The Mystical Letter Bet - Part 7: The Importance of Blessings - Rabbi Yaakov Marcus

[Music] we're at the Nevada Chelan College full moon and we're working on the mystical Hebrew alphabet series the shapes of meetings letters in the alphabet where we're going to letter Beit last time we discussed the direction of the bait why bait tunas is the letter of connection relationship why does it face away from The Aleph Bialik represents God's oneness it should have been facing the Ala we discussed that last time now we're going to work on the shape of the bait why does it have a box-like structure and for that I need to ask a question and that is let's say you have an hour free this evening or an hour free today and you want to create a connection to God and bring godliness in this world remember we said that bait represents the idea of good as that which connects me to God but it's more than just pure connection my connection actually brings godliness closer to my world and if I lie cheat and steal my damage myself damage other people my disconnection creates the negative spiritual voltage which pushes godliness habits world so it's good versus evil as opposed to a good versus evil and if I have an hour free and I want to create a connection to God and I want to bring godliness in this world what should I do what would you say give it an hour for you yeah but how I need a method okay Turin Mitzvahs right prayers a mitzvah I could learn Torah I could keep miss vote that definitely brings God into this world and creates a connection to God good what if instead of a learning Torah doing a mitzvah let's say I decide to go for a hike and climb a hill and then I get to the top of the hill and I look out and say wow what a beautiful world God created does that create a connection Agana bring godliness in this row yeah what about art what about music what about dance what about dedicating an hour towards some sort of spiritual connection with God through art these are gonna ask works as well correct so why do we Orthodox rabbis keep emphasized precising learn torah do mitzvahs learn torah do mitzvahs why can't you go for a hike through nature or dance ballet or paint a painting and create a connection to God and bring godliness the world the answer is all these methods work and the reason why we keep emphasizing learn to our do mitzvahs is not because learning tower in doing mitzvahs has a monopoly on your ability to connect back to God but learning torrent doing mitzvahs was designed by God to maximize the efficiency of your connection meaning you are a soul you have a body alone and that combination is designed to connect back to God so God designed the torrid Mitzvah system to maximize the ability to make that connection in other words our for our dollar for dollar pound-for-pound there's nothing that's more connective than learning to are in doing mitzvahs those art music dance hikes through nature they all work but they're not going to work with the same intensity or efficiency as torn misses God designed your body is hold to respond to Torah mitzvahs in a way that intensely connects you back to him other methods do not connect with the same efficiency so so it's not that the other methods don't work now that's reason number one reason number two we emphasize toward mitzvahs is the most are music and dance or whatever it is that you find your spirituality and is because Tarn mitzvahs do not carry the risk that other methods of connecting to God - and Lourdes Turin mitzvahs are by nature connected but art is risky it depends on what you're painting or music is risky it depends on what you're listening to there's there's modern versions of music that can be incredibly disconnected by the by the topic they're singing about it whatever same for same for dance or whatever it depends on what aspect of you is connecting to God what aspect of you is actually being pulled backwards so we emphasize toward missus because it's more efficient and because it doesn't carry the same risk that other methods which can work carried because they could also be disconnected good now the rabbi's step in and they say oh are you about to learn Torah do mitzvahs we want you to do something first what are the rabbi's asked us to do before we learn to are do business oh are you about to put a mezuzah on your door we want you to do something first are you about to no no no the rabbi's say if you're about to try to create a connection to God bring Galia since the world through a toward mitzvah system the rabbi step and say yeah but pause and do this first so for most mitzvahs that is whatever it is are you about to learn Torah do this first are you about to sit in a circle do this verse to you about to shake the lulav and ezra do this first what is it they want you to do like a Bronco make the broker so most of the bra coat the the blessings that were familiar with are actually rabbinic and design the Torah in a verse says that if you eat a meal we know it means built around bread and you're satisfied whatever then you should bless God and you should thank him so that's the source for pure kata Mazzone nabarro Fattah and litigating with allah that is actually a torah request but the bracha before putting up a mezuzah or the bracha before shaking a Lulla Vaness rug or the brothel before eating matzah at the passover seder those were designed by the rallies and the question is why why did the rabbis want you to make a bracha first but before we answer that let's just look at the route of the word braja because we have a rule in Judaism if you can isolate the Schorsch the two or three letter root of a word you got it's essential meaning and that means you just have to eliminate the prefix eliminate the suffix to find the root Brava has no prefix but it does have a a suffix ending which says the word is feminine that final hey is not a part of the root so the root of the word Brava is the word BAE Rock which means to bei rough means to bless okay good now the word bracha is related to the word break ha now a modern Hebrew break has a swimming pool guitar a break hut is like a flow of water like a spring or flow of water so therefore abraca is opening up a flowy spring so to speak of spiritual godliness connection of godliness spirituality into our world that's what a bracha that idea of flow and that's why that's why the word they rock is all twos - we said is the number of connection relation bait is two races 200 and Hough is 20 if you check our chart up here and therefore the root of the word Braja is all flow connection expression into the world it's all numbers of tunas all right the Schorsch is 222 so let's see if we can figure out what the rabbi's have in mind when they say listen you're about to do a mitzvah this could be a Toru Mitzvah we rabbinic Lee would like you to make a blessing first so let's say you're about to put them as those up on the door okay and you have your Mizzou so you have your hammer but it just so happens you are speaking on your cell phone my cell phones nothing let's say and you're talking to your buddy and you say is this recording me okay you say hey Dave do you want to go to the ballgame I got a couple of tickets tonight what do you say I'll pick you up at 7:00 so now I just put up a mezuzah on my door while talking to Dave about the ball game did I create a connection to God and bring godliness into this world when I did it absolutely yes I created the connection he kind of brought copies worldwide why I did the action other words I put them as his own the the mezuzah one on the door that's the Mitzvah okay so I was distracted but but I still was even though talking ballgame them the business way so so therefore I got that Mitzvah but what if I do this what if I'm about to put them as those on my door and I say hey Dave you want to go to the ballgame one second could you hang on bless you a lord of God can universal command me to put up bang bang bang bang ding ding sorry Dave where were we now see what the brook did the Brooklyn made me pause for 10 seconds to focus on what I'm about to do in other words the rabbi's are saying listen if you're about to do a mitzvah you are going to bring godliness is Roy you're gonna connect to God but why ruin the impact by distracting yourself so abraca is designed to focus you on that action because the first time I put up the mezuzah while I was talking to Dave about the ballgame I generated a million positive spiritual volts which connect me to God and Brock out made us in this world great but the second time when I made the bracha and I put the phone down so instead of generating a million spiritual volts I generated five million volts so what a shame if you're doing the mitzvot and not maximizing the impact so brothels are designed to get us to be aware of why we're doing it and and who wants us to do it God and so on Osama got the idea okay good so let's take another example okay let's say you and I are sitting side by side of the Passover Seder and we're going through the Haggadah and we're to talk about the exodus from Egypt and I want to create a scenario where the midst what we do physically is identical so there's a myths for the eat matzah at the night of the Seder and they're gonna pass us equal sized pieces of matzah we're gonna put it in our mouths of the exact same instant we're gonna chew the same number chews and swallow at the exact same second so in the physical world there's no difference between how you and I fulfill the mitzvot however in terms of intention and thought process when I chew my matzah swallowed I'm thinking you know I was so busy cleaning my house for Pesach this morning I forgot to eat breakfast and I was so busy preparing for the Seder I forgot to lunch and now that we've been telling the story the excess is from Egypt for the last hour and a half I'm so hungry I could pass out and if if all I have to eat is this much a piece of matzah fine I'll have to be matzah but when I chew the monster swallowed I'm thinking about how starving I am you know when I to my wants to swallow do I create a connection to God and bring godliness this world even though I'm focused on my stomach yes yes because I did the action correct though still mitzvah not good now you when you chew the exact same size a piece of nonsense while the same innocent you're thinking this is to remind me that God took my ancestors out of Egypt and had we not left Egypt we would have been so corrupted by Egyptian immorality whatever we never would have been savable so that's what you're thinking when you take the months and swallow okay so therefore did you create a connection to God and Greek islands as world yeah and my lousy intentions did it so did yours so what's the difference so mine generated a million positive spiritual volts you generated five million so let me show you graphically what the difference is if we pretend gods up even though God's ever error and we say heaven is lots of levels which it does each one subdivide subdivide so you get thousands levels let's call this the bottom of the spiritual realm so from here down is our universe with its billions of galaxies galaxies billions of stars here's a human being down here on the planet Earth now when I chewed my matzah swallowed it at the seder thinking about how hungry I was and if I don't eat something soon I'm gonna pass out so I launched positive voltage into the spirit realm which affected the spiritual machinery and the world became a better place like Leicester I've never gone so so we did this last class now when you did the exact same physical mitzvah with the same size piece of matzah and swallows the same instant so there's no difference in the physical world but you were thinking the right thought you were thinking about the exodus from Egypt so you took the exact same action and you're generating a more intense spiritual connection by more voltage launch is the impact of your action higher in the spiritual realm and the rule is the more voltage the higher the impact goes the higher the effect goes the more the machinery is positively affected and the more the machine is positive affect it the more impact on the physical world so although my mitzvahs are gonna help drought in Africa your mitzvahs are gonna do even more because I'm thinking about my stomach and you're thinking about the answers from region that's the difference that's what a brother can do a bruffett creates us like a flow a spring of spirituality to this world and broca's help maximize the impact of what you're about to do you