STOP TRYING SO HARD TO BE NORMAL- ITS KILLING YOUR GREATNESS- Ki Savo - The Parshah On Fire

[Music] the United States Navy Seals considered by many to be the most elite group of soldiers on Earth has a quote that they brand on the bottom of all their maps in their stationer it's a quote that entirely encapsulates who they are the quote is the only thing NE AR for the Triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing I believe the following quote is equally true the only thing necessary for the Triumph of mediocrity is Humanity's obsession with normaly you see the difference between a soldier who remains in the Bottom Rung and one who becomes a Navy SEAL is often not the physical strength or size of that particular Soldier but the ability for the soldier to dream and remain determined to rise in the ranks he doesn't allow setbacks or challenges or failures to dull the fire of his dreams burning inside of him what separates people who achieve greatness in their lives and those that don't is typically the strength of their desire to achieve more often than not success is not achieved by those blessed with unusual talents or abilities but by Regular People who really really really wanted and refus to let the status quo and complacency of the rest of the world prevent them from getting it the same is very much true with spiritual greatness this week's para contains the blessings and the curses given to the Jewish people on the mountains of griim and AO half of the Jewish people ascended har grim and the other half has sended har AAL and one group hears the curses that would be meded out for the wayward Behavior our nation might one day exude while the other heard the blessings that befall us if we act in accordance with hashem's will now there's something geographically odd about these two mountains the two mountains Haram and AR evil were mere feet away from each other and yet H grea in the mountain of blessing was Lush and beautiful filled with flowers and ve vegetation while har AO the mountain of curses was Barren a desert Des it how did that come to me these two mountains which you could still visit today are less than 200 ft from one another they share the exact same ecosystem they receive the exact same amount of rain they have the exact same amount of sunlight they are exposed to the exact same air quality why is one Lush and vibrant while the other is hard and dead so rompal H explains that the only difference between these two mountains is that one was resistant and one was receptive har gim had small little holes in it allowing the nutrients and the rain and the sunlight to penetrate while har AAL was closed off and impenetrable so although both mountains were exposed to the same amount the same climate only harm allowed that climate to seep inside of it so rers goes on to say that it was not for not that Hashem chose to issue the blessings and curses of those mountains specifically for by doing so he was telling us the recipe for Spiritual greatness which is forever opening ourselves up to be the spiritual to to collect the spiritual Bounty that permeates all around us all of us had dreams Once Upon a Time of being spiritually great whether it was in third grade when we learned the story for the first time of Ru or when we heard the story of Y or what was we went off to Yeshiva and we were hugely inspired in seminary perhaps it was a speech we heard on Tish or when we experienced our first real Russia all of us had those flashing moments in our souls when we told ourselves we will be great so what happened what went wrong why are most of us regular the answer is that most of us don't allow the spiritual nutrients that are whizzing all around us to penetrate into our very essence when we stop aspiring for greatness and become more interested in fitting in we tell ourselves that normaly is better than standing out even if normaly comes at the expense of greatness we become so Shackled In to the status quo that all our dreams and our hopes and our as aspirations get replaced with an obsession to just fit in to let the level of spirituality in our homes be dictated by The Neighborhood around us that's what we do in the very moment one of our spiritual dream goes up against what the current definition of normal is we run right back to our safe little Haven of normaly in no era could this motto be truer than ours the only thing necessary for the Triumph of mediocrity is Humanity's obsession with normaly so by giving the Bros and harm a mountain that opened itself up to the nutrients around us Hashem was telling us that the key to spiritual greatness is to allow the inspiration we all have access to All Around penet penetrating all of us to allow it to penetrate our souls to let those spiritual nutrients Blossom inside of us to allow the spiritual ingredients floating in the air to help bring our dreams and aspirations to fruition elevating us to the to Greater spiritual Heights far higher than the peanut gallery below us one day 3,000 years ago nvi a prophet got up and gathered the Jewish people into the Town Square and he made an announcement and he said he declared he said the next leader of the entire Jewish people will be named shmuel and he has yet to be born but his birth is imminent so this unsurprisingly led to a great excitement a whole Buzz erupted who would be the one to give birth to the next leader of the Jewish people so with dreams of being parents of the future leader everyone ran home and started naming their children schmuel in the hopes that he would one day become the one the leader of the Jewish people so 40 years went by and not one of the boys named schel was appointed leader not until KH came along who after years of being Barren she finally gave birth to a son and named him Schmo and he was the one who eventually became the leader of the Jewish people we all know the story but the part of the story that lots of people don't know is what happened to all those other kids named Schmo all the hundreds of children whose parents with hopes and dreams named them schm what happened to them so the says that despite not becoming the leader of the Jewish people each and every one of those children nevertheless became a Novi for each and every one of them grew up with a vivid dream a dream that they might One Day lead the Jewish people a dream that they could be the most important man in the spiritual Universe a dream that they could reach the loftiest spiritual Heights and that dream dream carried them on its wings and allowed them to soar to the level of Prophecy a level of spirituality attained only by the most elite members of our nation if we clutch close to our dreams and never let go greatness can be achieved but if we let ourselves do what most people do because that's what most people do our dreams of greatness slowly Drift Away here's another example the difference between a major league baseball player who is making $33 million a year and has his name plastered on every newspaper in America and a minor league baseball player who makes $43,000 a year and has no one no one's ever heard of him is that the major league baseball player has a batting average of 280 while the minor leager has a batting average of 230 meaning that when the major leager steps up to the bled he hits the ball 2.8 times out of 10 the minor leager only hits the ball 2.3 times out of not a very big difference yet one is a famous millionaire and the other is a regular dude who shops at the same Walmart as you do what led to the DraStic difference both dreamed about becoming a baseball Superstar both aspired for baseball greatness the answer is that the major Liga refused to let his dreams go he woke up a little earlier he stayed in the gym a little later he ate a little healthier he focused a little more he was in the bad in cages when the rest of his friends were eating ice cream he studied films of his swing while his friends called him a fanatic he read books and listened to tapes and left no stone unturned in his quest for baseball knowledge despite being called Crazy by his peers he refused to let the temptation to be regular hold him back from achieving greatness and sure enough greatness he achieved we should all be the same we should aspire to live life with no Lush and harura and never let go of that dream to dream of a house buzzing with and see to it that it happens to dream of really being sne and doing so despite the sneers and the social pressures to dream of finishing shots and to never stop dreaming to take the dreams we all had when we were young and close our eyes and accomplish them there's a strange [Music] in it that when everyone is about to say you got to First remove all the knives from the table only after knives are removed can one start benching so what exactly is wrong with having knives on our table while we bench why do the spoons and the forks get to stay but the knives got to go so the Tas rid seagull a Polish Rabbi who lived from the years for 1586 to 1667 he provides a very interesting reason for this strange he writes that there was once a man who dreamed and thought of the B mikdash to such an unbelievable extent that one day while he was benching when he reached the part about Hashem rebuilding the bikash he got so distraught about its current state of Destruction that he took a knife from the table and he stabbed himself and thus the custom to remove the knives from our table while we bench in order to prevent that from happening again so let's ask an obvious question this person was certainly a very very holy man but such an individual is an extreme outlier do halakic authorities really think that there's a practical need for this Hala this guy was one in a million why Institute this Hala for the entire Jewish people so I heard a beautiful explanation from Ravid revak the r of Adas Tor in Los Angeles California he said that of course the Ramis were well aware of the unlikelihood that someone's actually going to grab a knife and stab themselves while benching the the rabbis never instituted it for that reason they instituted the requirement to remove the knives as a reminder to us that there once upon a time was a man who dreamed so much about the babash that when he read about its destruction he was so distraught and he was so angry and he was so depressed that he stabbed himself to death we are instilling in ourselves that there was a time when men dreamed about the Mikus to such an extent that its absence caused so much pain and anguish they couldn't refrain from stabbing themselves not that we're on that level but that we should at the very least know that that level exists and we should aspire to reach it we cover our knives as a small reminder to keep on dreaming to never let greatness get in the get away from us to never let the conveniences of normaly and mediocrity take precedence over the glory of greatness every few years the world becomes transfixed by the World Cup an event that takes basically over the world it takes the global stage by storm every country in the world trots out their best soccer team in the hopes of climing to the top of the soccer World and claiming that trophy Russia to China Argentina United States France Australia the whole world shows up but what fascinates me the most about the entire event are the smaller countries that managed to succeed countries like Costa Rica and Sagal and the Netherlands and Morocco and Croatia and Panama tiny little countries that often take down countries 500 times their size and when you think about it it almost makes no sense America with a pool of 400 million people from which the choose its soccer team loses to the Netherlands a country that has 17 million people countries with every technolog te olical advancement and with access to every form of medical and training equipment are losing to senagal a third world country in Africa that doesn't have running water how do you explain this phenomenon the answer is that America might like soccer these countries live soccer these countries breathe soccer these countries go to sleep thinking about soccer and wake up thinking about soccer every thought that crosses their mind is soccer every dream they dream is soccer and not only that but they are children and grandchildren and great grandchildren of people who are obsessed with soccer soccer runs through their blood it is infused into their very DNA and therefore despite being 1% of the size despite having no medical technology despite living in a third world dilapitated country they often come out Victorious because for them soccer is everything we are a nation obsessed with spiritual greatness we are a nation obsessed with godliness we think and speak and dream about Hashem godliness runs through our veins it is part of our DNA our dreams won't be dashed by the people who say we can't our dreams won't be dashed by the people who say we are wrong our dreams won't be dashed by the people who call us archaic and outdated the Jewish people clutch close to their dreams stronger and with more passion than any other dream dreamers out there that's why we are still here dreaming while the nations of the world have taken their dreams and vanished long ago we dream about spiritual greatness and no one will ever convince us not to the difference between the people who achieve greatness and ones that don't have L has little to do with their talents and their upbringing and exposure and their environment many great people are brilliant and many more great people aren't many great people could sit in Focus for hours and many other great people can't many great people are born leaders and thinkers and aors and many aren't the common denominator among all great people is that no matter what and no matter when they never stop dreaming they take their hopes and their dreams and their aspirations and they never let go as long as they live we are a nation of dreamers we are a nation that got its blessings on our gesm the m Mountain forever open to the nutrients around it lucky are those people who never let go of their dreams lucky are those people who don't let mediocrity normaly and the pressure to be regular rip those dreams of greatness from them lucky are the people who despite being in a class of 36 and a grade of 400 and a school of 5,000 dream for even more and even higher we are a nation of dreamers lucky are those who know how to keep on dreaming [Music]