Shaar HaBitachon Lesson 12 with Rabbi Shais Taub

so we are now continuing chapter three as mentioned earlier chapter three is a very very long chapter it's going to take as many lessons to finish with Hashem's help I just want to recap where we were we were discussing prophecies ideas that are our foundational ideas and the first preface was actually a recap of the seven qualities that one needs in order to be trustworthy that we learned about in Chapter two so we just did that and then we were mentioning how Hashem is totally in control in a unique way unlike any other power in in creation and we were saying that the way that a sham runs the world is this you know complex system of causes and causes of causes and causes of causes and causes of causes of causes of causes right okay that's what we were just saying now the beta bit hi is going to continue on that and that note and and and explain a little bit more about Hashem's total control and how really nothing in creation has anything like that type of control or power or influence at all and he explains it with some philosophical reasoning with some logic much of what the domain of a hiya says in this next little section here this next little part of chapter three is very very similar to some ideas that are expanded upon in civis although remain a Bahia uses the Russian of Akira the the philosophical language and terminology and ideas so I want to sort of go into this and fill it in or or or maybe just translate it to some of the parallel Hasidic ideas so they're not even parallel ideas they're the same ideas but the way that it's brought out in in in Exodus which is more metaphysical or well you'll see okay so we were talking about the way I from is in complete control total control and uses causes of causes of causes in order to get things done but it's all under his control okay Misha anal maven in yonder Harlem yeah chief a person who does not understand the matters of this world is going to think okay here's the set up someone who doesn't understand how the world works is going to have the following erroneous understanding of things it's interesting that at least to me this is very similar to a an argument that the alt another in Tanja sets forth specifically in Chadha Yamuna pedak base the second chapter which we had recently and hit us actually as well as in again a cicada Shimon Hoff letter 20 there's actually a whole long stretch of shadow you code via Mona pedak base which is identical for almost verbatim to a long part of you get a cicada shimon Hoff and it's about the misunderstanding that the Philosopher's have on one place he calls them the philosophers another place he calls them the the heretics but it's a misunderstanding about the nature of reality and the the misunderstanding is based upon it's very similar to whatever been a Baha'i is saying right here he says people who don't know how the world works okay but what's what's the the common denominator that they don't understand that the way a Shem makes the world is not comparable to human creativity they're used to thinking of creativity in terms of human creativity which is not creation at all but formation the human creator when he expresses himself or she expresses herself creatively isn't actually making something from nothing but rather manipulating the form of things that already exist I believe maybe even in the last lesson I told you the the Carl Sagan Voort and since it's a great one I'll say it again you know I told ya I remember cuz I told you about the cosmos the the old show the cosmos back in the 70s I remember quoting Carl Sagan and I told you he said what's what are the instructions for baking an apple pie from scratch first create the heavens in the earth right because if you already have heavens and the earth you're not really creating from scratch you already have raw materials from scratch means you have no raw materials you've started from absolute nothing just like God did when he when he created so and actually just like God is doing as he creates right now he's also creating something from absolute nothing and and the reason is because when a human being manipulates the form of one something into another something in shaadi you could have a motive pedak base and then you get us a created human cloth he uses the the metaphor of a silversmith so he changes he manipulates the form of a hunk of silver and makes it into a beautiful cup and then he leaves it on the shelf in the workshop and he goes out for lunch and while he's out for lunch there's no danger that the cups going to revert to its former shape because after all the only thing he's done to it has changed its its form which is a rather minor change it's only a superficial change as opposed to what what would not be a minor or superficial change well overriding the essence of something would be would not be minor or superficial what does that mean to override the essence of something well you know nothingness what is nothingness and apologize by the way if this is very deep but okay you can change the channel on me all right nothingness is pretty much defined by its non-existence that's pretty much the definition of non f-4 nothingness so turning nothingness into something this isn't a minor change or a change of its form or superficial qualities or secondary characteristics or how we want to say it it's overriding the essence of nothingness forcing it to be its very antithesis and as such it does not remain comfortably so to speak in that state and it constantly strains to revert to its to its essence so every something is constantly straining to revert into nothingness because it wasn't always here every something that you see like something I mean it created something it wasn't always here you look you don't even have to believe in creation to believe that even those who believe in a Big Bang there might be other details we disagree about but no one will say that creation was always here that that matter as we know it always existed so the fact that it's here right now means it didn't used to be here and now it's here it wasn't made from other raw materials it wasn't like the silver that you change into a cop or flower that you change into dough and know that you change into bread there were no raw materials nothingness were the raw materials so to speak you know there's an old joke about this group of scientists they want to show up God and they want to show God that they can create just like that like God created during the six days of creation man is so advanced with his technology we don't need God anymore so they're gonna recreate the creation of man from the book of Genesis so what did they do they read their reading lines from veracious and they're following it and then God formed the men from the Earth's four corners in the shape of a man they had this mound of dirt a mound of dirt in anthropomorphic shape and they had it hooked up to wires with electrodes and and he breathes into it the breath of life so what did they do they ran this current into it they were gonna run a current into it and it was going to animate this mound of dirt and dirt is gonna stand up and be a living breathing talking human being just like God took dirt and turned dirt into and to Adam the first man and that's they're gonna show God that they can create just like God took dirt and made man they're gonna take dirt and make man and about to flip the switch that's gonna animate that dirt and turn it into a man and all of a sudden a voice booms forth from heaven and says hey not so fast get your own dirt what's the joke that even if they had successfully done it that still wouldn't be creating because they're working with raw materials they're working with dirt that dirt already exists creation means that there is no dirt there is no nothing there or there is nothing there's no something and you turn nothing into something as such every created being is essentially nothingness and the only reason it continues to be a something is because God continues to compel it into that state or what he calls in chapter 2 of shatter your cover Mona caca pile beneful Talmud the power or the the the force of the actor within the acted upon constantly okay so let's continue here and see how Rev aina bhai a-- says in in less mystical language but he's nonetheless alluding to the same to the same idea more or less so people who don't understand how reality works they think yeah sebum is kadesha Mihailovich in one Yanam mishap Kusum me in E&L inion that a created cause could actually cause change in things or transform them from one thing to another thing however that's impossible why because waha Seba Kalusha when the collet mieismie menechino a hill of batsmen because these causes are too weak these created causes are too weak and insignificant to bring about change or transformation in the essence of the a cause that it itself is created and doesn't even have any --until aaja chol independence fancy words but it itself isn't even here in any unconditional way it's it itself is only being created something from nothing this second so it doesn't have power to make things be they themselves are some things so the best they can do is one something can act upon another something you know like the their metaphor the alto never gives is is is the the splitting of the see that you have the wind which is of something pushing on the water which is another something and making it stand up but that's really just a superficial change that's just a change in the form of water that rather than being liquid and flowing it's being pushed it's being made to stand up but that's not as miraculous as the fact that the water even exists in the first place because the water is being made something from nothing so to take one something and act upon another something and manipulate its form that's not as a victim as big of a deal as taking something miss out of nothingness where you're overriding the essence of nothingness so all these somethings can do is sort of bounce off of each other and act off of each other and in effect each other's superficial form and even that the only reason they're doing it is because they're being created that way at this second they don't have any like I said they don't have ontological independence so they're not here on their own if they're here then every single second it's only because God is creating them at this second so they really have no independent power or influence at all okay let's continue kasha Anita okay hold on okay debatable kaya is going to give us a metaphor or an example an illustration to help us to wrap our minds around the idea of something from nothing and as I've been explaining that the idea of Yakima ayan something from nothing is something that's elaborated upon at length and say this here a bata bhai gives a short but very effective philosophical example okay continuing inside Tasha Anita had gotta get her a clod me Nikita matt's mere flesh maze she Bala when you see that a single grain of wheat produces 300 ears of wheat highly disproportionate yield I mean that's nature that's what it generally does what I'm saying is that the ratio that one little kernel of wheat when you when you plant that kernel of wheat and it grows it grows 300 years of of wheat of the whole she bail is chelation gagnam and then each of those three hundred years of wheat has within them 30 more seeds like the original seed so you have 300 times 30 of 9,000 so from one planting a single grain produced 9,000 grains you are Gaga aahed siebel Isetta salafiyyah like coral ahem so one grain has caused close to 10,000 grains the point is this is not exactly something from nothing but it's a pretty close approximation or as close of an example as we can see in the physical universe you know there's ill Ivalo and there's yes mine Allah Allah is cause and effect ok so you hit a ball with a bat so the bat is one thing the ball is another thing and there's a clear cause and effect you have one thing acting upon another thing okay or wind blowing on water and making it stand up okay but then you have yesh Mayan where the act or is not portion it to the acted upon to the extent that you even might you might even refer to the act door as nothingness because it's so insignificant seemingly insignificant actually the very opposite of insignificant but appear it appears as nothing it's one little grain and yet its power is that it produces nine thousand grains there's an old saying anybody can count the seeds in an apple but only God can count the apples in a seed so the same type of idea here how many grains are in a grain so if with one generation there's nine thousand of them and then and how many in and then obviously that number becomes exponential each time you go and you plant each each crop or each yield you replant it so that number increases exponentially until very quickly you'll have numbers in you know with you know absurdly large numbers trillions quadrillions whatever numbers that we can't even we can't even count and it could all start from one grain I mean think about ostensibly in your lifetime one grain that was planted when you were a child has grown how many has produced how many grains through it the generations through each year of crops you know not like some type of number we couldn't even count some you know astronomical figure and and the point is that that's a glimpse or a glimmer of yesh Millian of how there could be something from nothing how a how a tiny origin can produce this massive result so that's almost like a something from nothing where did it come from how you can't fit that many grains you can't fit 10,000 grains in one grain so it didn't come from it in a sense of a cause-and-effect of a something from a something the way it came from it is is very akin to something from nothing and we see this operating in the world and it gives us a glimmer into the idea of something from nothing this is what romaine Ibaka is saying ok so he says somebody who sees how one grain produces 9,000 grain grains hai-yah Alain key Cuyahoga College may I say Eskimos Zoo can anyone fail to recognize that the force inherent in the grain insufficient to produce such an amount it's it's not possible so then how do you account for it behind Sharda Gargery man Israel sanatorium also not just not just the the wheat but all types of plants that are planted all packs of seeds that grow behind no matter the same thing we say Lavoie I saw other mushara hi same thing with a human being and other animals matthias Azera from the original seed from the genetic material one one tiny cell cuckoo make a novice hot dog a goggle me Bates's hot dog in cat no sir or also like a big fish it grows from a tiny little egg the point is all of these are just examples of how you have something that is so tiny it does not account for the result that it that it yields and the only way to understand it is that there's a power a creative power creative energy which is a godly power godly energy in the universe that yields something from nothing ok it's it's not like you took a piece of silver and you shaped it to a into a cup or you took flour and you need it in the dough and you make the dough and you turn it into bread those are all something from something and the yield is proportionate the yield is proportionate but when you talk about growth reproduction the growth is disproportionate okay and especially in talks about a human being think about that you take one cell and from that there's a human being with a life and with a mind and a personality and the soul that that's not an upgrade of twice or ten times or a thousand halves or even a billion times it's really an infinite upgrade and that's the power of infinity showing itself when when from one tiny little packet of DNA and what from one cell of a reproductive cell grows an entire human being that can only be understood as something from nothing as a godly power of infinity showing itself in the world so anyone will understand that's how reality works he's not going to be able to think that some things have real power over other some things really all the power is coming from the quote unquote nothing now it's not really nothing not without getting into a whole discussion of a city's here there's the yeshua meaty in the yeshiva and there's the iana meaty in the ioan inevitable for our perspective the table is a something okay so we call that yes but it's really only the yeshiva okay and and then we say that that the the kaya Halicki the godly power which brings the table into existence relative to us we call that ayan because we can't chart it and we can't relate to it and it's just completely beyond our senses so from our perspective we call that iron we call that nothing yes the truth is exact opposite that's the yacon meaty that's the real something and the created beings are the other are not really a yesh they're the iana me to the real I and why they I because they don't exist cosmos on that's Buddhism we don't say the world doesn't exist but it's not --until aaja CLE independent it doesn't exist for itself it may have an existence but not its own it's borrowed existence or it's the extension of God's existence okay I told you this is gonna be a deep class so I hope everybody's following okay let's continue inside so therefore let's get a little bit more practical vetere does her nefesh logic tamasha Acree beta yasala so preoccupying oneself trying to advance what the created may he be exalted has delayed well Akamai she hit him or to delay what he has advanced well a harvest ma she him it or to increase what he has decreased l'homme tamashii he rabbit or to decrease what he has increased makini on a whole island from from material acquisitions from from physical stuff none of it makes sense it's all futile he says with a condition with a caveat me Blee sabe of L Kia Mitzvah surveyed the Civic able Toto say unless it is in order to cause the performance of mitzvahs or service of Hashem and and learning Toyota why why is that caveat there so the mark the Marbella nefesh one of the commentaries on reversal of Elvis explains because then you actually have Bagheera how Kobe the Sherman could smear - am i him everything's in the hands of heaven except for once all of heaven so you know how the world conducts itself we don't have any control that's completely uh shams control but how we conduct ourselves morally speaking choosing right from wrong ah that Hashem leaves to us we have complete control so when it comes to something that spiritual failure and the Veda that then in an mitzvos then then yes then we then then toil is not misplaced it's not futile it actually is well spent but then go and figure how much energy do we put trying to change material matters and how much energy do we put trying to become you know spiritually refined right kind of lopsided in any way right let's finish up kaliesha cordoba meet the CD ah say cyclists may may have in a vase and Nagase all of this were been describing is a weakness or a lack of recognition in the true knowledge of the of the way things work and it's in its foolishness and it's an ignorance of understanding the goodness of how he conducts things but it's all based on a on a misunderstanding of the nature of reality or the nature of existence okay let's let's go a little bit further oh yeah I wanted to share one thing so this is a seha from halo glamoured Aleph look at De Sica's it's a poor MC huh but you see here in a stolid yes er beer about Dhamma that is explaining a concept here do you do am a shaman has out the aim st. melon s you're not allowed to rely on a miracle well hop a durometer furthermore toyota says over FMLA caliber holla share casa hashem will bless you with all that you do DAF kia write that off she because Hashem he sasheer even though it is the blessing of Hashem which enriches so which one is it and we've spoken about this a little bit before which one is it is it that you've got to do it Hashem will bless you if you put out effort or is it sums blessing and if it's such a blessing then why do you have to do anything so we mentioned this before in an earlier class but the Rebbe explains here in this serie how the only reason for the natural action that we put forth is to provide a Shem with plausible deniability that really everything is from shame avaya it's all miracles dull miraculous but he doesn't want it to appear so so we provide him with an alibi so that it can look it can appear natural but really he's giving us everything as blessings and all we're doing is working in order so it shouldn't appear that it's it's a gift that it's really it's all bread from heaven okay so therefore what what comes what emerges from this somebody who toils as Rabinovitch I was talking about someone who toils in trying to speed up when Hashem is delaying or delay what Hashem is speeding up or to increase what Hashem wants to decrease or decrease what if she wants to increase all that stuff is totally futile and when it comes to making a living that ever says here of an incredible Marshall the hamachi of essa a sexual a Webley la hoggish kid the boy as an onion dip because Hashem he sasha somebody who works harder in order to make money without realizing that that doesn't actually generate more income and it's really only high shams blessing that it generates income a mob of Earth they know what's it like all the mo asic mimetics of the against nefesh a person who works who toils with with great alacrity but fetus kisum lani elohim kesef sewing wallets to put money into velena a sabine jana asic la Saugus a casa Vox might but he doesn't have any plan for making the money itself so everyone would know how foolish that is so the debe says that really somebody who works to try to make money by working harder without trying to increase his blessings from a sham by increasing his connection to a sham it's like a guy who thinks he's got a money-making plan he's gonna sew a wallet and by sewing the wallet and maybe sewing many wallets and sewing a really big wallet he's gonna get more money he's just gonna have a bunch of wallets and they're all gonna be empty there he's not gonna have anything to put into that okay so the same thing is the work we do maybe it creates a vessel to hold the blessing but it doesn't create the blessing it would be like creating a wallet and the wallet is just empty it doesn't have anything to put in it all right let's I know we're a little bit over time but I'm just gonna finish up this section because it's just a good place to stop okay who Kivar ah mr. Holcomb Ella Indian as ever my Madre and the wise man I mean Schlemmer Malik King Solomon already alluded to this when he said locales Mandvi a slit hole hey Fitz Takashimaya meeee there's a time for everything a moment for all concerns under the heavens Baraka zakhm ahem Asuma shman anulom then he cited 28 instances whoo mashallah this is what it says a slaw laddus face la mousse there's a time for birth time for death I dominate until he says I smell hom Ave Shalom there's a time for war is a time for peace for um ER case of a Anita s Coulomb and then he says a time for calamity comes to them all well uh Murray says ki Guevara al Guevara shame America VII Malaya four high one is watched by a higher one and there is there are still higher ones over them in other words there's this complex system of causes and causes of causes and causes of causes of causes of causes we have no way of understanding the complexity of the I called it before in the last class the Rube Goldberg machine we have no way of understanding the complexity of the Rube Goldberg machine that Hashem is setting in motion okay muhuali cos dinner hovater yasala yessir now lamas vamoose Val Janus McGee Elias Callahan Colter Caine : the creators way of judgment are to hidden too deep to exalt it for us to arrive at knowledge of their particulars meaning even of the details how much more so the the big picture the big picture is way beyond us look var Americo Civ this indeed is what the verse says kee Guevara mine the audits came governor Heineman a hem massive a side my from the max race a fan that just as the heavens are higher than the earth my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts are higher than your thoughts meaning it is beyond us to really plumb the depths of the system through which Hashem runs the world the bottom line here is to know that there is nothing nothing that is going to benefit us from trying to manipulate the different some things in the world or to rely upon them or to curry favor with them or to line them up in a some type of a favorable configuration none of that does anything Hashem is creating it all something from nothing and he's in total control and he's the only one who determines what things are gonna be doing and when they're gonna do them and how that how it's all gonna happen so it is futile to focus our efforts and the details of creative things and some things that they themselves are only being created something from nothing every every single second and rather we should just focus in on one on one source and on the only source of it all which is truly in control at all times okay ah do i Shems work not trying to do his job right yeah that's one of my favorite ones I do what shams work not a shams job right what does it mean do a shams work doing the Lord's work acts of goodness and kindness be good to Shyam be good to his kids that's that doing the Lord's work what's trying to do his job running the universe that that's his job we don't do that okay fine very good thank you for coming along this very mystical and challenging path tonight with God's help we'll be back tomorrow night for another lesson continuing chapter 3 thank you