The 13 Principles of Jewish Faith - Principle #2: Close your Eyes - Rabbi Akiva Fox

okay so we're going to start now with the second auntie momma with the second one of the thirteen of principles of faith which is the belief on imam and ben wash lame i believe with complete faith shahab a race function by that the Creator blessed is he who yoga'd he is one he is singular he is the essence the one vania she discommode and there is no one pneus like him Bishop on him at all hula ba de la que no and he alone is our God hiya hiya the year he was he is and he will be so what does it mean that God is one what does it mean that God is the essence of oneness he is oneness before we begin we need to do a little bit of a Peter Pan everybody believed in fairies hospital again we're not like that but we know we need to do something we need to have a little bit of an experiment everybody close your eyes excuse me you in the back of the screen on the computer over there I see you're not closing your eyes okay that's better everyone close your eyes for a second what do you see nothing very good okay we in Jewish belief there's a time when we close our eyes when we say the famous puss it called Shema the Shema in the morning we say it once and at night time we say it before we go to bed most mothers when they put their children to sleep before singing the lullaby they say shema with their children we cover our eyes and we say shema yisroel hear o Israel Hashem la que no ha Shem is our God hashem echad hashem is one this is one of the most powerful fundamentals of our faith unfortunately throughout the tragedies that have happened to us in history whether it was in the Inquisition whether it was through the Crusades or the Holocaust or all the other other terrible massacres that have happened to the Jewish people the last thing on the lips of the martyrs of the millions of martyrs in history was always hashemi lo que no hashem echad hashem is one and yet we close our eyes we cover our eyes there are different reasons that are brought down to explain this interesting phenomenon why do we close our eyes why do we cover our eyes there are different explanations but we're going to focus on one or two today the reason that it's brought down why we close our eyes when we say I'm is one is because we cannot understand it because the oneness of Hashem is something that we cannot see with our naked human limited restricted vision we can't so we close our eyes to show Hashem a HUD but this is something that I cannot relate to this is something that I cannot see with my eyes something that's beyond me now I know that we're all brilliant geniuses prodigies we all got a minuses on our blood tests great but still mankind is limited in his intelligence even the most brilliant Albert Einstein even Stephen Hawking's however great and brilliant they may be are not able to compassion if they're not able to conceptualize something it's infinite because although they may be brilliant they're fine night finite cannot have does not have the ability to internalize or to conceptualize something that's way beyond it this is something we've discussed before a muscle if you walk into Google with a disk on key or a flash drive it's got two gigabytes even if it's got four even if it's got ten and you ask Google to download everything that they have on to your little flash drive they're gonna laugh you in the face it's impossible I'm sorry we can't do that all right I'll give you 20 gigabytes it's still not enough because one flash drive does not have the ability to internalize it to bring down everything that's included in Google so lahav though dulles when it comes to mankind this limited little flash drive like me and you were nothing we cannot capacity we don't have the ability to understand the comprehend what really is a so therefore when we say our Shem echoed we cover our eyes we close our eyes to show a shame we can't we cannot see you we cannot understand you we cannot fathom we cannot comprehend your greatness your oneness now we've given a muscle we we explained before that in a certain sense Hashem is like blowing air into the creation Hashem is like you know finger puppets or like the bat signal again these are these are ways that we can internalize more but they cannot give us an inkling as to what really exists because once again God is infinite we are finite so therefore we have to begin this section understanding how limited we are and how great God is and therefore we are very very much restricted into what we can understand this is where belief emunah comes in we can understand to a certain point but beyond that we know we believe that's where emunah comes in another reason just an interesting side point why we close our eyes when we say shema is because i once saw a bumper sticker that said let go and let God because at a certain point when it comes to faith and belief in a Shem sometimes you have to close your eyes and just let things go God will take care of you sometimes when our eyes are open we think that we understand how a Shem could work it out when I was a kid I liked a certain figure called hey man I don't think it's around anymore it was he-man or GI Joe or one of those figures so I collected them now I collected them didn't mean that I had a big collection and meant that I had to there was one called he-man and one called sting course think or was a skunk that was half-human and the way they created this little plastic figure was with a terrible smell that came out of it kind of like a skunk and I remember that after my parents my uncle's bought it from me they asked if I would keep it outside the house anyway so I collected these figures and I remember from my birthday I assumed that since all my friends knew that I liked he-man figures I was going to be the greatest collector with the greatest collection of he-man figures in the universe because I counted all my friends there was like 20 of them and I knew or I assume they were all gonna get me he-man figures and man I was going to have this massive collection so comes the day of my birthday I'm all excited everyone comes with their wrap presents couldn't wait till they get home so I could open them up and I open them all up and there was not one he-man figure and I still don't forgive them and now I don't have any friends anymore but that's not the point the point is that sometimes we have preconceived in our ends in our heads a certain notion of how a sham is going to send us the salvation we need or we assume that ok if this and this is going to happen that's how shall I need Hashem I need a thousand dollars so i go stand outside the bank and i'm waiting for it to fly into my face because I think that the salvation is going to come from there that's what we need to stop close your eyes we have no idea how God is going to send the salvation let go and let God do it don't try to say it's going to come from what the little stuff that I did to make it happen listen I bought a lottery ticket so it's gonna be the million dollars is going to come my way you can do lottery ticket as a hair stylist as trying to accomplish but Hashem sends the salvation from left field that's when you have to close your eyes and say Hashem I'm letting you do it this is something that's very important when it comes to em you know when it comes to belief and be talkin sometimes there's a Gomorrah that says Yeshua sash em the salvation of my sheriff I incomes like the bling in the blink of an eye so there are some sperm that explained it doesn't mean in the blink of an eye it means like the blink of an eye the salvation will come when you blink when you close your eyes the second you stop looking that's when it's gonna come what that means is don't assume don't try to arrange an easy way for Hashem to get you what you need Hashem can take care of it I shams got the world he's got your back he's gonna do everything you need to let go and you need to let god so we close our eyes when we say I scheme' hug we cover our eyes when we say I met hod to bring out this point that Hashem Hashem I close my eyes I don't have any visions I don't have any images of what this is supposed to look like I just know that it's gonna come from you a sham a clod I believe you're the one you're the only one and therefore I close my eyes and confidently peacefully I give you my soul Bianca in your hands I them Afghan Ruthie I deposit myself and I /em here I'm at your door whatever you do it's great you're the one I let go of myself and on my own once and the way I think it's gonna happen and I let god so we close our eyes before we say I Shem Akkad because we want to develop this concept and then internal eyes it Hashem you're the one you do everything you accomplish everything I mean nothing I completely rely on you you