT YOU. [laughter] I CAUGHT YOU, YOU LOSER. YOU THOUGHT YOU GOT AWAY FROM ME. I KNOW YOU. I'M NOW GOING TO BLAME YOU. It's knowing everything about you in your deepest place and loving you in the most infinite, incredible way. How do we together plan the most amazing year for you, my beloved child? That's what it is. When we hear the word judgment, we don't hear that. I'M JUDGING YOU. I DON'T LIKE YOU. Get out of my house. Get out of my life. I look at you that it's a pest. Anybody knows what that word means? It's a pest. Yeah, you heard it from somebody, right? It's a pest. Yeah. Means spoiled. [laughter] Yeah. You're this entitled. You think you own the world. You know how to take care of yourself before everybody else. That's how we hear the word judgment. Whatever the judgment is. You're lazy. You don't have control. You don't know how to deal with your impulses. You're not a balabusta. You can't even get your house together for heaven's sake. Okay. The cleaning lady didn't show up. My cleaning lady has didn't show up for 30 years. Whatever it is, that's how we we take it. But when you hear yo in a completely different context, it's you can have the most intimate, vulnerable conversation because I know it and I know even more. And I want Hashem wants your success in the most infinite way. It's a whole different experience. That's number one. Now comes number two. What is saying is a lot of things happen to people during the year. A lot. It's very very easy and normal to blame and to point fingers because things happen through people, through institutions, through communities, through relationships, through different circumstances because that's the world we live in. What is saying is Hashem says, "I am not delegating the story of your life to anybody. I'm the one. There's no middle management. There's no CEO. There's no CFO. I'm like, go take care of that guy. No, no, no, no. I'm the one who is intimately directing in charge, orchestrating every experience. Of course, things happen through circumstances and through this force and through that force and I was in this place and I was in that place. Big things and small things, positive developments and sometimes very challenging or painful developments in people's lives. But what Hashem is saying, I want you to know is that the only one who is making all of these decisions from the biggest to the most minute is the one who created you with infinite love, who believes in you with infinite love, who trusts you in the deepest way, who wants to see your bliss and goodness in the deepest way. I am the only one who's making these decisions. It's not I don't make it 90%, 80%, 50%, 10% and the rest is just AI. I go to chat GBT and I say you fill in all the gaps for this guy. OKAY, YOU KNOW THE PROFILE, YOU UNDERSTAND? FILL in the gaps, right? We all do that with AI today. [laughter] Write me the letter. Make it look like I'm emotional, right? You know those people. Make it look like I'm emotional. It should be use FRIENDLY BUT NOT TOO FRIENDLY. OKAY? It should have A BUSINESS FEEL BUT not too much of a business feel, right? Everybody busy orchestrating their AI and people are getting beautiful letters. Wow, when did you become a writer? Well, God doesn't use AI for obvious reasons. He created AI and everything else. That's the only one who's judging me and it's the only one who's deciding everything about my life. Now, this doesn't mean every person I interact with is this doesn't mean people don't do wrong things. This doesn't mean I have not been hurt by one person or another person intentionally or maybe unintentionally deliberately or unconsciously. It does not mean that. But it means that ultimately for me to be the most empowered person I need to own the story. Sometimes sometimes and I say this and I I I know this also internally sometimes it's hard for many of us to give up our pain. Not because we don't want to. Everybody wants to, but sometimes we don't want to because we're afraid that if we give up our pain, we're gonna get people who shouldn't be off the hook are going to be off the hook. And somebody once told me, "My pain is the last witness to what happened. If I let go of that, there's no witness anymore. And that perpetrator is going to be off the hook." And sometimes, even if you're not dealing with a perpetrator, it's much more subtle. But if I really let go, if I own it, what's going to happen? THAT MEANS YOU'RE OFF the hook. THAT MEANS I'M NOT LIVING WITH RESENTMENT FOR 247. OH MY GOD, WHO IS GOING TO BE THE WITNESS? YOU KNOW, IT'S NOT JUST a selfish thing. Sometimes it's a very, very idealistic thing. Truth needs witnesses. And now my brain IS THE WITNESS. YOU KNOW WHY? I'M MISERABLE. My anxiety is the greatest witness to what happened. I don't want to let go of that. EVERYBODY'S GOING TO GO AWAY GET AWAY WITH MURDER IF THE WITNESS is gone. All the witnesses are muted. And in that process of being a good witness, I don't stop telling the story to myself and regurgitating it, regurgitating, regurgitating it. Bringing it back to Hashem doesn't let people off the hook. Justice is justice. And if a person needs to be confronted, they need to be confronted. No question. What it does is it allows you to own your story and not somebody else to own your story. It means I wasn't a victim of somebody's bad choices or fateful circumstances beyond me or people who were clueless or people who did. I have a son who likes to make fun of me and he says, "Tati, don't worry. You did the best you can with the tools you had." That's his line. Boom. He sees I'm going through. TATI, YOU DID THE BEST YOU CAN with the tools you had. Right. Yeah. You did the best you can with the tools you had. But the tools may have been a hammer [laughter] and a wrench and a pliier, whatever that means psychologically. You know what do they say for somebody who has only one tool, a hammer, the whole world looks like nails, right? Because that's all I CAN DO. HERE'S A A NAIL. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. EVERYTHING IS NAILS. And that's very very possible. But what it means is I don't have to wallow in it. I can own my story and I can say ultimately all the circumstances came from one source. It went through a lot of people. Sure. And that's very very very powerful. It doesn't mean you have to forget. Sometimes even forgiveness is not called for. If a person is continuing to do things and they're not a whatever that that's a very fear discussion, but it's not about that. It's really about saying ultimately this is the story that Hashem put into my life in order to allow me to become the person I'm supposed to becoming. I have chickens in my backyard. So we had 10 fertilized eggs and a [snorts] mother hen sat on them for 21 days and five of them hatched and came out as little cute chicks. Three whites and two blacks. If you want a tour of the Jacobson backyard, you can come see them. As the egg is cracking open, you could see that little tiny chick that's not even a day old struggling to get out of the egg, struggling mightily. And what's the natural feeling of a kind heart? Just crack open the egg and let the chick emerge uninhibitedly. When you do that, it will come out and die a few hours later. Why? Because you deprived it from developing the muscles and the body weight and the skill it needed to be able to survive. In its struggle to break open that egg, it becomes the little chick it needs to become in order to be able to live. and give us our wonderful organic eggs for breakfast and lunch and sometimes dinner. I'M CRACKING OPEN THE EGG and making life easy. And what I'm doing is I'm depriving the chick from the gift of life because it's in that struggle that it actually develops the physically. This is a very physical visual metaphor. In life, it's exactly the same way. If this is the experience I had as a two-year-old, a three-y old, a 5-y old, 10-y old. Yes, people did the best they can with the tools they had or sometimes the worst they can with the tools they had or didn't have. That's depends on different circumstances. Ultimately, in the is saying there's nobody else in charge on your life. This is a direct this is intimacy between me, Hashem says, and you and there's no middleman here. There's no AI. There's no real people in the middle here. This is directly orchestrated, planned every moment of the way, every experience, and completely in my deepest dedication to you more than a mother to a child. As the BMP once said that Hashem loves every Jew more than parents love. Imagine parents who couldn't have children for decades and then they're they're blessed with one child, a boy or a girl, and already older. They they didn't think they'll have a child. Who can describe the affection, the love, the excitement? And the BMT said that pales in comparison to describe the love that Hashem has to every single soul because the whole experience of love that we have, it comes from somewhere and it's only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the love that comes from the source. I I some I often think about this. Imagine we can bring to the to our hearts all the love that exists in this room into one heart. It would be a lot, right? And imagine you could bring into your heart all the love that exists right now in the world. That means every mother's love on the entire planet, every father's love, every friend's real love, every child's love. All the love of the whole world can be in one heart. Now imagine you could take that love but bringing in your heart the love that existed from the first moment of history till today. Your heart would explode in 3 seconds. You know sometimes you feel a lot of love and you almost feel your muscles are expanding. You know it's like almost painful when you sometimes your heart opens up. Do you feel I was like it's a little too much and that's even your own. Imagine if it's all of humanity's of all of history everything available on planet earth from the day Adam and Kava were created. All of that is not even 1% it's not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the love of Hashem because all of our love is created by the creator who's the source infinite source of it. So the bos says that's what you need to understand. Now this doesn't mean life doesn't have pain. It doesn't mean cracking open that egg with my efforts is not very difficult and crack watching the chick come out is not such a difficult experience. You know, life can be far more excruciatingly painful. I don't have to elaborate on that. This is the background a person needs to understand when we think about judgment and when we think about what he's judging and everything we say in that it's only me and nobody else. Only me and nobody else. Now from here we come to an extraordinary teaching of our sages. Rabino Bakaya who was one of the great Rishim 1300s in Spain says this very very explicitly and I know it's not an easy teaching. I once shared it with you. It's not an easy teaching because it's hard to digest but it's important that we plant a seed and even if a person says this can't be that also makes sense. You don't have to judge any emotion around my classes. It's fine. But I think it's important to plant this seed because in a deep place, you'll know it already. You know how I know you'll know it? Cuz you heard it in your mother's womb. That's how I know you'll know it. And this is what he says. Okay, I want you to take a look. It's the first of the source sheets. I mean, the first of the sources in the source sheet, he says as follows. When he speaks about making a fence around your roof, All created beings. All that means mammals, fish, birds, plants, stars, galaxies, everything. Everything created. They were created with their valition and desire. God didn't call over the mosquitoes or the bees or the beers or the gazels or the deer or the groundhogs. What else do you have in your porch? >> Good. Good question. But also >> good question. >> Does a bezil AI basically takes over your thing? Good question. What about bezila? Okay, good. Great. She asked, don't we talk about a heavenly court, angels and the kagar and prosecutors and lawyers and the sut and malik mal and a whole heavenly court. So it's not just there's a whole jury and God, what do you say? What do you say? What do you say? What do you say? Great, great question. We'll get to it. So says all created beings were created these words means their valition, their desire and their own agreement. Before he created them, he first discussed with them every life and every experience that they will ever have. Means all the circumstances, all the mikas, all the experiences that are going to be that are going to happen. There was also another meaning. You know what? The days of their life when they're going to pass away how it's all going to happen. Not just the big ones even what's going to be for breakfast what type of income how you going to live what type of house what are we doing for pes what are we doing for sukus right are we hiring a full-time chef I say yeah tell your husband in my name tell your husband in my name full-time chef full-time cleaning lady sukus is coming that's what you agree to that's what he says that's what you agree to if it's going to be very expensive if it's going to be um restrictive. Are you going to be able to support yourself or you're going to need the assistance of others? Says, "Don't think I made this up. I DID NOT MAKE THIS UP. I didn't have a sweet dream one night. Our sages in the Gmorra said this inash they said a quote from track." So this is a gammorra called everything that emerged in myas in creation. It was with their own means with their own will. What does mean in Aramaic means desire means their desire was finished. They said yes. Not only that, the medish rabb says in the beginning the next source before GOD CREATED THE WORLD he consulted. Interesting. Who did he consult? the souls of the and the says and says this means who are because on that level everybody is a sadic the soul is holy pure divine what what what are our sages saying you asked a great question before you're created how could somebody consult with you [laughter] before they create by the way do you want to be created who you talking to OH YOU CREATED ME ALREADY AND THEN YOU ASK ME YOU KNOW THOSE PEOPLE who make a decision and they're like by the way I wanted to ask you do you WANT TO COME FOR OH, WE'RE THERE ALREADY. OKAY, SEAN, I BOUGHT the tickets. Come on. If you consulted them before you created them, they weren't here. AND IF YOU CONSULT THEM AFTER YOU created them, so Oh, nice. You created me and then you consult me. Seems like a very, very deep paradox. But this paradox is exactly what our sages are teaching us in a very profound way. And this is what the Balatanya explains. And that is that deep deep down in our deepest core as we always talk about you are Hashem. You are part of infinity. Deep down in our deepest core you are the light of Hashem. You know we look at it. Hashem is there. I'm here. He's the big guy. I'm a small guy. That's a very very uh limited limited view viewpoint. As one poet once put it beautifully. You're not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop. Very often if you come to the ocean, if you sit at the ocean now summertime, I hope some some people got time at the water. You watching the ocean, it's a beautiful amazing moment and then you see a wave rise, right? And the kids love it. The wave rises, crashes. Hopefully, it's a real crash so it can saturate the castles that you built in the sand on the beach. Now that wave rises from the ocean. As it rises, how long does the wave remain up there? And the answer is usually between 10 and 20 seconds. Between 10 and 20 seconds and then it crashes, the tide recedes and the next wave rises for 10 or 20 seconds. If you take a picture during those 10 or 20 seconds, you will see an elevated, exalted, maybe even arrogant wave who thinks very highly of himself. pun intended, and certainly inflates himself and has a big ego and certainly is threatening and intimidating because he's about to flood everybody at the beach. But you and I know that after 20 seconds, right, at plots. So imagine this wave is up there and everybody's taking pictures and videos and suddenly the wave turns to you and says, "I am so anxious." And you tell the wave why you're anxious. And the wave says after 20 seconds, I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm finished. And you look at the wave and you say, "My tire my entire wave." >> Huh? >> Aal is in Hebrew. Aalia. Okay. Okay. We'll stick with wave for the moment. Sometimes the yiddish, you know, but not always. Okay. Butalia is not too bad. Is not bad, but it's not going to bring out what I want to say. So we'll stick with the gal or the wave. Yeah. The gar says in page 120 an unbelievable thing came to the base medish and he said what a tragedy. What a tragedy. One of the greatest one of the greatest people of our time drowned. We don't have him anymore. Said what happened? He said I was on a boat and he was in a nearby boat and there was a shipwreck. The boat collapsed. It broke and he's gone. Who is this? He says a few minutes later who walks into the bi and they're like what? What happened? I saw you drown. He says I was about to drown. How do you save yourself? He says the waves that was were powerful. Every wave that came to overwhelm me. I told him shalom. Every wave I surrendered. I acquiesced. Right? He was teaching you how to surf. In other words, I didn't fight the wave. I didn't KNOW THE WAVE IS COMING. I'LL BE stronger than you. Surrendered and finally there was a plank of the of the boat is and I held on to it and I acquiesed to the waves and I got out to the other side and Riyaka was saved. It's fascinating that he's not just talking about obviously a physical reality but also a very deep emotional reality. The greatest challenge to the wave happens when the wave starts thinking it's independent from the ocean and then it goes into a depression because it's going to lose its identity. When the wave knows the truth, you are the ocean. For 20 seconds, the ocean gave you an opportunity to represent it in a particular form. When the form ends, you don't die. You just go right back to being the ocean. You were the ocean. You are the ocean. You will be the ocean. For a few moments, you took on a particular form. That's the story of life. That's why there's no such a thing that life dies. That's not what dies. What dies is the form of the wave, the manifestation of life in a body, as an ego, as an independent reality. In your core, you're the ocean. You're a scythe. You're infinity. But Hashem wanted us to bring that out in a particular form. I have my form, you have your form. I have my life, you have your life. But don't detach the wave from the ocean. Essentially, it's how every mikvah works today. It's called hashaka. The question is, you know, mikvah has to be natural water. So, why are the mikvah's warm and clean? It shouldn't be that way, right? And the answer is every mikvah has under it or on the side another mikvah which is not so comfortable and clean and warm. So, how do they connect? The answer is there called a shak which means a kiss. There's usually a plug in between. They take out the the stopper. What's it called? The >> the stopper and the two mikvas so to speak kiss each other and the natural water elevates the unnatural water. What what is that all about? Essentially what it's about is we each have a form but always connected to the original. That's the hashaka. The wave may rise rise very very high but it was always the ocean. So at its core at the ocean, Hashem is consulting. Who is he consulting? He's consulting himself anoid, but he's consulting that part of himself that's going to say, "God, I got this. We will be the ones to take on the form of the wave." And Raay says, "Every creation in its source, in its source, it volunteered for everything for everything." Which really means which really means as follows. This is not saying we're not trying to minimize people's pain because a lot of people you'll tell this to them you think Rabbi why why with all due respect I did not agree to anything going on in my life. Okay [laughter] I'm HAPPY TO SAY GOD I did not agree and as somebody once said what was it Sam Levenson said I'm a man of principles and if you don't like them I have other principles. IF I AGREED I I I STOP AGREEING. But here is in a very tender and loving and compassionate way. I have to breathe, pause, and ask myself the following question. Is it possible that there's a certain part of my soul that I don't know about? Is it possible that if I really saw the core of my nishama, I would know that not only did I agree, I'm the one who said, "Of course, this is exactly what my mission is." >> [snorts] >> It's hard for us to believe because sometimes I'm invested and it makes a lot a lot of sense. I'm invested in the pain and the negative experience. In fact, it's a survival method. These things I avoid and pain is what we avoid. But if I can go even deeper and say, is it possible that every experience in my life and I know this is not easy to hear and I'm saying this with a lot of tender sensitivity to myself and everybody else. Is it possible that every single experience in your life with yourself and with your loved ones is not only something that God who loves you says it's for you, but that in your own source you you said this is this is my life. This is what I need. This is what I want. This is exactly what I'm signing up for because I'm the one who knows how to do this and what to do. And this is exactly the mission that my soul which is part of God knows that this is what it it's for. And that's why avoiding it and escaping it, I'm not doing justice not just to the people around me but really to my own self. Now a person could say this is ludicrous. Do you know what people go through? Who signed up for this? And that's a very good question. And I'm not going to answer that question intellectually. I'm not stupid enough to answer that question intellectually and say no, you signed up for it. It's not a roller coaster in Disney World where it's a super duper loop. I don't know if you ever go on those roller coasters once I took one of my sons there and I did a lot of Chuva that day as those super duper loopers are going upside down. But I did know that after 60 seconds it's like color war. You unfasten your seat belt and you go drink Coca-Cola as the minigan amusement parks with ice, right? Not everything is just a roller coaster ride for 60 seconds. Sometimes a roller coaster ride for 60 years. And if it's not a roller coaster, it's a ferris wheel. And the ferris wheel always stops on the top for an hour, right? And the goyam take pictures and the Jews start saying, you ever see the goyam take pictures and the Jews are they're writing tavos. They're going to sue the company. Why did it stop? Why? Why? They really think there's a crisis. So if life is a ferris wheel rather than a roller coaster, gishmach, we have to be very very sensitive. And yet, and you can't tell this to anybody else, but deep down I have to say, is it possible that all those things that I think are debilitating me, destroyed me, created so much anxiety, and it's true they did. It's not saying they did not create anxiety. It's not saying they're not very, very painful. That's not what Kazal are saying here. They did not say. It's saying that my soul as part of Hashem said, "I knew exactly that this is my mission because of the power of my infinity." Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Very good question. It says in both, right? And which is also a contradiction. Either you're forced to live or you're forced to die. If you're forced to live, so then you want to die. If you're forced to die, then you want to live, right? And the answer is I don't want your honey and I don't want your bite. >> Excellent. Excellent. He's not saying it's good. He's saying that the person signed up for it. [laughter] That you have to ask your soul. I will never know. No. No. [snorts] >> It's it's it's very very deep because this didn't come from a place of logic or a place of comfort that we understand. This came from your infinity which means as follows. Until I don't experience, until you don't experience your infinity, your aiph until my ego doesn't melt away in the infinite presence of Hashem. Until the wave doesn't merge with the ocean, I don't know that part of myself. I only know the part of myself that feels detached and is trying to survive. I want to be comfortable. I want to have nas. I want to have a normal home. I want to have a nice marriage. I want to be healthy. I want to be happy. I want to have money. I want to go on another vacation. Good idea. I want which is all good good great great stuff and now this is in my way and this is in my way and this is in my way and this is not easy and this is not easy and the shik is not easy and the nakas is not easy and the marriage is not easy and I'm not easy and my system is not easy and my cells are not easy right they say there was once a restaurant a Jewish restaurant so the waiter was walking around from table to table and asking is anything all right [laughter] right so uh it's like if if if I'm judging it from the wave that's detached. I will just curse it. Of course, and of course I'm going to get very very upset at the one who orchestrated it. And that's why a lot of people become atheists. One of the advantages quote unquote in atheism is right. Wait till somebody just takes out this line from the class and said, "Rabbi, why said the advantage of being an atheist, but it's fine. People will do what they do. It's fine." But one of the I want to explain to you psychologically is it eliminates the need to blame anybody to blame God. And if some person is spiritually sensitive I know a child who went through a crazy horrific experience and he said he stopped believing in Hashem because he didn't he couldn't believe that Hashem would be so cruel. Understand this sensitivity of a of a his should be like your atheism. He was he he he felt horrible to accuse Hashem of being cruel. So he said it's much better to say he doesn't exist. You see the sensitivity of a person. You could call him an atheist an atheist. He's an atheist like I'm an elephant. He's not HE'S HAS TO DENY God because he can't accept that he's cruel. So you always have to be able to see deeper. So if I'm judging my life based from an ego place or a fear place or an insecurity place, I look at it, I'm like, "No, I did not sign up for this." But if I can actually even for a moment and I know it's not easy get through all my external layers and see myself in my deepest core as a piece of Hashem. I may not I may I will see everything differently. It doesn't mean easy not easy facts are facts but the context is a completely different context. It's a completely different experience which now brings us to a speech that the BMP used to say before which brings it all together. Now this is fascinating. The BMP by the way his birthday was yesterday. The 18th of is the birthday of the Balsham and the Balata and the Yet of the Moral of Prague and it's called Kello and I never knew the BMP spoke before and last year I was learning a cipher of one of his students and he said I heard something from the BMPv that he said before the blowing of the Shaer and I'm thinking what would the BMPv one of the greatest souls in Jewish history what would he tell the people beforeh You would think he'll give about which people do or he'll want to give some other message to wake people up. The cha is about waking you up. He actually told a story and he had as he always did as he often did and you had to figure out the story and it's an incredible story and it really I was like wow this is what he wanted people to hear before the blowing of the chaer and I want to read it with you because we have here the evidence of a student who was who was either there or heard from somebody was there it sounds like he was there and the student is known as the tlddus yak you may have heard of him hakaya and cats from puln of pulna who was a disciple of the bos of one of his greatest. He has a safer tell of he has a book called Beny. He has a book called Pan because his name was Ysef Yak of Ysef and he writes this in a safer Ben. In one place he says it briefly and another place he elaborates it and I want to read it to you and see what the said before the blowing of the third I heard from my teacher the holy his name his mother's name was Sahara we called him what he said before and it was a martial it was a parable he gives the marshall in more detail quite a strange mush Marshall. There was a king who built many walls. He built walls. Are walls and are fortresses like a thick dense fortress around the city. One deeper than the other. Which means once you climbed one partition and one wall, there was NO ENTRANCE. YOU HIT ANOTHER WALL. YOU CLIMB THAT WALL, YOU HIT ANOTHER WALL. WHAT DO THEY SAY? You're hitting a wall, right? That's what it is. He adds one word. This was an optical illusion. Means somebody who knows how to create how to create a uh uh an imprint of reality, a projection of reality that for your eyes are very very real. But in reality, it has no substance. And they all encircled the king which means the king was inside. One more thing this king did interesting king. AS YOU GOT INTO ONE fortress there was a tremendous amount of money there scattered all over the place. So after each wall you hit a treasure. YOU HIT THE jackpot literally. If you got through the next wall it was much more money. So, THE TREASURES WERE BEING UPPED and elevated, right? FIRST TIME YOU GOT A NECKLACE, then you got a tennis bracelet. And then the next wall, the next one was already $100,000. I don't know what's that. And he invited everybody to come see the king. Now, it wasn't easy. Some people, as he says in, he brings this metaphor in a few places. They saw the wall. They're like, "Okay, I can't get it." They left. Other people had courage. They climbed the wall. Oh, this is a nice trophy. AND THEY WENT HOME. THE NEXT GUY SAID, "NO, I GO TO THE NEXT GATE." They go to the next gate. There's more. They go homeish. The next guy after the third one, he goes home because the trophies are getting bigger and bigger and bigger. So, the ones who continue to persevere are so tempted AND THEY SAY, "OH, THIS IS WHAT HE WANTS. I'LL GO HOME. And then there were the scand who realized this was one invitation to go meet the king himself. So they didn't get distracted not by the walls and not by the treasure. They didn't go home. They continued. It took a lot of pain, a lot of diligence to climb the walls and come to the king. And when they walked in and they turned around, what did they see? There was never a wall. There was no wall. There was no partition. It was a perception. This is the story he said before the blowing of the cha. I want you to think for a moment. Pause and think and reflect what the BMP said here. Not from an intellectual point of view. I mean that's fine, but I mean more from an a nervous system, an experiential embodied experience. what this feels like. And he continues these says, "We understood the Hashem hides in numerous partitions and walls made of iron, iron walls." The Gomorrah says in track, page 32, What's the symptom of the destruction of the BD's of the word heaps? It creates a heaps, a partition between Israel, the Jewish people, and their father in heaven. People think Winston Churchill coined the phrase iron curtain, but this is it right there. What are the Fascinating. What are the mikites? Thoughts. It's the thoughts. It's the inner critic. It's the narration in the brain. Anybody relates to this? It was a good class. It was a bad class. What do I have to do? Oh my god, I'm stressed. It's not going to work out. This is going to be a disaster. And it's coming. Who who nonstop? Those are the one can be present in their learning. one can be present in their prayer because there's a it's like I can't get through this. It's like there's a fortress. So it's not open. There's no like embodied experience. There's an embedded hidden goodness and godliness, but it's surrounded by shells. Kipo means shells and layers and husks. You know what he's really describing here? What happened by what happened was not that building was destroyed. It's not even that miracle certain miracle stopped because the bay had a lot of challenges. It means an embodied experience of your own energy of your divine energy. The wave experiencing the ocean THERE'S A IMAGINE SOMEBODY builds a wall or perceptive wall between the wave and the ocean. So the wave is like where did I come from THE OCEAN? NO, THERE'S NO OCEAN. THERE'S A WALL. SO, THE WAVE SAYS, "OH, I guess I created myself." Now, the wave needs to survive. Imagine a wave has to survive on its own. IMAGINE WHAT DOES IT HAVE TO DO? Of course, it needs validation from the whole. You like my wave? You like my wave? SHOULD I GO HIGHER? NO. GO LOWER. SO, SOME WAVES GO HIGH, SOME WAVES GO LOW, SOME BECOME people's pleaser, some become invisible, SOME BECOME TOO VISIBLE. The poor wave. You [laughter] You're just the ocean. The poor wave. BUT THERE'S THIS THERE'S THIS in between. So you're not embedding this energy. It's like it's it's it's tucked away. It's tucked away between all these clippers. Then there are people of Dim. They know who may probably the most important words to be written to go from gullas to Gula. They know all the fortresses, all the walls, all the partitions, all the garments, all the coverups, all the shells are they're part of his essence because no space is devoid of him. It's a wave that's just taking on the form. It's Hashem taking on the form of a garment, the form of a wall, the form of a fortress. So he's not even hiding here for him. He's not hiding. It's not blocking him because it's him. [snorts] It says in 144. What does aleno mean? Literally it means alfu is animals. They are uh what's the word? How do they translate it in English? Um alueno. >> Yeah. Yeah. Withstand. So what does it mean? So the bash says like this means if I can bring the alf the oneness alf means the leader of the world into every place I can be present in every moment in every situation in every experience. Why? Because the ka is an experience, but it's an experience that is simply there to be able to allow me to experience Hashem through this moment, through this experience. >> Suffer to be able to suffer. >> I wouldn't use the word suffer. Edith Ager who passed away this year said pain is not optional. Suffering is >> Yeah. Experience. >> Yeah. The experience. And then he says, "A person knows Hashem is everywhere. Every movement and every thought is from him. In this knowledge all of the doers of iniquity they scatter away." Back to your question, ALL THE ANGELS, ALL THE CHAMBERS. [snorts] It's all a manifestation of him. Look at a turtle and you'll see a turtle has a big shell, but it's just part of the turtle. Nobody put on this husk on the turtle. Knowing this, experiencing this, the negativity scatters away. In this consciousness, suddenly there's no partition separating you because it was a it was an optical illusion which was very real in the person's experience for the mission that they volunteered to bring in oneness into this particular experience. This is the speech so to speak the bos gives before the blowing of the onash. What is the bos teaching here? What he's teaching here is not that the walls don't feel real. They feel very, very real. In fact, if they don't feel real, the mission is not accomplished. Right? That's the point here. It's not like, oh, everybody is an illusion. There's no walls. That's not what he's saying. Of course, there are walls. Because if there were no walls, the mission wasn't accomplished. Ano mulvad is true in Hashem's experience. But there's walls. There's obstacles. There's pain. There's an anxiety I'm dealing with. There are setbacks. There's mistakes I made. There's challenges whether it's physical, emotional, financial, spiritual, social, deeply, psychological. Every person in their own way, individually, collectively, familial and I'm coming to a wall and Hashem is inviting me into the relationship. And I'm coming to a wall. I'm like, there's no relationship. There's a and I'm banging at the wall. AND THEN MAYBE THROUGH A LOT OF WORK, I GET THROUGH THE WALL AND I'M LIKE, "OH, WOW." And I open something up in my heart and there's a beautiful piece of jewelry and what do I do? I make the mistake. I go home. [laughter] And that's what also happens. I work and I find something and I reach something and then I go home. And then some people do even more work and they reach something even better and they go home and they go home and they go home again. And the bash is saying, "You don't realize this is all for the intimate relationship he wants with you. You're the greatest thing that ever happened to Hashem. And you're the one who told him, "I got this. I got this. I can work this through. I can bring the light into this place. I won't mistake the form for the substance." And he's waiting. And as you go through, you go through, you go through. I remember I once had an experience. I had to work through something very very painful in my life that was there for many many years still there but I had to work and it was it was excruciatingly painful and I was actually sobbing and then I like I gave a deep breath and I like emerged AND I'M LIKE COLOR WAR YOU REMEMBER IN camp when they had a color war breakout and it was like everybody was fully anxious cuz you remember those color war breakouts and they had to make it very scary and everybody the poor kids the poor kids were paralyzed the English don't know what I'm talking about but in America Color war was a big big deal and you had these color war breakouts and you were frightened for two days some tragedy happened and THEN THEY SCREAMED COLOR WAR AND I GO STRA COLOR WAR and it was cuz we grew up with color war and color war breakouts and and and and and then I understood what Bashandanda was saying that what what happens is as you get through to the other side till you get to the other side the walls are going to be very real and then when we get through the other side it's like oh wow there was actually nothing here everything was the relationship ship everything was the intimacy. It's almost like you could start laughing. Not laughing to make light out of it, but laughing, you know, is that that release, you know, that release of energy that re that it's called comical release. It's like you could start laughing because it was all in my head. And that's what he's saying. It's all in my head. Now, in the head is pretty serious. When you say it's in your head, it doesn't mean IT'S NOT THERE BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT WE HAVE. WE HAVE OUR HEAD. I DON'T HAVE ANYBODY ELSE'S HEAD. So you say IT'S IN YOUR HEAD. THANK YOU. BUT IT'S IN MY HEAD. THAT'S MY CONSCIOUSNESS. EVERYTHING is in my head. All the people sitting here are in my head. I don't see you. I see my head. And my head says there's people here. And sometimes my head says other things. It's all in our head. You get scared of things. You get overwhelmed. You're not getting overwhelmed by anything. It's in my head. There's a message in my head. And that's the bos's healing energy. doesn't don't delegitimize it, but go back to your head. Don't go outside. Allah we say in redemption is in my soul. It's literally in my head. There may be a tiger coming in and it's in my head. And sometimes my spouse may be the tiger. H it's not a joke. SOMETIMES MY CHILD, SOMETIMES LIFE, SOMETIMES MY JOB, MY BOSS, MY PARTNER, ME. And it's like and it's very very real because we are we the world that we see is the world that our head tells us we're seeing. Two people could be at the same table. You all know this. The same bitzvah, the same shvas, the same shabas table with completely opposite experiences. They're looking at the same person. You're triggered like there's no tomorrow. You would take the first flight to China to get as far away from this sima and this table. Everybody's like nodding. Yeah. Okay. Not everybody. And another person is like, I had such a great time. Wasn't it beautiful? Sure. Beautiful. It's what I wished. I wouldn't wish on my enemy this event. >> The same person. >> Exactly. Same person. Depends who walks in. MY POINT IS WHO'S RIGHT. THE ANSWER IT'S IN MY HEAD. SOME PEOPLE they bring out the best in you. Some people in my head. It's like, "Oh my god, I feel judged. I have to shut down. I have to close my heart." We all know this. The bos says, "It's all in your head. So what's the truth? What's the truth? As I do this work and I come to the other side, I'm like, "Ah, me and the king were always inseparable. We were never detached for a second. Not a second." You're saying, "What are you talking about? What about all the tears? What about the sleepless nights? What about the grief? What about the days that I was fully in despair? What about the days I asked myself, why am I waking up? What about the pain of my children that they're still dealing with? Moshe says, "Yeah, those are big walls. They're big, big walls." And don't make the mistake of people who start healing and take the trophy and run home because you deserve more than a trophy. Trophies are nice, but that's not what you signed up for. You signed up for the infinite intimate bliss with the source of everything. You deserve much more than the tennis bracelet. You should take the tennis bracelet and run, but just come back. Put it in the safe and come right back. [laughter] Take it and run and come right back. Don't get lost. We sometimes settle for things in life, right? Okay. My daughter got a shak. My son got a beautiful, amazing that don't settle it because that's not the origin of all the pain. There's much more. We sometimes deflect. IF ONLY THIS WOULD HAPPEN, EVERYTHING would be perfect. That's not true. It's because again in my mind I turn one thing into the reality because I think I could control it. But of course afterwards I see there's much more because really you're looking for one thing. You're one with him. You're always one. You were never separated for a moment. But in my mind does not my mind does not know that. That's why he said it before the blowing of the aluenum. And it doesn't mean to deny the reality I'm experiencing. It means for the wave to breathe, relax, and say, "There's an ocean holding me up. I'm here. I chose. I'm present. It hurts. And I'm going to be present knowing that this is the wall I'm working through. I'm going to find the truth here." And then as the Shaifer is blowing, what the BMP is saying is this is what's happening. This is what you're revealing on Rashana. This is it. It's the ability when you say we coronate Hashem and it's a day of judgment from a vindictive punitive day. It's really the most incredible beautiful loving opportunity and gift where he says the is the blast that simply acknowledges that there's something deeper than all the walls. And now I want to conclude the class with a letter I got from somebody. A message I got from somebody. I read it. He wrote it up last year after Rishashana and he decided to send it to me. I was so moved by it. I asked him if I could read it in the class today and he said, "Yeah." So, I'm going to read it to you. And this person's name is Sender Russell. He's a son of Rabbi Shimon Russell. He lives in Cleveland. He's a friend of mine. And he sent this to me and I just want to read it to you because and I was just extremely moved by a person's experience. It's vulnerable and the beginning is not so easy to hear because he had his own intense journey with Yiddishkite and with Rashashana and with God and so on and so forth. For as long as I could remember, Rashashana was defined by a single desperate act, pleading with God. It was the annual climax of a yearong negotiation. I would pour out my heart crying, begging for him to finally remove the same persistent struggles that have shadowed my life. I saw my challenges as flaws in my existence. and I implored the divine surgeon to cut them out. Year after year, I would leave the shul with a fragile hope, only to watch it crumble as the days turned into weeks, and my reality remained stubbornly, painfully unchanged. A subtle poison began to seep into my relationship with Hashem. My sincere pleading year after year on Rashashana slowly turned into frustration. The frustration hardened into quiet resentment. That resentment festered into anger at God who seemed deaf to my cries itself causing an ironic deep shame for my ungrateful attitude towards my benevolent benefactor. So you love him and hate him at the same time. I'm so angry at him but are ashamed of being angry because how can I be angry at Hashem? And I'm going to be even punished even more. So now I'm in this vicious loop of being angry but really not allowing to be angry which means everything is fake and h wreaking havoc. Our relationship became a strained transactional affair. I saw myself as a dutiful subject fulfilling my obligations of prayer and observance. Hashem is a distant king who is failing to hold up his end of the bargain. The unspoken question hanging in the air was am I doing my part? Yes. Why aren't you doing yours? Why is my life filled with so much pain, so much struggle, so much anxiety, so many things that I need to deal with? This year, after a long and painful journey of trying to understand our broken connection, Hashem blessed me with a new perspective. It was a shift, very simple, but so profound, it rearchitected my entire inner world. I realized my fundamental error was not a lack of sincerity. I was very sincere. It was a flawed premise. I had been trying to negotiate a contract with God. The terms of the contract. What do you want? What do I want? And God was only interested in a partnership. I had the most transformative rashana. For the first time, my prayers were not a list of demands for a better life. There was no anxiety, no panic, no desperation. There was a profound and simple joyful serenity. A focus on two simple truths. One, God's absolute infinite unconditional love for me. Two, my singular desire for clarity and closeness to him. Whatever the coming year might bring. I finally learned the difference between a relationship that is transactional and a relationship of alignment. A transactional relationship is always I need you for something. I give, you give, I give, you give. I'll give you if you give. I let go of that. Alignment means I could surrender completely as you surrender completely. We're just one. Looking back, I see the faulty mental model that governed my entire spiritual life. I cast God in the role of a powerful but conditional, sovereign, and king. This created a transactional relationship with a set of unspoken rules. I believed my job was to perform my duties, davin with kavana, observe with precision, earn a positive outcome. If I do all these things, this turned my religious life into a constant performance. Always performing, performing. Do more. You're guilty. Haunted by the anxiety. I was not doing it right. And therefore, the contract won't be fulfilled. I won't get my salary. I will not get the results. And my struggles persisted. I realized he's punishing me. He doesn't like me. I'm lazy. I'm depressed. I'm messed up. I would get trapped in a cycle of guilt, dissecting my actions to figure out what did I do wrong to deserve this rejection. My challenges felt like tests, not tests, but a sentence. When I felt I was being good and my situation didn't improve, the model broke down completely. I realized this entire model of Yiddishkite is not working. And it led me to a sense of cosmic injustice and betrayal. How does that feel when you experience that with God? The god of my contract was an unreliable business partner and I grew so resentful of him. My entire framework was a blueprint for suffering. It was a relationship built on fear, obligation, constant need for external validation. It was driving a wedge between me and God. I desperately wanted to love but I was so angry at. The understanding that healed this rift was a new realization. God is not a sovereign demanding compliance. He's a master teacher inviting me into a loving partnership. Life is not a series of transactional outcomes. It's a divine curriculum designed for my soul's deepest growth. From this perspective, my challenges were not flaws in the system. They were the system. My challenges were the syllabus perfectly crafted by my master teacher who knew exactly which lessons I wanted and needed to learn to achieve the ultimate good for which I was created. The unshakable closeness with him. The paradigm shift offered a new way to engage build not on desperate pleading but on three core alignments. Number one, stop questioning God's motive. I had to accept as the bedreck of my reality. Every single event in my life flows from his infinite love and is designed for my ultimate benefit. It's not about pretending I don't have pain. It's about trusting the loving source from which it comes. The core thought became this is for my loving father and mother. My loving core and soul. This is my ultimate good. My understanding is finite. His love is not hidden in this challenge as a stepping stone for all perfection and intimacy. The second step was reframe my struggles. These were not random afflictions to be endured or eradicated. They were my sacred and fundamental assignment. The reframing shifted my core question. I was not powerless. I was not asking why is this happening to me? Why do you hate me? Why are you doing this? My question became, what is my mission within this? What did my soul sign up to? What does my soul know about this test? My challenges were no longer obstacles. They were the arena in which my spiritual life was meant to unfold. They were my calling. The final liberating step was redefine success. My old model meant I dive in, I learn, and I get the success I want. In the new model, a successful prayer means aligning my will with Hashem. Instead of saying, "Hashem, please take this away. Please do this. Please take this away. Stop this. Stop that." I said, "Hashem, you and me are one. We're partners. Please grant me the clarity to see your love in this struggle, the strength to fulfill my mission within it. Help me find you here. Help me see that this is a moment of intimate connection and bliss. There are no walls. There are no separations. There's only you. And let that truth be manifested right here in my life in this moment. It focused now only on what I could control. My intention, my response, my mission. The anxiety of achieving a result vanished, replaced by the peaceful responsibility of showing up as the best student and partner I could be. As the chauffeur sounded, I wasn't a desperate, broken subject pleading at the gates of a punitive king. I was a beloved child, soulmate, partner, spouse, best friend, standing hand in hand with my father, mother, soulmate, looking forward together to the year ahead. The future was unknown, but God's love was real and a certainty. Challenges will undoubtly arise, but I understood they would come as a curriculum, not as a condemnation or retribution. I spent so many years asking God to change my life. This year, I understood he was using my life to change me. And in that subtle profound realization, I found the doorway to the life I had been domining all along. I read this. [gasps] I did add a few lines here. I have to confess based on the class. That's true. But mostly word for word. And I asked Sender, beautiful, moving, extraordinary. But I asked him this morning, what do you do with yoadin? What do you do with the day of judgment? Let's face it, you're being judged. Who dies this way? Who dies that way? Who will be rich? Who will be poor? Who will be elevated? Who will be humbled? We all think about last rashana and the changes that happened from last rashana to this rashana. A very serious day. So he wrote to me and he said, "God created me due to his infinite love for me. No other reason. Every single action that happens to me in my life is rooted and must align with that love. If that is not the embodied experience, I did not begin the journey of yadeshkite. If that is not the bedrock of everything, that this is rooted in the deepest partnership of love and connection. I am wandering in a lost and chaotic Judaism. It's not a cold judge analyzing my past deeds and sentencing me to punishment or reward. transactional. You did your thing, I'll pay the bill. You followed, I will reward. Everything is according to the vessel that I'm supposed to become. Can we look at judgment from a different perspective? Whatever is decided on rashashana is within that frame. My job is to stay with an openhearted truth and desire to bond with my truest self, with a relationship with my creator. I'm not being punished. I'm not even being rewarded. I'm being trusted and manifesting the mission I assigned to myself in this world. It's manifested differently for everybody. But the truth is the same. I don't see judgment and din as negative. I see it as being issued by the one who loves me more than I love myself infinitely and whose every action in my life is to bring me to the potential state which he knows my soul is capable and signed up for. So the den is real, but the perspective shifts to Aino Malcano, whose den is bound to my greatest goodness, no matter my past forever and ever. Wishing you all an amazing week, an amazing [snorts] year, a good gabar. Next week we're on, we will have another class next week before Shana and next week we're on the week after yam kipper class. Have an amazing and incredible year and a beautiful week full of blessing, abundance, and redemption. >> This class [music] is brought to you by the yeshiva.net. Please help us continue the classes. Make even a small [music] contribution at ww.theshiva.net/donate.