Rabbi Shmuel Klein on "Connecting to God with Emuna" at the CHAZAQ Melave Malka

everybody Welcome to we're going to have a very special program today I'm very happy to see so many faces even though it's raining outside thank you very much every single one of you that came out just a small this week's we learn thatu and when they leave what happens all of the Jewish people what are they busy with they're taking out the silver and the gold and the money of the Egyptians the SP oils of War on the other hand what do we know M what does he do he's busy with taking out of Egypt and bringing into is so we say look at mosu he has a chance to become millionaire M getting so much money and getting so many uh Gold Silver and the and the extras of the Egyptians but what does he decide to do to do a mitvah to be busy with and bringing his body out of Egypt and uh we know that theim teach us a lesson that when you have a chance you have to keep in mind like mosu that we're in this world obviously we have to do par and work but on the other hand you have to keep in mind what's really the most important thing to do there's a famous story and with this I'll end we're going to call upon our guest speaker a very very very big Rabbi he's RAB we have over left a very big that agreed to come all lat the year so we really thinkk him so we're going to have him say a few words after us and we're going to have a whole program uh with music and dancing and food and it's be great uh so basically the story goes as follows that there was a certain person he didn't have enough money enough par so what does he do he hears about a secret what's the secret that if you go to a different city very far away what happens is that the dirt over there on the floor you can find diamonds so he tells his wife give me some time I'm going to go over there I'm going to collect a lot of diamonds I'm going to come back we're going to be very very very rich so what happens is he goes to the far journey and uh he goes to this No Place Town very far away and he gets over there and he sees diamonds on the floor all over the place just like you walk outside right now you see dirt he sees diamonds and he starts collecting and jumping and taking everything putting in his pockets stuffing himself putting in bags and he's filled with diamonds he goes to the local restaurant he's hungry he's like I'm a multi-billionaire right now wow I'm gonna get I'm going entire I'm I could order the whole store if I want but he orders the whole menu he gets one of everything he tells me I want one of the salads I want one of the steaks I want one of the chickens I want of this I want that and basically what happens is he eats and stuffs himself and he has the finest wines it's time to get the check to get the to pay up right so uh he says I'm going to pay you guys with diamonds they're like what do you mean he takes that from his pocket of diamond and the Wier says are you crazy are you normal what are you doing this is dirt this is is garbage it's nothing he's like what do you mean he's like by us this is not money we know in the in in outer town there somewhere else this is considered something but byas this is not money potatoes are money he's like what they're like you ordered thousands upon thousands of potatoes of food meaning money now we're going to make you work in our restaurant you have to start working as a waitress and you're going to clean the floors and you're going to work for us he's like what's going on over here so he starts to work over there and time passes is by he's like what do I have to work for them I know how to do a restaurant I know how to cook food what's the big deal their food over here is very simple I'll open up my own restaurant he opens up his own restaurant and he makes so much money what's the money the potatoes he becomes very rich in this town but then he remembers oh my gosh I forgot I have a wife and kids in the other town I told him I'm going to come back so he closes his business and he takes all of his potatoes and money to the to the to his wife and uh he knocks on the door and his wife sees him oh welcome back and she sees he's smiling she's like you brought it you brought the money she he's like yeah I brought a lot of the potatoes she's like what are you talking about and he shows her in the van in the wagon a bunch of potatoes she's like what is that smell I can't take this what is this disgusting he's like what do you mean this is the money she's like you nuckies you crazy what is this he's like oh my gosh what do you mean you said you going to bring back diamonds he's like oh no I forgot and she gets upset at him and she smacks him in the head and he falls down and while he falls down what happens is a few of the diamonds come out just a few here and there and uh she's like ah what is this like oh this is some of the leftovers the first day I came to that town I filled my pockets after a few days I got rid of the dirt that which is in the other town and this is my leftover same thing with us we're going to go up to Shai we're going to bring our millions of dollarss or we're bring our phones or our PlayStations or whatever it is and we're going to be like ah I'm the king you know I was that and they're going to be like what are you doing what is this you're supposed to up here we only count mitv we don't count how many phones you had and how many friends you had on Facebook and all this nonsense in over here in sh we only count how many you have and they're going to see you have a few extra good things that you do you helped your mother over here you helped your father you help your spouse or you help this or you help that and that's what's going to really canel the fact that we every single one of us came over here tonight to hear some to get inspired is a big and you get a big round of applause for every single one of you guys coming thank you very much I'm to call upon right now he's a director of Torah he's a very big big sadik and please give your undivided attention then we're going to have a whole program afterwards okay please rise [Applause] there's something in English called The Power of suggestion so if I was introduced as a big sadik big I am sadik hopefully one day um I'll start I I have to revert back to my former career I was a principal for many years and I have I have the of having young people in front of me and I remember my days as a principal so I'll make the same introduction or a little bit different I remember when I was young goes back maybe more than 5 years ago and when I was a kid I would have occasionally the temptation to speak and to play and to have just a merry old time so I understand the Temptation so I just want to tell anyone of that age group if you feel like playing I'm not going to get insulted there's a nice big hallway outside please you know don't don't feel that you're going to be upsetting me on the other hand on the other hand if you're going to stay in the room you know maybe do your best to to try to listen I know that some of the things that we're going to be talking about are a little bit on a more adult level but I think you guys look smart you can probably handle it but that's only if you're going to be quiet okay uh another thing I'm going to do is I'm going to uh take off my this is called a because I'd rather you focus on what's coming out of my mouth rather than what's sitting on top of my head I'm going to do that right now okay [Music] among aazim and I'm pretty sure as well I don't know if all s him do this but we have a minhag that when a child reaches a Boy Child reaches the age of three uh we don't cut his hair prior to that but when he turns 3 years old we give him a haircut and we make the peot at the side of his face and I had an grandson who underwent that experience this past Monday this past Monday night uh what I've done for my grandchildren who had this experience I always buy them a little little silver goblet sometimes it says yell Tove onor do something like that there a as a gift on the occasion of of what we call aak which is not AIC word by the way and this uh Monday night in the customary style we came to the KHAK of my grandchild grandson abam morai and we brought this silver goblet and I told my grand and his older brother who's 16 17 I says you put this away we'll give it to him later when he's had his haircut and later um after the haircut after the ceremony and we were giving him the gifts the various people the other grandparents etc etc so I told my older grandson give him give a m the little goblet give him the the be we call a be so took it was in a nice box it was wrapped up and he gave it to the child and um later he was asked the child was asked who gave you this beautiful silver Co so the little child looked up and he said YF Maya that's the name of the older brother who handed it to him of course that's ridiculous Sab and SAA brought the be not y may he dawned on me at that time that this is actually a very very common scenario in our lives and that is we get things we receive things day in and day out but we don't necessarily understand where they come from we see maybe the hand that physically stretches out to give us these things that we get but we don't see what is driving the hand up above we don't see what is really the prime mover of all of these things and that's a problem in life it's a problem but you know what in addition to being a problem it's also an invitation for us to think a little bit now speaking about thinking something we all do right this morning for those of us who attended sh betet we read about The Parting of the Red Sea you ask any kid even who's had some experience with the Torah what is the most classical miracle that was done for the Jewish people people during their entire history most of the times people with some knowledge will say well sure that's easy The Parting of the Red Sea and that happens to be today's par so we don't believe in coincidence we believe that everything is orchestrated from above but it's tremendously uncanny that we are meeting here tonight a few hours after we experience the reading of The Parting of the Red Sea this great miracle now there's two questions that I'm going to pose to you and hopefully in the course of the discussion we'll be able to answer the questions question number one is this Raise Your Hands by the way if you have some knowledge of some of the uh the stories the stories in the Torah about what the Jewish people experienced in the midbar after they left Egypt so okay some of you have experience but let me tell you most of us probably know that the Jewish people had many miracles performed for them parting the Red Sea also food fell down from the sky that's also mentioned in today's par it's called man and there were 10 plagues in Egypt and much later when the Jews went into the land of Israel with yahushua B also the yardan the the Jordan River also was parted for them and many many other I can't give you the list of all the Miracles this is so many but this was the only time well the most famous time but almost the only time that the Jewish people proceeded to sing their thanks to Hashem and that's in one of the highlights of today's para that we read is What's called the song said at the sea Moshe rabenu and the Jewish people even the ladies later had their own singing spree they sang a song praising Hashem for parting the Red Sea and for saving them so you have a miracle of The Parting of the Red Sea and then you have this tremendous song so the question that I saw asked is why was there no song after all the other Miracles what was so different here right that's first question the second question which is really is related although it sounds like it's a different question the second question is for some reason our great sages theim many many many years ago centuries ago established that each and every day when we say our when we DAV we repeat that song every single day we DAV we say that song as part of our prayer etc etc we repeat the whole every single day what's so special about that song that it had to be established for all the generations throughout our history accompanies accompanies us on all of our Journeys we say Shir forever so these are the two questions why did that Miracle have a shiram and why why do we say it always I'm going to preface the answer with a story I want you to listen carefully to this story there was a guy who was driving along in his Alpha Romeo on a very slippery Mountain Road it was after a rainfall but it was not raining so he had the hood open was it convertible and he was driving along this Mountain Road and and it was in a place which was isolated completely the nearest town was probably hundreds of miles away and something happened and he slipped the car skidded and was about to Glide off of the precipice and fall into the great Abyss below and we know what would have happened somehow the car's back wheels got caught up on a large Boulder that there at the side of the cliff and he was sailing off the cliff but the back tires of the car caught onto the cliff and he was stuck there he wasn't falling but he also had no way of getting out he didn't know what to do so listen to what happened as many people in that situation he started saying a prayer to Hashem he said God if you help me out of this one I promise I'm going to be good from now on I will pray every day he was a Jewish fellow also he says I'm going to do mitv I will give charity Sedaka I'll be as good as I possibly can and he was praying like this for an hour then suddenly as if out of nowhere a helicopter came by and beam down a light on the car and on this fellow and they got out the microphone they said we're going to send down a ladder just climb up on the ladder and you'll climb up to safety I couldn't believe it and that's what happened the helicopter you know was able to remain in one place got down the ladder he grabbed onto the ladder lift himself up out of his car and started climbing up the steps the rungs of the ladder on his way to Safety in the helicopter and as he was climbing up he looked up to the shamim he looked up to the heaven and he said to God thanks anyway you think about that for a second what he thanks anyway it is the nature I guess of the human being that's what this story is intended to illustrate to not necessarily accept the hand of God or to acknowledge the hand of God that sent to us with that thought in mind let's try to go back and understand what the scoop is with the sh I saw a beautiful interpretation in a book in a safer called bait Abraham and he explains like this the Jews did not sing this song at the yamu at the Red Sea because they were saved the verse in the Torah right prior to the song States as follows at the end of it they saw the hand of God and it says at the end of the verse they came to a realization that there was a Moshe who was sent by God and they came to the realization that there was Hashem they came to the realization that there's a force in this world a cosmic force in this world that really is directing our lives so they sang not just a thanks like hey thanks for the miracle or thanks anywhere something like that their song of praise to Hashem was to praise Hashem for allowing them or in a sense guiding them to that moment of realization that there is a Hashem in our lives there is someone that we connect with it was because of their now their new emuna this is what we calluna their faith it was because of the faith that they were able to reach through the experience that they sang it wasn't a a song of thinking thanking Hashem for the saving it was a song of thanking Hashem for the that they now had and I believe that if we understand the sh the song sang at the Red Sea in that light we also understand why our sages may have established that we say this every single day because let's face it we don't have a parting of the Red Sea every day those kinds of Miracles I need not say are extremely rare we don't live that way however we have to understand that really if you believe in a god who's capable of doing everything which is the way we do believe our Hashem is capable of doing everything matter of fact let me share with you an and let me share with you an interesting thought connected to this about 800 years ago there was a great scholar named rabi nman RAB mosha benman we call him the ramban I see a picture of the rambam on the wall here he was slightly after the rambam he passed away in the year 1273 I think of the Common Era the ramban asked the following question about The Parting of the Red Sea the Tor says you know the way the the sea split now you think you know you know I would think if if I were God ridiculous St right but if I were God and I want to depart the Red Sea I'd probably do something like this and let the sea split in a split second because why not why all of the dramatization but you know what the Torah says you know the way it was done Hashem brought a wind strong easterly wind that blew a whole night and it dried up the seabed and the Jews were able to go in and then out and we all know the story the Egyptians were drowned after them so the ramban asks why the theatrics why the the win why didn't he just do it with a zap of his F of his Divine fingers the answer is because Hashem allows us the opportunity to develop our faith doesn't Force us into it he sets things up for us so that if we really deep down inside want to continue denying the Hashem the god in our lives we're perfectly capable of doing that we we are capable of saying Miracle party the r SE was a tidal wave it was a tsunami or some other Far Eastern word to explain what happened wasn't a miracle it was a wind that blew a whole night if it were a miracle would have done like that ran says exactly that's what hasem wants he wants to allow us if necessary to make the mistake that so many people commonly make the mistake of denying the existence of Hashem and denying the intervention of Hashem into our lives doesn't Force us into anything and that's why we say oos throughout history to declare I am going to make an effort to achieve that amuna which prompted the Jews way back then to sing that song I'm going to try to reach that in my life today I go to the office I go to school I go to the factory I drive in the car wherever I may go there's so many things to drive me away from an acceptance and a realization of Hashem because hey Hashem doesn't Force us into this but if I say every morning and it's predicated comes after their saying that they achieved by thinking about it by pondering the reality of hasem they came to emuna and that prompted them to recognize Hashem oh o Yos that's when they sang that's when they expressed their connection to God which is what the singing is about the other kind of singing which also has that element we're going to experience shortly but that song particular that song expressed a connection to God they worked at it they developed theira and then they expressed their song of connection to God and that's whyos is something we say all the time and I'll conclude with one additional thought for those of you who DAV for those of you who DAV know the a little bit I know by the way and this is something I've always been envious that among Sardi Jews I know the bkim are not exactly the same thing as as let's say other but I know that the others they know the a lot better than Asim do because they say someone said the together and they say it out loud so it becomes more ingrained in memory so maybe this P will be something familiar to you you said it over Shabbat you said it maybe three times translated that means we are urged to speak in the morning about hashem's acts of kindness and at night we speak of hashem's of faith in Hashem what's the difference between morning and night well we all know morning the sun is shining sun is shining we see clearly what's going on those are the Miracles that we can see clearly but balot means at night when things are obscure they're not clear we're a little bit confused we are torn away from thinking the right things all the things that we have to do with our jobs our gadgets the iPod with the iPad with the the tablets I remember when a tablet is something that you used to take if you had a headache today it's apparently something technological we we are diverted our attentions are diverted from what we ought to be thinking about they're diverted by what we perhaps are not to be thinking about that creates a Lila our lives are spent in a Perpetual darkness of confusion of obscurity so who wrote those words said it's not a big deal in the morning when we see clearly hashem's to us to sing hashem's praises the brains come into the equation that's when we work towards our lives are in L and we have to work towards amuna amuna is the realization that there is someone who is orchestrating all of this and there is someone who's craving a connection with us in the same way that a parent a mother or a father craves a relationship with his or her child and that's what we need to do and that's a lesson that was learned today by those who thought about it perhaps and if not then maybe you learned about it tonight if you were listening so may Hashem help us all from now we're going to sit together in small groups we're going to do some learning our guys and your guys which are really all together our guys just wearing different clothes we're going to sit together in groups we're going to study a little bit of Torah and then we're going to have some music some dancing and then something to tickle the funny bone of your stomach a little bit later thank you for listening [Applause]