SIRENS, SAFE-ROOMS AND SERENITY with Rabbi Aryeh Grossnass

[Music] You my [Music] birthday. [Music] So, we find ourselves in the middle of a war. It's scary. There's sirens during the day. There's sirens during the night. And not only that, unfortunately, there's been many, many casualties. There's been people who have been killed. Unfortunately, there has been many, many, many people injured. In this country when they say injured it's a it's an injury. It can mean missing arm can mean a missing leg. It's it's very it's very sad and it's very serious the amount of buildings amount of apartments that have been blown to pieces. The people they were in the safe room. Hashem saved them. But the amount of apartments that have been destroyed is well into the thousands. I have a interesting question, not an interesting question. I think it's a very strong question. That is why aren't we panicking? Why are we sitting here looking all happy and calm? Why aren't we panicking? Why are we really, really scared? Anytime a siren goes, we have seen with all the defense that we have, they're landing. They're landing and they're blowing up and there's casualties. Why are we really scared? Is it Is it because like, you know, there's people people get scared, you know, the whole time they feel something in the heart. Maybe I'm having a heart attack. There's few people like that. There's few people like that. That's not so common. So maybe we're we're just why why don't people think about death the whole time? You know, everyone dies. Everyone dies. Why don't we think about death the whole time? Do you see? It's just like a it's a mechanism Hashem put that you should be healthy. You should live. You should want to live. And that pushes away all bad thoughts. The truth is when it comes push comes to shove and the sharing goes off many people do panic. It's it's normal. Um, lots of times you hear after a bomb, after a rocket lands, they'll say the amount of injuries and then there's a whole lot of injuries of people that fell along the way to get to the shelter. It's panic. People panic. It's very scary. Especially children. Children get, you know, they don't know anything. They hit the whole house starts shaking. What's going on? I want to talk a little bit about beten. Bakan is very difficult. It seems to be at least to put into practice and it is somewhat. But the more we discuss it, the more we talk about it especially here all the taxi drivers, every second word is but but I want I want to talk about it a bit better. About half a year ago, maybe a year ago, I was walking into my building and at the front at the beginning of lots of buildings, they have newspapers. I very rarely take the newspaper. There happened to be a very dramatic story which the IDF went into Gaza half a year a year ago and they saved some hostages. It's happened a few times. This is one of the times. I think it was one of the first times. So I was very curious and it was the front you know was the headlines. So I picked it up and over lunch I was reading it and at one stage my eyes my eyeballs literally fell out the sockets. I I I just couldn't believe what I was reading. I'm going to read it to you and you tell me what you think. After thinking about it for a while, it made me be able to relate to the topic of beten on a whole new level. I saved the newspaper. I put it in my drawer and I brought it out today to read it because anyone I've shown it to is like, "Wow." Okay. starts talking the beginning of the article is talking about the very very hard times that he went through. He starts off talking about how they captured him very be very very brutal. He says how they took him between the buildings and they took him 40 m underneath the ground. was pitch black and they kept on pushing him all the way along and finally they took him back up into the sunlight and they took him into a building two floors up. A few days later they took him to a different building two floors up and he talks about how he got into routine there and he got to know some of his captains, some of them were more cruel. Very interesting. He says one of the terrorists were very was very nice to him. He said they actually actually got to like him. They were friendly. In his words he says uh where was this? He said he thinks it was some type of kumo syndrome shock Stockholm syndrome which they say that if someone's under a certain capital person can like develop a nice relationship with his captor and they don't want to go even. So afterwards he said he found out that it was one of the big guys in Hamas. One of the big guys. Okay. I'm going to start this story when he start when he gets captured when he gets saved. The most dramatic moment that took place when I was in captive. It was very late in the heart of there was an extremely loud explosion in the deer that was staying. He said all of a sudden he he felt someone holding his foot. He heard for the first time in a very long time somebody talking to he said his name I'm going to leave out his name let's call him he said we've come to take you home these words changed everything. He said, "First I thought that the army blew up the entire building and I fell straight into the lower floor where all the were the soldier who was right next to him. He covered him. He protected him. So you're talking about there's bullets flying. There's explosions all around and he has this is protecting it. I felt that he would give up everything for me. This was a moment of complete and utter security. He said I felt totally secure. [Music] He says, "If this soldier would tell me to jump into a fire, I would do it without hesitation." If this soldier would tell me to jump in a fire, I would do it without hesitation. He said, "I was totally in his hands. I stopped eating. I was like, "What? What is going on over here? These the soldiers are very very well trained. They know everything. But to jump in a fire, to jump in a fire?" He's not exaggerating. This is This was a while later as far as I remember. What does he mean? I would have jumped into a fire. Sounds crazy. After thinking about it, I realized what's going on. Take this guy Mosha. He knows he's in Gaza. He knows he has no control. He's an older man. You see on the picture, he has no control and no way to get out of Gaza. Nothing. There's no way. He has terrorists all around him and around them further along all the houses, they're full of Hamas terrorists. There's no way he's getting out. There's a huge explosion and all of a sudden you have this kayal. He feels this is ready to give up his life for him. He's protected. He's protecting him. He's protecting Masha with his own body. This he feels totally cared for. There's one thing and one thing only this soldier cares about and that is his own life. And he feels that. Not only that, he now needs to get out. How's he going to get out? He knows anyone in special forces, they've run this drill many, many times. So if there's anyone who knows the best way to get out is this soldier. So who's he trusting 100%? The soldier. There's no one else to trust in. And he's right for trusting him. He says if he tell me to jump in a fire, I'd do it. Why? Because he knows he knows everything about where he is in Gaza. He knows everything about the terrorists. He's only got his own best best interest in mind. So he trusts him 100%. If he tell me to jump into a fire, I jump into a fire. This is what the speaks about. He goes through seven things, seven different points which he says if you if your friend had these points had these mileas he had these what's a good word to explain this qualities okay these qualities these abilities I guess really in this in this context you'd have complete and utter faith in him and he describes what faith is faith is if someone has faith he's calm he's really really calm. He doesn't have worries. The amount of money and the the amount of business anxiety generates is is really really really special. Right? If you look up the numbers, people who are taking anxiety medication is I don't know I think it's two out of three have taken anxiety medication right that's it's a very high high percentage that it's very high number says person is calm says you can only be calm if in this friend who you who you're placing your trust in has these seven abilities. Now, we went through this soldier. He knew everything about the area. He's very strong. He's very skilled. And he felt that he cared for him more than anything. He felt like he would give himself up. So, that's four qualities. The is not talking about a soldier. Soldiers are great. Soldiers are very well trained, but they're not got I want to go through these seven points. Seven different qualities which Hashem has. Hashem has these seven qualities. And when we think about it, calm down. You realize nothing is out of control. Nothing is out of control. The first one is that Hashem has mercy on us more than anyone has mercy on anyone else. He has extreme amount of mercy on us. If a person thinks about it, thinks Hashem who's created the entire world, there's nothing else he has more mercy than us. Okay. I'm not I'm not in someone who doesn't like me or maybe, you know, he's he's not going to be okay with me. He has Rahman on me. I mean, it's good books. That's his first thing. He says the second thing is he knows exactly what is good for me. He knows 100% what is good for me. Explain something very very interesting here. I don't know if you've ever bought say an Apple laptop. All right, they're very good. And you're using it, a year or two down the line, it breaks. Now, there's two options. Either you can go back to an Apple store or you can go down to Makuda Yafa and find a technician. If you get someone from Makuda, he'll put something in from China. He'll put something in even if it's not from China, if it's from a very good place, which is a a good make even, it's not Apple. If you're getting something from the manufacturer, they made it. They know what's good for their laptop, right? A manufacturer is the best person to fix the product. They're they know what's going on. They know what works best with it. Says the who made us. Hashem knows the best what's good for us. So we can rely on him. We can switch off. and can turn off. The third thing is Hashem is the strongest. It's very nice if someone likes us really much. Take this soldier. Imagine he turns up in Gaza and he says, "I've got you, Moshe. I've got you." He opens his eyes and he sees there's a soldier there in a wheelchair. He might like me very much. He might be willing to give up his life. If he's not strong, forget about it. If he's not a qualified soldier, doesn't make a difference if he's got me and he knows what's good for me. Hashem is the strongest. There's no there's no one bigger. He's God. The fourth thing is he knows exactly what's going on the entire time. Nothing is hidden. This soldier who's in Gaza and he's come to save Mosha, he's extremely aware of what's going on. But he can't really really know what's going on. He's not God in the slightest. He doesn't know. Maybe there's somebody hiding in in in the cupboard. Maybe when he's going out there's going to be another hole, another manhole that all of a sudden the hundred more terrorists are going to running come running out from a new tunnel they've just tunnneled last night. However, however much humans can work, there's a limit. There's always a limit. Hashem has complete complete awareness of everything that is going on in planet earth and every other planet. So again that gives you an extra sense of security. There's nothing he hasn't missed anything. You know sometimes you you're planning on doing something you you want to go shopping for a certain thing. You know recently I had to go buy a Tris string. So we went and bought a you know string for the Tris. We came home we didn't realize that it has to be exactly the right millimeter. If you get 1 millm too big, it doesn't go through. The whole thing gets jammed. You forget one thing, all up, you're over. Hashem, he knows everything. You're not missing any details. There's no details to miss. The fifth one is a very, very important one. The fifth one is very nice, Hashem. He loves me. He's merciful. He's going to do everything for me. He's the strongest. Very nice. What about somebody else? What about my friend? What happens if he wants to hurt me? Says, "Nobody can hurt another person without Hashem agreeing, without Hashem wanting it, without Hashem saying it's for his good. These things can take all the off, takes all the anxiety off. Nothing. No one's going to be able to to to bother you. No one's going to be able to take your money away. No one's going to be able to take your yeshiva away. No one's going to It's not going to happen. If it happens, it's because Hashem decided talks about not bearing a grudge on your friend. And he says, "How's it possible not to bear a grudge on your friend?" There's there's been all sorts of terrible terrible stories of friends doing something which you want to dream on against another friend. You think how's that person going to forgive him? How's he going to forgive him? I know a story personally somebody an English fellow he bought a apartment in Israel big apartment and his I can't even say it it's so embarrassing that it happened but I don't know we have to be done cuz his brother-in-law was tasked to be take care of the apartment his brother-in-law lived next door it was a true story I know for years. For years he was taking care of the apartment. This guy was a wealthy man. He had quite a few apartments. One day he went to visit his apartment in Israel. He wanted to have a look. So he knocks on the door and he says, "Hi, I'm the Balira. I own the DR. I'd like to have a look." And he walks around and it's four bedroomedroom apartment. He's going through the bedrooms and he notices that there's only three bedrooms. Three bedrooms. He's he's a bit mixed up. He says to the guy who was living there. He says like, "How many bedrooms do you have?" He said, "Three bedrooms?" He says, "Are you sure?" He says, "Yeah." When it was a advertiser, three bedroom, he went and knocked on his brother-in-law's door. Says, "Hi, I'm here." He says, "Tell me, how many bedrooms are the next door?" She said, "Three." So, what do you mean? The guy, his brother-in-law, had knocked into his brother-in-law's apartment and taken a room. Taken a room without permission. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? And this guy, he knew he can get away with it cuz I know the person, he's a timid, sweet fellow. He can't harm a fly until today. The guy has a three-bedroom apartment instead of a fourbedroom apartment because his brother-in-law has taken his if that would happen to me. Okay, first of all, I don't want to say what I would have done to my brother-in-law. I don't have brothersin-law who would dare do such thing. I'm not sure if it's because I'm not so sweet or it's because they're sweet. How does one forgive somebody for doing such a such a thing? It's like disgusting. What? He admitted he hasn't been admitted. Yeah, he didn't say anything. Didn't he knew who knew he doesn't have the guts to stand up to him? Okay, whatever. It's a crazy story. It could be a case that in Israel not in Israel flat apartments number of rooms, not the number of bedrooms that they UK or in I think in the States as well that right maybe uh that's how he did it. I hear that. Anyway, maybe says the do you know why you should forgive a friend whatever he does to you? Cuz it's not him causing you the pain. It's Hashem. No one can cause you pain unless you deserve it. If Hashem decides that you deserve it, you'll get it. Who asked him to do it? He might be an idiot for doing so. He might be a horrible person even for doing it. That's not a reason to bear a grudge against him. If somebody in China does does such a thing to his friends, he takes one room off his apartment, would you hate him? You wouldn't hate him. You might think he's a horrible person. You wouldn't hate him. You only hate him because he did it to you on that. The says he didn't do it to you. Hashem did it to you. This one is one of the most important, probably one of the most difficult, but the more you work on it, the more you think about it, the more can change your life. The sixth one is that Hashem, Hashem knows what's good for you and he will do what's good for you even if you're not befitting for it. This is a big one. I'll give you an example. Let's say you go on a walk with your friends. You go through a forest. It's very scary. Yeah. Forests. Uh let's let's take a forest on Russia. You know, we go there. They have bears, they have wolves. So you say, "Yo, I I got your back. You got my back." He says, "Yeah, sure." They split up a bit. And what happens if you know he's a very sticky type of guy, you know, if you don't have my back, you know, if you fall asleep, you can't really rely on him. If he's going to be one of those, you know, sticking to the rules type of guy. If I get a shout out and he's going to be like, "What do you mean I'm sleeping now?" You can't rely on him. If we think, "Oh, I've done an a or maybe I haven't been as good as I should be today. Hashem's not going to take care of me." We can't be relaxed in Hashem's toughen. We can't be relaxed. Hashem's taking care of us. Says the Hashem's got our back. He's out there for our good and he will do more than we deserve. If we don't know he he's going to do more than we deserve. And we're always going to be scared. Maybe I haven't maybe I haven't been good enough today. Maybe I'm not worthy. He says Hashem's going to do the extra mile. That's the sixth one. The seventh one is that if Hashem decides something's going to happen, it won't happen a second before. It won't happen a second later. It won't be bigger than it was meant to be. It won't be smaller than it was going to be. It's going to be exactly as he decided. As they say, every missile has an address. Every bullet has an address. Panic is when something is out of control. People feel panicked when something is out of control. Classic case of panic. I was once with a friend of mine um and slowly he's like there's something itchy. There's something itchy. It's like what do you mean? And in this area where we were staying, there were a lot of jukim, right? For those on the camera, jukim are very big, ugly spiders, which you get only in Israel pretty much. They don't do anything, but they're massive and they look horrible. And all of a sudden, we see crawling out of his shirt was a very big joke. That was panic. That was panic. The guy ripped off his shirt and it took about 10 seconds until the juke actually got off him. That was panic because he was totally there was no controller. He's out of control. He's got a jerk in him. That's panic. Panic is when should we say all hell breaks loose. That's panic. Anything can happen. Oh no. A war feels like that. War feels like it's it's just it's just out of control. which says when Mashiach comes, Hashem's going to confront the nations and say, you know, you didn't help the Eden. You know, you were wrong. And each one's going to come forth and they're going to say, what do you mean? We created roads. We created shopping malls. We did this for the Eden. We did that for the Eden. And Hashem slowly is going to go through them and say, "No, no, no, no, no. You know why you did this? You did it for your entertainment. You did it for yourself. You didn't do it for the Jews at all." each one he knocks them off and there's one nation that's going to come along and he says you know we made wars and we made wars for the Jews good for the Eden's good it's actually interestingly enough Iran porus porus comes forward and says muhamas we made for the Jews and Hashem he doesn't say that you did it for your own good that's not what he says he says wars wars I do wars I do a war seems Seems man seems chaotic. There this tim flying anywhere could land anywhere. He sees the most out of control position a person could be in. Hashem says a muham I'm doing. That's my thing. You you don't tell me you're doing a m for a certain thing. I do. You don't do mas. So why don't we all panic? Why don't we all freak out? The answer is if you're believing Jew and you think about it's because there's nothing to panic about. Hashem loves us. He's in control. He knows everything that's going on. He is the strongest. Anything he decides will happen then and not before and not after. It's okay. Malikman gives a marshall. It's not a martial. It's a story. In Siberia, the Russians would send all types of people, Jews, non-Jews, everyone, lots of Jews, because they were against religion, of course. And they sent it to Siberia, and they they'd get bored there. They work a lot. My grandfather was in Siberia told me about it. They'd work a lot, but it wasn't really like a concentration camp so much. Sometimes they they have free time here and there. My grandfather once told me, he was 5 years in Siberia and he said he was cutting a tree and his saw was blunt. So he said to the guard, "Excuse me, my my soul's blunt. I can't cut the tree." He said, "We don't want you to cut trees. We want you to die. It was a a very rough place to be, let's just say. But there was there was this person in Siberia and they were it seems to be they had some spare time on their hands and this guy said, "Do you know what I used to be before I ended up here?" So they said, "What did you be?" He said, "I was a tightroppe walker." Tightroppe walker. Really? He said, "Yeah." Said, "Come on, show us." They must have gotten the gods involved because the story goes that he made a rope from one mountain to another mountain and he climbs up and everyone's waiting underneath with baited breath. Will he do it? Is he really a good tightroppe walker? And he gets he gets up and he walks across. No problem. Everyone's like, "Wow, this guy's good." And then he walks back. They're very impressed. And then he says, "Give me a wheelbarrow. Give him a wheelbarrow." And he says, "Who's willing to go in the wheelbarrow?" And nobody owns up a wheelbarrow hundreds of meters up. You're talking about sky, you know, huge mountains in Siberia there. He says, "Come on. Who's going to come? You saw I did it." A guy says, "Me, I'll do it." A young guy says, "I'll do it." Look at he's mad. This guy's crazy just for a stunt. He might fall off. He's walking across. And they they can hear them, you know, here and there. They were talking to each other. And they overhear that he says, "Daddy." He's referring to him as daddy. Then they realize it's a son. A person trusts his father. He knows his father's got his best interest in mind. He knows his father loves him. He knows his father won't put him through anything that he won't be able to get him out of. If we feel the love and the care that Hashem has for us, the same way this person felt the he was protecting him and he felt like if he says I'll jump into the fire, he said I'll jump into the fire. I trust him. We can think like that about Hashem. Panic goes away. There's nothing out of control about a missile flying through the air. There is nothing out of control. The says if somebody has beten when he comes to a massive of sak he comes to a dangerous situation. If you have beten nothing has changed because you weren't in more of a sak than you were now than you were before cuz hashem if you wanted to do something a second ago you could have done it. You could have done it now. Nothing has changed. Everything's calm. Everything's calm. changes the whole perspective. In my area where I live, my couple of buildings, there are no bomb shelters. I don't, you know, a little bit nervous. My wife especially means no bomb shelters. Maybe we should move out when the rockets land. My entire building shakes. Okay, not land. When they get blown up, like my entire building shakes. So we asked our rabbi, we said, "What should we do? Should we move dearest until this war is over?" They said to us something so simple. He says means you trust Hashem is going to do what's right for you. He's going to take care of you. Has a rule. It's called means you do your bit. In every situation, a person has to do his bit. It's another whole sh by itself. How much isadas to do I'm not going to get into that says the rabbi he says you're in a dra without mad your ishadus is the sacral of work out where the safest place in the deer is you go there say you don't need to go running 5 minutes down the road to to to a bomb shelter cuz that's not that's above and beyond or something outrageous means to do the normal amount So that's just an example of how paken could play out into this war which we don't know when it's going to end should end very soon and nobody else should get injured. But if we manage to internalize these lessons we'd be a lot calmer and amitem we should all see Msiah very soon. Amen. Amen. My birthday [Music] tomorrow