Tevet: Davening as if One is Under Siege by Mrs. Zemira Ozarowski

um my name is Mio zarowski the director of um the women's division at U isra and UMES to I'll start by apologizing for my voice I'm actually not feeling very well um and uh my husband's been giving over this little vort about the para um and he says I mean now it's the series of Paras he says that how did ysf get into the situation where he was actually able to be saved and brought to parro and become the second in command how did it all start because he was sitting in jail and what did he do before he interpreted the dream how did he get to the point of interpreting the dream he noticed something he noticed what he noticed that the that the Baker and the butler were not looking very good now think about it all of these guys are sitting in jail how do you think any of them are feeling awful right they all they probably all don't look very happy and yet he noticed that there was something different about those two men that there was something that they felt even worse than everybody else ysf himself wasn't feeling very good and yet he went over to them and said what's wrong what's going on and that's how the whole trajectory began so he's been saying this through our Torah the past few weeks in different different ways and I haven't have not been feeling feeling very well and every time I feel like it's like um a muser of like okay you're not feeling well but you should try to like still be nice to other people so I'm going to try but if I don't then you'll know why um um okay so um every month we get together and we talk about the themes of the upcoming month and some for some months it's very obvious what we're going to talk about you know there's khah pesak you know some some months are full ofid and there's a lot to talk about and some are a little bit more vague and not clear what to talk what to talk about but for the last bunch of years for Tate we've been talking about tilila what's the connection between Tate and tilila now if you've been listening well for the past bunch of years you've heard my introduction but um I I think the first thing is that the first time that we did it I probably myself was feeling like it was time to talk about Spa because at the beginning of the year when you're in El and Tish you're working on youra right and you're really getting it all in there and you're getting very good at daving and then things start to slide a few months later it's time for Tav and it's like okay now is the time for a dosage of let's work on oura it's also when you think about t you think about the which is also a but the other connection that I've been bringing forward is um there's a very famous m between the RAM and the ran about um whether or what what is the obligation of okay and the ram says inz he says there's a Mitzvah he's counting the Mitzvah gets tovah number five and he says there's aah commanded us to serve him and he said yes the word the Mitzvah can be interpreted in many different ways there's a lot of of serving hem but he says even so okay he said it's a it includes a lot of things but he says found within this obligation to is right we know serving is through so according to the ra there's a Mitzvah from the Torah from the words to what to DAV every single day we have a mitah how much what what are the details no but is there a mitvah once a day according to the r yes the ran comes along the ran on the his notes on the argues with him and he says wait a minute very nice that you found a little cute place to hang it on in the Torah but that doesn't make it there's an idea that you should serve Hashem and maybe one way to do that is to is to pray but there's no mitvah to does he think there's a mitvah every day to DAV yes but okay according to the rabbis came and they said it's a good idea we should really dve in every day we have to dve in every day but according to the raan there's no obligation to Davin okay we'll get to why I'm saying this in a second okay now he says though there's there's a certain circumstance where there is aah a very specific circumstance of what is that circumstance okay when there is a time period where there is a very challenging troubling time there's a time of of War so in that case even according to the Torah you would have to DAV and there it says when you have a war that you have this enemy who is oppressing you sieging you um making things tight around you then you should blow your show far and you should remember Hashem and he said that is the source the biblical source to DAV but only in okay so again to review the r says there's aah every day we get that from the raan says no there's no mitz DAV every day yes but according to the Torah no but the only time you have to DAV according to the Torah is when you're in an in a time of trouble comes and he says what is the source of this why what are they AR arguing about here he says that in fact they actually agree he says the ram actually agrees with ran he also knows that is not a real Source in the Torah it's an it's a cute little hint in the Torah but it's actually not the source for having to David he also agrees the only the only Torah obligation to DAV is when in an however what does he say he says that every every single day we're actually in an and therefore we have to D in every day says no only during a war the r says no every day we're in every day according to the Torah we have to D and says the reflections of the rra he says my Mani is regarded daily life itself as being existentially in Straits Sarah inducing in the sensitive person feelings of Despair a brooding sense of life meaning meaninglessness absurdity lack of fulfillment it is persistent sah which exists daily okay the rambam understands that in order to have a very real and meaningful what do we have to do we have to first stop and realize that we are in Dire Straits all the time right there's only one person we can only one being we can turn to and that is Hashem and when we realize that then our doing is on a different level so how is that connected to T what do we know about Asar T what happened in Asar T what Yim is under siege Right comes he puts a Siege around Jim and for three years the people of Jim are surrounded on all sides no food could come in no water could come in they can't go out they're surrounded by enemies they're in eight SAR quite literally right they are in a mats they are in a Siege okay um now what should they have done during those three years DAV right they were given a very clear warning something bad is going to happen you are in an eight Sara now according to all opinions you are you need to this is this is what you need to do right now it's a great opportunity for them do they do it I'm sure they must have D A little I don't know but obviously it wasn't successful okay because 3 years later they have the mikdash and how could that be right how could it be that they know they're under siege their enemies are surrounding them and they're not doing properly how does that happen what did you say good very good right now we don't have to imagine that we're in Anar because we're in ansara we've been in ansar for a year and however many months right and yet I don't know I'll talk only talk about myself do I DAV in every day like I'm in an no right do I call out to Hashem like there's nowhere else that I can call out to I need to I need Hashem with all my being and I'm going to call out to him like I'm in anat that I'm in a mats I'm in dire streets I'm in this this um Siege no I don't and how is that possible cuz we're human right because sometimes there's a blockage and even though we know that we're in a very difficult situation we're not able to dove in properly and sometimes we might feel is it even worth anything right but if we spent 20 minutes a day during we're doing anyway right if we could D in during those 20 minutes understanding the situation that we're in then art filo would be in a different place and we won't be psychotic because we'd have those 20 minutes and we'd be giving it to a higher being right so um but we don't always do it and sometimes I think we sometimes feel like is there a point this has been going on for so long how are we going to solve anything with Arts Fila what's the point I good what you said is that sometimes also we have a little bit of an illusion we live in most of the time things feel pretty calm so even though we know things are not common we know other parts of the country are suffering we ourselves don't always feel it all the time so we don't we're not able to always tap into that um either way we see that there is a a concept of even when we're not in a war and we're not in a time of troubles we should be trying to make ourselves feel that way in order to St them properly and especially during these times we need to try to take a step back and to think about that before we D in and that's why we're going to we're going to spend this morning speaking to different not speaking hearing from different speakers who are going to talk about different aspects of tilila which if we could tap into a little bit of it maybe we can work a little bit on our tilila and I just wanted to also say that in um two days now it's the sixth day of kanuka and two days is V kanuka what's v kanuka so every day there's a Torah reading we read about the the the presence of the Nim and at the end the last Aliyah that we read on the eth day is starts off vuka and it lists all of the sum total of all the offerings that all theim brought during the time period so it say and it's kind of like this is going to sum up obviously there it's actually in numbers but this is summing up what all of our khah is about and according to what happens on the last day of kanuka what' he say right our our uh our this our last last chance for judgment we thought it already happened there was rashash there was yipper there was there was so many different dates right we thought it ended already but no actually the last day of Kaneka is the final final Final ceiling of our judgment and so again when we say V this this is the summing up of everything that we've done on Kana and everything that we've done over the whole year this is the conclusion of our judgment and so once again we're being given this hard stop we have a deadline we're going to be It's the final end of our judgment we're up against the hard stop it's an eight mats it's an let's D in right and so the goal of the seminar is really to take those two aspects number one understanding what it means to be in in a Siege mats um when we dve in and number two understanding that we're in that situation not only in a national level because we're in a war but also because we're getting to the end of our last day of our judgment um and to take advantage of this time and to really just focus for a morning on oura to really just think how can we improve oura unfortunately we're not able to have the Hala with us today technical issues with the Sho and they didn't want to have both in the same day you guys can come back tomorrow for Hal today I was lucky enough does a Hal um on different he on different um and it's a beautiful if you ever able to do it he does it always in different places a lot of times by the old city but in other places also and he decided that for kanah is's going to do it by the arot which is right next to MIT where I live decided to do it today and I said that's so annoying I'm going to miss it but the problem is also you have to like drive through the mountains up whatever I was like I can't do that I have to leave like it's not going to happen and then I woke up this morning to a message that said it's raining we're doing it at the Yesa I still had two minutes to come I like I couldn't I didn't I didn't realize in time so I stopped in for 2 minutes but those two minutes of a whole SE War people really doing for real is enough to impact I a months or doings right so we just sometimes you just need to be able to tap into something to just bring yourself through um for for your doing for the rest of the day for the week the month and so hopefully I hope that today's um all the different sh will will help you find something to connect to in each person's talk to take with you so that at least for the next