Rav Gav Just talk to him a human understanding of Prayer The Project Inspire Convention 2021

a bunch of years ago i was reading a book to one of my kids it was a book about uh i think it was called the footsteps of the prophets really really recommend this book in the footsteps of the prophets and it goes through different ivm different prophets and uh tells their stories tells their stories now you can find them throughout tanakh if you want to just learn the stories you'll know them but it kind of brought everything together and gave like a basic summary of their lives and a few points and the particular prophet that we were discussing was some of the name of moshe rapino you may have heard of moshe the leah of the jewish people moses and moshe bainu crazy really a crazy story if you know his whole story it's pretty wild but it's totally irrelevant to this whole story what is relevant is the following idea as are reading a story and it was a few days that i'm reading it it's a few days you know because a bunch of pages and i was trying to stretch it out because it's a small book and when we get to the very end of the life of moshe abbayno and moshe is dying he's on his his last day of his life and he's giving it a famous speech as he's on his way out and he goes ahead and he says to the jewish people i'm done i'm 120 years old it's over i'm out peace i didn't actually do that i ad-libbed just a little bit but basically he dies and uh he gets buried and i'm telling the story i'm not even looking at my kid i'm just telling the story i'm reading it and they buried him but they nobody knew where he was buried and it was a whole storyline i said all right now good night good night and and i look over and i see that my daughter is crying i'm like what in the world happened to you like what's going on why what why are you crying and she can't even she finally gets that you know you know when someone says like why are you crying so if you're just starting it's just like you just kind of like hold it in the little but she fin and what happens she starts to say moshe moshe died she was shocked she couldn't believe it moshe abandoned the jewish people died and i was like i don't know how to break it to her i'm like just about um give or take maybe a couple thousand years ago he's been out he's been out for quite a while but to her the story she'd been learning in school and all the ideas we speak about at the shabbos table same as the shabbat table same table all the stories we never spoke about moshe to hide so in her head this guy we speak of as moshe abenu was a real person believe it or not a real person who had a real life who was alive so she never met him there's a lot of story she hears in life she doesn't meet the people as far as she was concerned he was still alive okay i said yeah unfortunately you know yes we will have a ceremony tomorrow about it but he has passed he has passed on okay i calmed her a little bit and then i i left the room and called my wife to calm her down but it was very fascinating i was thinking wow she really takes it seriously how many of us actually take the stories of judaism the concepts and the ideas the mitzvos the torah how many of us take it seriously as if it's real because it is how many of us actually take it real like take it seriously so i was i was thinking about that and okay forget about you okay i don't know you i don't know you take seriously what you don't take seriously i can just tell you for me how seriously do i take it how real is it to me and i think this concept and this idea although it actually has nothing to do with the topic i'm going to share with you right now has everything to do with the topic i'm going to share with you right now if that didn't make any sense stick with me here we go how seriously do we take our judaism our yiddish guide how real is it to us i think the number one thing on the list which kind of falls by the wayside a little bit which kind of loses its power is something which is not really particular to you or to me this is actually the gemara says the gemara says in brachos it's brought that on page 32 i think and if you look over there it says that there's something there are ideas some things in this world that are in the highest of levels they're the highest levels but people don't give it the proper time and attention we don't give it the type proper time and attention and interestingly most people that quote this actually quoted as different to the camera it's really rashy the famous bit of a commentary from france who comes along and he says that what are we referencing when we say that there are certain things that that we don't take and give the proper respect the verb shabba romo shalom things are on the on the on the most exalted places in this world it's called te fela prayer prayer power prayer is power we're talking about some serious power over here and how many of us actually respect and understand that and think about it like that it's really a powerful thing and it really works you know it's very interesting i was once teaching a class and and there was uh there was somebody in the back of the room at the end of the class asked me a question they said you know sometimes i feel sometimes i feel like this judaism thing is a one-way relationship i feel like it's a one-way relationship you know and i knew what they were referencing what they're referencing is idea of prayer and how they pray and they have to do and they have whatever but where what does god do that's what they meant but that's just a backstory so they go you know i just feel like sometimes it's a one-way relationship and i said i totally understand you i really do i get it what you mean is is what you mean god does everything for us and we do nothing is that what you meant by when we really that's what you meant right what you meant is that you do nothing and god does everything so they were they were a little bit bothered about that because no that's not what they meant at all what they meant is they meant that they do everything god but when you stop and think about it for a minute what do we do for god and what does god do for us what do we do for god and what does god do for us well i mean let's just sum it up god does everything for us and what do we do for god what do we do for god we like to think that we do a lot but the reality is anything that we even have the ability to do is only because god's giving us the ability to do it so how do we remember that you know it's hard to remember that idea and to really really be grateful for for what we have in this world and and to remember our purpose and meaning and and understand what are we doing here and to really focus so guess what we have this thing called prayer we have something called prayer something called tefila now there's two different types there's two different types of prayer one of them is known as a spontaneous just speak you want to talk to god speak to him and then ultimately to break down prayer in in one idea what does it mean to what does it mean to pray what it means is is to have a relationship it's to talk is to speak this is can you imagine can you imagine a husband and wife that just don't talk to each other they never talk to each other i mean i i i'm so sorry if i just brought up some bad memories of your lives or of you know your parents or you okay i'm sorry therapy session afterwards i charge extra in any event you stop and think about a relation a relationship you get a husband and a wife and they just never talk what is that what does that mean to have a quote-unquote relationship but they never talk that's not a relationship right so understand that the kinds of relationship is when a person goes ahead is and they actually talk to each other they converse i mean it reminds me of a story which is a little bit by a little bit i mean a lot sad a really sad story and the story is that there was a there was a father and a son i i don't know where the mother or slash wife was either she passed away or they were no longer together but in any event he added his father and son and the father started dating started dating a uh a young lady started dating someone and when they you know dating everything's going beautiful everything's going wonderful however what ends up happening is is that this new girl was not interested in having anything to do with this man's previous life nothing to do with the previous life nothing nothing doing so she said listen you got to make a choice you got to make a choice that choice is your kid or me what's it gonna be you're kidding me so he was like thinking about like what is that what my son my only son you want me to go out and break off relationship with him goes yeah i know it sounds a little off but i'm a little off so it's either your kid or me what's it gonna be so he thinks what can he do what can he say oh so one day he shows up by his kid and he says to this kid he said listen [Music] i have something for you and he takes out his pocket a crack a credit card and he gives him the credit card and he says to him this is for you and he says okay you know thank you he says listen i have in here in your account you have ten thousand dollars every month will be put into your account every single month this is okay thank you very much that's great he goes yeah you're welcome all right so have a good day i guess it goes down i got two more things for you and hands him a pair of keys a set of keys he's like what's this this is a brand new car it's a car for you there's a car for me goes yeah car for you he goes why are you what is going on here he goes this car is for you he's like all right and he gives him another pair of keys he goes what's this because this this is for your apartment brand new apartment he goes dad what's going on over here i mean i appreciate all these gifts but what what's happening why are you why are you giving all this to me and he said to him son i i really don't know how to say this you know that uh i've been looking for love i've been looking for love and you know i met this young lady and uh you know things have been going very well he goes yeah dad i'm happy for you i'm very excited for you so hopefully this will go well he goes he goes yeah there's only one problem is that she really she doesn't want she uh it's a little bit i uh the only there's a lib there's a issue there's only like a thing like this uh dad what she doesn't want any anyone else involved in relationship she basically said it's either either it's she just wants me dad i understand i'm not the one marrying her so you go ahead i have a relationship with her but like why can't i religion with you because i i i don't know what to tell you i'm really sorry i really want to of course listen i'll give you everything you need here's a credit card here's here's here's you know the house here's a car so it depends on your age like if you're like 15 you're like yo yo right you walk out the door you get in that car and you're like sayonara if you're a little bit older and you start to recognize the fact that maybe you know you actually want a relationship with your parents so that's a little bit hard it's a little hard but okay he says all right dad i want you to be happy if he's gonna make you happy and i understand i mean thank you okay this goes on for a little bit and he doesn't he stops speaking to his son there's never a relationship with him anymore and i don't want to go too much into detail i just want to point out that this boy unfortunately had a really rough time and he had to start speaking with someone and he said i understand what's your problem you have everything he goes what's it worth i don't have a relationship with my own father a relationship well of course every relationship hey you know you got to give some stuff and some things and some whatnots and just like okay that's really nice but there's no there's no interac there's nothing come on no relationship a cut off a relationship that my friends answers up a question about the punishment that was given to the snake you know the story of adam and eve other men cava when another mercado went ahead and the snake did the wrong thing got them to eat from the tree and unfortunately bad stuff came to the world because of that the snake got punished what was the punishment you're going to be on your stomach now they say a snake whatever this means just have arms and legs but you're going to go on your stomach and someone point to something interesting i don't know this is true you can check it out yourself but someone pointed out to me they told me that they went to a snake farm and that the snake handler check it out i don't know if it's true or not i'm just saying what i heard the snake handler takes this baby snake and lifts it up a baby snake and and lifted it up and showed this person the bottom of the snake said look at the bottom of the snake and he saw that there were four holes two holes towards the top and two towards the bottom like not through just little little little like indentations and he said what was that and the guy who's not a religious person secular snake handler said what do you mean what is this these are the marks where the snakes used to have their arms and legs but they don't have them anymore because of the punishment take it or leave it i don't know check it out you can write me an email and project inspire projectinspire.com.gov that's co.l okay in any event.com so so so the point is he goes what was the punishment of the snake punishment of the snake is you have to eat the dirt of the earth okay i guess that's a bit of a punishment right it doesn't taste so good but he has food everywhere he goes he's completely taken care of he has everything he has everything why is that a punishment that's giving you a credit card you all you can eat whatever you want answers what the punishment is i'm cut off from you i don't have a relationship with you ouch my friends a relationship is where you can actually speak with one another but there's actually conversing now i tell you one of the big questions people say is like well sometimes i feel like i'm just talking to god but he's not talking back to me and that's a very very good point and i'll tell you something unfortunately right now the error we're living in that we don't have the temple we don't have the beta mikdash or the base of mikdash all three of those the fact that we don't have those right now it's unfortunate we lost an idea called prophecy we don't have prophecy anymore where we actually had that interaction but we do have levels we can go ahead and connect with god on the highest of levels that we have right now we can go and speak with hashem we could talk with him and we have to remind ourselves of hashem's existence so we got to go and talk we got to talk what's prayer it's not just the formal fixed prayer you open up a book blessed art thou withereth godeth kingeth of the universe of the fifth because some gave me teaching my mouth no what it is is to really understand i'm speaking speaking with her father in heaven that's unbelievable that's an unbelievable thing that we can interact with the lord you know sometimes i feel like it's a one-way relationship and you're right it is god's doing everything for us and what are we doing what does it mean to pray the talmud says the gemara says on that same page the qasim the early pious ones early right this one before they would pray they would spend an hour beforehand getting into the mode an hour during and an hour afterwards when i was in high school i mean nihil my principal used to always say before we started to pray he'd be like all right we're about to speak to god about to pray let's all take two minutes in order just to get ourselves ready and get ourselves into the mode fine we're not going to take an hour before him but to even take a minute or two to think about what we're about to do get ourselves in the mindset stop drop and roll that's if you're on fire but if you're not on fire to just stop and think a little bit i'm about to speak with the tata nimo i mean that's unbelievable how real is it does so like my daughter who cried who cried when you heard that moshe banu died do we take prayer seriously that we're actually speaking to our father in heaven we're speaking to hashem it's a relationship and it's real as much as we do it is as real as it becomes so like we said spontaneous you can speak to god whenever you want any language you want all major credit cards accepted and minor god gets it you can go out any language but we do have also what's known as the morning service the afternoon and the evening now unfortunately what happens by many is well some aren't involved in it at all but for those who are involved sometimes you have people running in late they're leaving early they're running they're missing or whatever now stop you got to get that drop early stop thinking about what we're about to do better have a conversation it's about to be real stuff just got real imagine as they say a muscle an analogy a parable you are about to go ahead and meet a world leader imagine about to meet a world leader you know forget the uh analogy you're about to meet the world leader you're about to meet god who runs everything god is the ceo of universe limited well unlimited universe unlimited by god you have to go and speak with that do we speak to hashem that's unbelievable do we go and stop and think before we're about to do it that's what we're about to do really take advantage of this idea how real do we take it how serious is it to us now this really expands to all of judaism but really at the end of the day all judaism is just a relationship and the deepest part of that relationship is interacting so do we go to take the time to actually speak this my friends is what i'd like to just suggest a little bit to understand this idea about how powerful this is and if you would think about for a second the fact that it's gotta be listening to me is he like what i'm saying is like whatever is that i've said this in other areas i'm gonna say it again if god wasn't thinking about you right now if god wasn't thinking about you right this moment if hashem was not thinking about you guess what you wouldn't be you you simply wouldn't exist without hashem thinking about you you don't exist the very fact that you exist means that hashem is thinking about us so he's thinking and he's waiting and he's listening jewish law the mystic otherwise known as the otherwise known as john mayer cohen kagan a great great sage writes in his book on jewish law in his commentary he brings down the sources that say that when a person says eleno you know maybe you know what eleno when we say eleno you know what's going on in shamayim in the heavens when we're saying eleno god turns to pamalia shall milo whatever that means to his whole celestial court i hope i pronounce that right you know you when you read a word you don't really know how to pronounce it you know anyway he turns to his whole celestial court and he says to him everybody quiet everybody just stop what you're doing i have to hear my child is speaking to me right now that's pretty amazing it's pretty powerful concept so i want to share with you something that bothered me for many many years and still bothers me a little bit and that is all right i get it i get it so so you got to do the the prayer thing you got to speak to god and all that stuff and whatever but like i get like the the spontaneous thing you know speak to god you want to talk to god speak to god however i'm just wondering what about the um like the fixed thing chakras same words day in day out right but if you're going in over and over the same thing same thing same thing same thing okay what is it three times a day let's do it maybe once again two once a week why is it every single day three times a day that we're doing exactly the same thing my friends allow me to share with you an idea and that is that we are human and being that we are human we forget things how quickly does it take for us to forget things pretty darn too quick pretty quickly we forget things therefore we need to set up reminders well when should we set up those reminders well what about if we are just the basics of our life we know the basic of of of a normal human life is people eat breakfast lunch dinner sets of three why was i i know you some of you are watching this i'm on a life plan i have five meals a day small meals with oats and the rest of you're like i just drink water i don't even do anything i'm on the atkin water diet okay for those who are somewhat uh let's go back to classic then you have breakfast lunch and dinner what's breakfast lunch and dinner beginning middle end what's prayer we wake up in the morning right when we wake up let's have a little reminder don't forget wait a minute there's meaning in this world there's purpose this is serious there's something i meant to accomplish oh yeah can you imagine starting your day thinking there's meaning and purpose wouldn't that be a little bit different than if a person started a date without thinking at all number one we start off we say chakras and then in the middle of the day in the middle of the day we're running around we're doing crazy some explain that the middle prayer the minha is actually the most important prayer various different sources for that and why that is and what's going on one idea is that that's the time when you say god i love you that's when you say god i love you whoa obviously i what does that mean god i love you so what is mineral what does the afternoon service have to do because that's the time when people are in the middle of working they're running around they're doing they're involved whether with their children or with their business or with whatever it is stop calibrate let me get clarity again what am i doing here what's the meaning what's the purpose what's it all about oh yeah the one that's the most mighty and powerful that runs everything that only wants my best only ones that i should succeed you give me wisdom you give me health you give me my money money money money you give me my my cash you take care of everything okay back to work back to life back to that about to go to sleep maya of evening service oh yeah right god that's why classic classic idea is the concept of coming to recognize the classic is coming to recognize the fact that when we say the words hashem it does not mean blessed are thou with goddest although it does but a much deeper understanding and actually basic and deeper understanding is baroque god are means you are the source of all blessing this shifts our thoughts into a level of ammunition of trust belief in god and trust in god it changes the whole way we see the world it changes the whole way we interact with everyone if we just stopped and thought about the fact that what oh yeah you're the source of everything it's not my boss that's the source of it all it's not the traffic that's the source of it all it's not my kid coming you know messing something up that's a sort of my spouse the source of everything is hashem and hashem only wants the best for us so do we stop and speak with him do we stop and talk with hashem is it something which is real that we take to heart and that we actually do and even when we're doing it are we paying attention this is a reminder this is a reminder this is a reminder and holding on to that and recognize that and making it part of the basic i uh build up a forum as a person all right people let's do the following we're going to do right now just a quick recap we didn't end up with one point and then finish almost we done so listen up we started off in the beginning with a little story about my daughter abby started crying and want to tell the story about sherbet instead why she crying at the bottom line she didn't realize the fact that what was it what's going on do we take it seriously ourselves is it someone's just real thoughts or something to really think about it something is powerful or not it was about a relationship with a father and the son where he says well i don't have to have a religion with you anymore what are you talking about guys i'd rather not have all the money right about everything about each other's relationship that's where the snake's biggest punishment was not to have a relationship at all by him okay but three times a day why is that every single day the same thing because we forget things we're human beings if we have to bring ourselves back into this idea of recognizing what it's all about and therefore it's got to be every day morning afternoon night the middle of the day stop whatever we're doing in the morning stop take a moment to think about these are things that roma show them on the top of the top we can speak with god whenever we want to be recognized and appreciate what that means the ceo of universe unlimited is our father who wants everybody to stop my kid is talking to me i want to hear what they have to say how seriously do we take this how much time do we put into it and i'm not even saying to go nuts with it i'm saying at least once a day just to stop and think that there's a creator of the world if we can do it twice a day mature man how much better and then okay our life becomes a different life we become more calm more relaxed but again bottom line is how real do we take this how serious this does i want to i want to end off tell you a little story a little story and that was uh and and it's an idea of like the spontaneous prayer i was walking home with my son one time from shul from synagogue and as we were walking home i was talking to god my son was a few steps ahead and he said to me what'd you say because he thought i was talking to him i said what he said what'd you say i said i wasn't talking to you he goes who are you talking to i said i was talking to hashem i was talking to god and he goes yeah right no really who are you talking to i said what do you mean you don't talk to god and he says to me uh no yes when we daven got you now sucker i said what you only talk to god during prayer chakras that's the only time you speak with him he goes what do you mean when do you what does that mean i said that's great it's a good start why don't you speak them all the time it's a real deal like you're really having a conversation because it's a real conversation and i told them the following idea i'm going to share with you if the only time we speak to god is chakras morning afternoon and night then we can't really know if we're talking to god or we're just fulfilling our quota but if we talk to god all day then we can know when we're praying that it's something which is real take advantage prayer is power there's a relationship stop drop and think take the time to get deep all right peeps been a pleasure see when i see you everyone take care of you [Music] bye you