Using the 4 Letter Name of G-d for Spiritual Growth: Rabbi Joshua Golding

[Music] and before I introduce rabbi Golding I just want to mention first of all welcome everyone to the live audience and to those that are in YouTube's world or cyber world and then watching this at home we encourage you to subscribe to the YouTube channel and you'll you also be encouraged by me to not just subscribe but hit the notification bell so that when new videos come out you'll be alerted to such facts ok without any further ado I just want to mention about Rabbi Golding first and then I wanted to mention a few words with Torah on my own that I was inspired I'm always inspired by Robert Gordon's Torah and I came across this thing Shabbat morning and I said wow I've been looking for that source my whole life and I think it fits really it's a well fit for this DVAR Torah that the rabbi's speaking about tonight so first of all rabbi Golding is a professor of philosophy specializing in philosophy of religion and Jewish philosophy at Baylor mine University in Louisville Kentucky he's held research positions at the Hebrew University University of Haifa and the University of Notre Dame and is the author of a book the conversation and rationality and religious theism dr. Gordon has published articles in religious studies faith and philosophy modern school and tradition and Toronado journal as well as a number of book reviews and encyclopedia entries he has Smitha from you Shiva Salaam Jakov in Jerusalem Israel he also served as the spiritual leader of congregation on ceasefire and Luthi Kentucky rabbi Goulding's book serves as both and this is the book here by the way and encourage you to all get a copy you can order through Amazon or you can write here tonight this special discount ok special discount and it's serves both as both an extended commentary on Jewish prayer and an intellectually rigorous spiritual self-help book the Jewish spiritual path combines a theoretical presentation of Kabbalistic concepts with practical guidance rooted in prayer to cultivate a deep spirituality based on the moral and and mystical teachings of Judaism well it's one thing to read a book it's another to truly internalize it the site this what's the name of the site you have the way of the name.com it's one name the way of the name calm aims provide supplementary learning materials including guided meditations to help fuel your spiritual path and I'd like to add what I came across as I mentioned Shabbat morning I'm going over a piece of the Gemara in Sanhedrin found on Sadiq Zion amidala talks about the coming of the Messiah difference in money in different signs and of course we all heard about the sign of the whole generation that has the face of a dog right and all kinds of negative possible negative things that are happening in the world at the time and one of the ideas is either the Jewish people are holy Zak I you know meritorious and that's why the Messiah would come and the redemption would appear or god forbid when we're not in meritorious now the idea behind not being meritorious is the truth is that it means that there's room for truven and the whole idea is the true of a movement would bring about the messianic age but there's one comment right before the idea of the face of the dog generation with the face of the dog and that's is that there's a kami would stand up for the noreen the elders the ones who are wise and experienced in life would stand up for the younger inexperienced young young people they didn't really make you know what does that mean I mean it talks about hutzpah and all kinds of why would the why would the elders be giving them honor so I came across in the yoga diem in the mists IFTA a commentary called the hapara days Joseph and he explains based on this verse what was I always grappling with my whole life this idea and it's very important and I think that's why it's apropos for this class have you ever heard at least like saying in circles of recovery people are involved in either self-help 12-step work they always say where I've always heard it said that there's no stagnation when it comes to spirituality you're either moving up or you're moving down there's no such thing as no movement either going up or you going down and I came across this piece and he I think those are the words that he's telling us why is it that the elders the caning are standing up for the young people she brings a verse it's in Valkyrie your head ballad that's 18th or in Leviticus so the verse partially says that hookah type - Maru Nilesh at the hem so the whole verse says carry out my laws safeguard my decrees to follow them Lalique at the hem imma Shem your God so the word Malak it is like it's movement it's mobility it's right but he explains it in a really nice way she'd are clear toward the way of Torah Cerreta mean it's consistency you need can to consistently be Lillet it only hit a lot it's two movements it's forward and up you have to constantly be moving forward and up ah however misha i made i'm mekomo someone who stands in his place who's not moving enemy Ptolemaic are them they're not moving forward and they're not moving up there is a nick shop lo que yo Rida the dargah he says it clearly so if you're not moving either forward or up must be correcting fault that you're moving down in in alien levels another idea setia i'm rishabh adoro mushiya that generation that the Messiah is going to come that the zucchini me arm do live in an area that the elders and even the words okay mean right we're talking about what does that mean the elders right it's talking about someone who has experience in life wisdom they've gained a lot of wisdom crossing means also a beard but that they're gonna stand up before the noreen the law get a lil led Shara bottarga Tomiko damn it come Ohana rim they never really they never really moved on in life they're like children not in a innocence sense but in the sense of not wanting to move forward but to stay that I guess an immature sense of life so without me for the okay there is one more idea brought down so let me just finish off with that so he brings down a puss a verse in Zakaria chapter 3 verse 7 that this verse I guess supports everything was just said so it says like this Bennett Attila comma housing been harmed in a halo which means I will grant you my house him strides is the article translated but I would say it's a pathway it's a derrick it's it's movement I'm allowing you movement among those who stand there and don't move which are the angels by the way the angels don't have a gate Sahara right they don't have the test that we have so the whole verse is the higher selves like this dust as a sham master of legions if you go in my ways and you will safeguard my watch and you will also administer my temple and you'll also garden my courtyards I will grant you strides I will Gantt grant you movement I will grant you as we would say moving forward and upward among those the angels that are standing there without any further ado rabbi so as you know the book is called the Jewish spiritual path the way of the name and the name of course here that we're referring to is the name of God the holy name of God the tetragrammaton sometimes it's called the four lettered name sometimes in Hebrew we refer to it as the you'd cave of K we don't pronounce the letter hei because we don't want to pronounce such ends name even just saying the letters so first of all why is this book called the way of the name I'd like to talk a little bit about maybe some of the things that you already know how important the shame Hashem is how important the name is here we have right here what does it say over here CVT Hashem Leonetti itemid right it's a verse from Psalms which means I have set this typeset god before me but it also means the name itself the name itself has a special a special status in Judaism as we all know one of the most important prayers in Judaism is the Kaddish yes qaddafi is Kadosh and may raba may God's name be exalted and magnified and sanctified the whole cottage is focused on the name of God being exalted and we all know about the special status of the kedusha the sanctification of God's name Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh Hashem spoked we say in the cut in the kedusha the name of God is the special name of God is the Holy Name of God and we need to think about what is what is it about this name of God that is so special what is the deeper meaning behind this four lettered Tetragrammaton name which has there's all sorts of hollows there's all sorts of laws about not erasing the name and not cursing the name and we all know about the importance of what's called kiddush Hashem sanctification of God's name as opposed to one of the worst ave wrote one of the worst sins or transgressions is the desecration of God's name so this should lead us to ponder a little bit about what is the significance behind this very wholly special name the you'd cave of K my book is based my book is not is not really an original book in the sense that my book is using ideas from Kabbalah from the Jewish mystical tradition from casitas and from the great works of Mooser which describe the path the central idea of this book is that the the name itself the four lettered name of God itself is you might save the roadmap it's the outline it represents the structure of first of all how God relates to the world and we'll talk about that a little more detail the name Hashem the four-letter name of God also represents four distinct but related stages of spiritual growth and as we'll see shortly how each letter represents a certain aspect of God a certain aspect of the human being because the human being is as you know we are made in the image of God and we'll talk a little bit about how according to Kabbalah and some of you may be familiar with some of these ideas but God when God creates the human being it says that God created the human being in the image of God he created them male and female he created them God has a masculine and also a feminine aspect as well and in Kabbalah I'll just use this little gizmo here as a prop the you'd cave of K they say that the hay is a feminine letter in grammar and Hebrew grammar you know that the hay is often a symbol represents a feminine ending whereas the yuud and the valve represents a masculine aspect of God and we're gonna see that there are certain aspects of God that are called masculine and certain aspects of God that are called feminine and we really need all of us both men and women to have both aspects because both men and women have male and female or masculine and feminine aspects in any event the basic idea of the book is that the four letters of a Shems name represent four aspects of God they represent four aspects of the human being they represent four stages of spiritual growth and last but not least the chakra at prayer that we pray every morning the morning prayer as you may or may not know has four distinct stages we're going to talk about that in more detail but I'm going to try to show you how the four stages of the chakra prayer are meant to help us develop those attributes those qualities those --my dotes if you will which are represented by the four letters of God's name and if I accomplish one thing tonight I'll be very happy if one person goes away from here with one idea that helps to enrich or enhance their prayer and in general their service of Hashem through understanding these ideas based on Kabbalah about the significance of God's name I will have accomplished my mission so I know that some of you don't have the handout so let's talk a little bit more about the meaning of the name you cave of K now most authorities agree that if you were to ask the question what does the name mean you know one thing that's very strange about the Bible is that the Bible gives the meaning of various names like for example Adam it says Adam is called Adam because he's taken min ha Adam ah right Moshe is called Moshe Kim Min ha Maya me she see who various names are given Nowak has given an explanation for various in the headsculpt Yaakov they're all given I guess I've Rama's a little there's metros talks about what's the meaning of the name of Rama I don't think you'll find a single passage in the Torah which explains what is the you cave of K mean why does why is God called you'd kill of K but the sages basically agree that the name you'd cave of cake clearly has something to do with the Hebrew word for being or to be right leo hey hey yeah right covet yeah clearly the name you'd cave of K has something to do with the Hebrew word for being and based on the Kabbalah we could say the following that there's a teaching a very profound teaching in Kabbalah that the essence of God the the essence of guidance itself is called aim self infinite beyond description beyond comprehension in some sense the aim Soph is so beyond us we can't really relate to the in self ain't self directly the you'd cave of K however is the name of how this infinite being relates to us as being the most important thing about the universe well maybe I shouldn't say that one very important thing about the universe or maybe the most obvious fact about the universe that we live in is that it is so the isness of things the very being of things is the most primordial fundamental fact about the universe so God Himself is aim soap you'd cave FK represents in some sense the being that we experience in the world this is a manifestation of God so you'd cave of K represents how this infinite inscrutable essence somehow appears and is present in our experience now there's different levels of what the you'd cave of K represents so let's start off as the Kabbalist likes to like to say we're going to start off talking a little bit about what's called the lower hey the last hey of god's name the 4th letter of god's name right that's called the lower hey that represents what's called sheena the divine presence in the world of spirits some of you may be familiar it's called mouth codes in other words the first and most obvious thing about the world is that there's a presence here there is an isness here there's some kind of being here that we can touch though we can feel that we can experience the physical world when you look at a person the first thing you see is the body right then maybe you learn about their personality their character traits their brain their mind their intellects what kind of person they are but the most obvious expression of God in the world is the physical world the fact that it exists and that's represented by the lower hey and in the human being it's represented by the physical body now let's go up to the Veuve okay The Vow is of course the third letter of Hashem name the love in Kabbalah represents God's attributes of action or sometimes they'll call they're called The Meadows the attributes what are the major attributes of God the Kabbalah teaches there are really six and that's why the love is the sixth letter by the way but to make it a little simpler for the purposes of quick presentation the major attributes of God are cressid raka meme and din God is benevolent God is just God is compassionate rocman rockman is considered in some way a central media it's considered a somehow a combination or a balance between benevolence and justice on the other hand when you're compassionate you're giving somebody what they kind of deserve even though they really don't deserve it but they really need it press ed is complete benevolence like for example the morale of Prague gives an example Hesed is inviting somebody over for lunch now giving a child a candy that's cressid Dean is judging someone giving them what they deserve it could be a punishment that could be paying them what they're due Rock'em is a sort of middle thing Rock'em M is compassion in the sense that is someone sick if someone's needy then it's not like inviting them over to lunch if you give them some medicine or help a guy out who's poor on the other hand they don't really deserve it maybe they didn't earn it they didn't work for it so Rock'em M is considered a mu Musa it's considered a middle path between Cressida and din in any event the vod's attributes and in a human being your love would be your character traits which right away when you look at a person you don't necessarily see what kind of person they are you see their body you see their outward aspect then once you get to know them you find out okay how does this person act that's their vote Erik tur and then moving up to the what's called in Kabbalah the upper hey that would be the first hey in God's name that is associated with what's called the media of bina or intelligence divine intelligence because not only does God express himself in the world and not only does God have these attributes of mercy benevolence and kindness justice but God also is intelligent one way of understanding God's intelligence is to think about the fact that the world has a structure the world has an order when you look around the world you don't even really necessarily have to be religious to see or believe in God to see that the world has a structure the world has a very complex structure the world has a pattern certain things happen in the world whether you're religious or not Jewish are not believer or not definitely the world has some kind of a pattern when you water seeds they tend to grow and become you know plants and when you drink milk and other nutritious food you tend to be nourished so there's a pattern there's an order to things so that is represented by the upper hey or gods intelligence and then the first letter the Ute of course represents in Kabbalah represents Rutzen and hokhmah God is a creative being right we believe that God created the world it wasn't an accident it wasn't just a happenstance but God is the ultimate creative being and creativity requires ingenuity that's Kaufman which is different from understanding or bina I could give you a long lecture about the difference between Huffman and bina if you'd like to hear about it I talked about it at length in the book intelligence is comprehension understanding it's what we sometimes call analytical ability if a person is able to read and comprehend and maybe do a little bit of a logic problem that's intelligence if a person is able to come up with a novel idea a creative thought a new thought a new idea a new insight that's hokhmah that's a higher level than just being able to understand what's in front of you anyway God has hokhmah God has wisdom God also has will central to Judaism is the belief that God in some sense has free will bashira conscious and this is mimicked the human being we also have free will we also have creativity or the ability to be creative to be creative thinkers and that doesn't necessarily mean that we have to be creative geniuses like a Mozart or Einstein but to be able to think about things in a new way that's our ability to have hokhmah and that parallels the yard and our free will free choice which of course is very very limited but we have some measure of freewill right that is represented by the unit so you'd K of K we have the you would represents Watson and hokhmah the hay represents intelligence the VEVRAA presents' attributes of action and the hay represents God's manifestation in the physical world now let's talk about what I was saying was that there are four stages of spiritual growth so first of all what is let's ask a very basic question maybe some of you know the answer to this what is the goal of the Jewish spiritual path what is the goal I'm s is a rhetorical question so I'm gonna answer it myself okay but you can think about how you would answer it if you had to say what is the goal of the Jewish spiritual path I think that remotion I'm with Sato and the Bala Tanya and many of the other great sages in our tradition would agree that the goal of the spiritual path the goal of Torah the reason why God gave the Torah to the Jewish people is for us to establish a deep bond or relationship with God in one word you could call it do they cut or debeikis the purpose of the spiritual path is to develop a deep intense relationship with God now that relationship with God involves includes how we act how we behave toward other human beings so it's not just about relating to God with ignoring humans because part of having a relationship with a good relationship with God is having a certain kind of relationship with human beings who represent God because we are bit Salim elokim right but the basic goal of the Jewish spiritual path is to establish a deep abiding relationship with the being of all beings okay now how do you do that if the being of all beings is ain't elf infinite you're not going to succeed but Hashem has revealed himself in the you cave of K the you'd cave of K is the medium and so too is the Torah the dara Hashem the way of the Lord the way of God which is revealed to us in the Torah is the mechanism by which we can establish with God's help our relationship with God okay now the four letters of a Shems name let's talk about the Jewish spiritual path so if you have the handout I'm in the middle now where it says the spiritual path four stages I like to say that maybe this is perhaps a hit of my book that I regard the most basic meda the most basic first step in the Jewish spiritual path and I would say really in any spiritual path is what I call the in English receptivity receptivity means being aware of who and what you are on a very very basic level you wake up in the morning you you can get out of bed you breathe you can see you can get up out of bed and walk if you're lucky enough to do that if you can't get out of bed because you're sick at least you're breathing you're seeing you're hearing you're functioning maybe you can use the facilities that's also just the fact that you can use the facilities is an amazing thing that many people unfortunately just take for granted they don't even think about it why because they're not receptive they're not where they're not self-aware they're not looking if it have fingers I have hands I can hear I can see this is the most basic spiritual attribute that a person can develop is to be receptive and receptivity is not a very hard thing to develop but unfortunately some people seem to have somehow maybe avoided it somehow by thinking that what they have is somehow there's that it's they take it for granted that's the opposite of being receptive so I say that receptivity is the fundamental basic beginning it's the first step of the Jewish spiritual path and receptivity I'd like to say is a feminine kind of meda and by that I don't mean that it's only for women hospice all and it's for men and women but basically when we talk about feminine versus masculine we're talking about receptive as opposed to more active doing type of attributes okay certain certain meto certain attributes are involved receptivity and taking things in like being a good listener that's actually a higher kind of receptivity okay there's there's receptivity is a kind of intake and then there's things like doing giving being generous that's more of what's in karbala language called a masculine type of meda but let's go back to receptivity from receptivity we're still on we're now we're still on the lore hey in receptivity receptivity leads to two things first of all it leads to thankfulness po da in Hebrew because once you're aware of the fact that you have what you have that you can breathe that you can see that you can use the facilities your your naturally led to be thankful oh my gosh I have all these things I'm so grateful for what I have so receptivity leads to thankfulness that's a very basic meda and we can talk about by the way a lot of what I'm saying here also applies to how to bring up children because certain meadows are more appropriate for children to develop first and higher meters that you expect maybe when they're a little older those would be associated with the more upper level more challenging type of meadows but to be thankful that's something you've got to teach children I think at a very early age to be thankful for it to say thank you okay in any event receptivity leads to thankfulness but on the other hand it also leads to a certain kind of humility or unev ah why do I say that because if I'm receptive and I realize I have what I have and I I'm able to do certain things and these things are not mine there's some how I'm receiving them from some source that's outside of me then I realize how frail I am I realize how limited I am I need if I couldn't go to the bathroom if I couldn't see if I couldn't hear if I didn't have running water if I didn't have clothes where would I be I wouldn't be doing too well so I'm talking about a certain type of I know that many people say ANOVA is a high level I'm thinking of a very basic kind of ANOVA another here what I mean by ANOVA humility is an awareness of one's frailty on awareness of one's finitude an awareness of one's limitations okay so if you're a receptive person you're led to be thankful you're also led to be humble and aware that you are finite you have limitations you are dependent that's another aspect of humility and that corresponds to the lower hey now let's move up a little bit to the love the love for the human being The Verve next spiritual stage is to get out of yourself and become a giver rather than just a receiver what might lead a person to move from that hey level to that volve level I discussed that in the book at length what motivates a person what should motivate a person to become not just a receiver also a giver so in Kabbalah there's a very fundamental idea it's called maybe some of you have heard of this there's an idea called the bread of shame nahama deke sofa which means that if you have things eventually most people it's natural for a human being to feel that they want to be not just receivers but givers because if we have things that are given to us that we have not earned or merited we begin to feel embarrassed about our natural gifts okay I have a lot of natural gifts you see that sometimes actually in not not all wealthy people but many wealthy people and I'm not necessarily talking about Jewish wealthy people but let's say you know NBA basketball stars who are very very wealthy because they make a lot of money in the NBA they talk about some of them not all of them they all they talk about wanting to give back they realize that they have a lot and they feel like they maybe really don't deserve all this wealth and they want to do they want to give it's a very basic existential phenomenon that human beings want not just to be sponges but want to be givers as well so that's one thing that leads people to want to rise above just being receptive to be benevolent to be giving and you want to earn your keep so if you want to earn your keep that means you have to develop a sense of justice I deserve this I earned this and once you're into you're deserving something that means you're accepting the whole notion of how certain people deserve certain things and certain people don't deserve other things and that takes you into the realm of din or justice okay now in Judaism see if you if you got if you got through the hey level than above level you're receptive you're you're thankful you're humble you're compassionate you're benevolent and you're just all of that is beautiful great but Judaism says Kabbalah says that you're related to God in a certain way by doing all that okay when you're a giver you are walking in God's Way because God is a giver when you are also a receiver you're also following God's Way in a sense because God is also a receiver God is a receiver of everything we do in the sense that our prayers and what we do God receives God is reacting to who we are and what we are okay but Judaism says that's not enough because that still leaves more to be desired there's still more of a bond of an intense serious relationship with God with being that you can establish and that's going to involve moving up to what I'm calling or what Kabbalah calls the upper hey what's involved in the upper hey first of all accepting in Hebrew Kabbalah another form of Kabbalah but this is now a higher kind of Kabbalah Kabbalah all malkovich am i am accepting upon ourselves the yoke of heaven with love be alva and with reverence with Europe when you accept upon yourself as a Jew when you look at the Torah and study the Torah and learn the Torah even on a very superficial level and when you accept this is God's will for the Jewish people and of course that's going to be based on the tradition of Revelation now tradition is something that we have to receive so see now we're going back to a receptive kind of quality we talked about receptivity earlier on a more basic level of being receptive about our physical nature and our physical gifts now we're talking about being receptive to Matan Torah to the tradition to the masoor Oh some people there are various various various complicated reasons many reasons for why some people don't accept the tradition alright I'm not here to talk about all those reasons and why someone might or not accept the Torah but one reason why some people don't accept the Torah is because they're not receptive they're not receptive people don't only you want to look at it take it seriously it's just like no I can't I'm not gonna I'm not gonna look it I'm not gonna take that seriously I'm not even gonna look into that many people who are receptive to it let's look into it let's see what does it say what's the story okay then that can lead them to become people who become acceptors Cibola the cobbling of Omaha Jemaine in any events this level gets us to a much more deep relationship with God himself because now why a lot of it has to do with the fact that the Torah represents gods among other things that's God's teaching it also represents divine Commandments mitts votes right it's one thing to be compassionate and generous and benevolent that's beautiful that's wonderful that's a very important thing for humans to be but it's another level to be fulfilling divine Commandments right a divine commandment means that God ordered us to do this and when we fulfill the divine Commandments we are connecting ourselves with God's will ultimately with God's purpose for creation which I discuss in the book and won't try to discuss that right now but part of it is God has a plan for the universe like we said before the upper hay represents God's intelligence the plan for the universe the structure of the universe the mitzvahs are designed to lead to the fulfillment of the purpose of creation right it's what in in one way of putting it is the fulfillment of God's plan for the universe the fulfillment of God's kingdom right so by fulfilling the mitzvot we are now can connecting with God in a much higher way plus we're supposed to do that not just perfunctorily but with love and with reverence with Ava and with Europe so now we're getting into a more intimate personal relationship with God than merely by just being compassionate and generous and just so the upper hay represents understanding the Torah learning and love and reverence of God finally the you´d so we're talking now about what is the you would represent in terms of the spiritual life what could be better what could be possibly higher than serving God and loving God and fulfilling his commandments what could possibly be higher than that you might ask and the answer is that there are certain things that go beyond just fulfilling the commandments huzzah masseur Kabbalah casitas they talked about this at length that there are certain things that are right to do even though they may not be commanded to do and each and every individual person this is where things become a little bit more individualized because each and every individual human being each and every individual Jewish person is different and there's a certain special thing or set of things that each and every one of us is supposed to be doing that is going to maximize our individual relationship with God and that takes us beyond just what's in the book that it says you're supposed to do this you're supposed to do that you're not supposed to do this it involves a higher level of thinking it involves meditation it involves trying to figure out what should I be doing as me rather than just as a member of the Jewish people and the answer for is going to be different for different people some people are going to become rabbi post on the rabbi some people are going to become maybe it's gonna be involved maybe it's going to be something like becoming a healthcare worker or who are nurse or who knows what it is in a special way or taking care of a special person millions and millions of different things depending upon the individual context fern or more what could be higher than love and reverence is now there's a concept very important in Kabbalah and casitas it's called hits Bartlett a Bartlet means self-abnegation now self-abnegation I think is it says this is a very very high level spiritual attribute here what is self-abnegation it means where you will one thing it means is where your will is completely bottle completely null and void to God's will that's a very high level of achievement it means that not only do you act in such a way that you're fulfilling the commandments but you somehow manage to get to the point where your will is like bonded together with God's will you don't even want to do anything that's against the mitzvot and you only want to do something that God would want you to do at least that's one way of understanding the concept of hits about lute and decodes the vacant is that wanting to do wanting to be with God wanting to be in God's presence and I think ultimately the highest level of DA code and hit Bartlett's is a kind of being with God it's the way I like to put it's how I describe it in the book in other words it's something that transcends your actions your desires your thoughts even your into intellect the highest level of duvet kiss and his bottleless with the infinite is somehow being absorbed or becoming part of that infinite essence which is very indescribable and very hard to even put into words okay so that's a very very high level and that's what corresponds to the the youth in Hashem name okay so I've tried to outline very quickly what in the book regarding the spiritual stages again just to quickly review we start with very basic thankfulness humility I'm aware of my limitations I'm aware of what I have I'm generous I'm benevolence I'm kind I'm compassionate then I am also a shomer Mitzvah I'm macabre Alma cochem I am I want to fulfill the commandments and then if I'm lucky enough I get to an even higher stage where I'm bonding with Hashem nullifying my will to God's will I become completely as it were almost like a part of God himself when I've reached that upper you'd so now in the remaining ten minutes or so I'd like to talk about the chakras the morning prayer because this spiritual path is not so easy to do right it's hard but this is what I think is the genius of huzzah huzzah designed the morning prayer with four stages and if you go through those four stages and you have these thoughts in mind you realize that the chakras prayer is the recipe for helping us to set the tone for the day it's not just about Dominic chakras and then you get it over with and then you go on with the rest of your life rather the chakras prayer is supposed to set the tone for the day and give us that mission of these these four things that I got to do these four stages that I got to continually be striving to do so maybe I'm guessing that many of you are familiar with the fact that there are four stages in the shin the chakras but let's quickly go through what they are the four stages of chakras are first of all you have the bear claw to shock are and the carbon oat right the bear claw to Shahar the morning blessings and the recitation of the daily sacrifices let's just focus on the morning blessings most of the morning blessings are focused on thankfulness and humility accepting realizing that we have these tremendous natural gifts that we need to be thankful for and recognize that they come from us that is beyond ourselves the first thing a Jew says in the morning is mow Danilov an ephah mellow kavacha em shadows are to be vanish party become become llevaba etcetera right okay what is that about its thankfulness that I can breathe I have ass living soul and then you wash your hands okay there's some barefoot mitzvahs but basically most of the barefoot - shocker I can walk I can see I can talk I have clothes I can go to the bathroom [Music] those are that is the main focus of the Bharata Shahar so what is that it's supposed to help us realize that we have these gifts and to be thankful for them also that we are limited and we have limitations that were finite now let's move up to the Tsukiji Zimbra the second section the second stage of the chakras is Sookie do Zumba the verses of praise here you're getting out of yourself it's not just about focusing on yourself the suki de xira focus on the natural world most of them most Sookie de xira does not focus on things particular to the Jewish people if you look at the five hallelujahs if you look at ASHRAE ASHRAE which is the central psalm of Sookie does Imre does not mention Israel does not Incheon anything about Torah it mentions God's expression in the natural world the beautiful wondrous world that we live in and you're supposed to save Sookie does Imre with song because song motivates a person to be enthusiastic and to be a giver in other words the idea is I'm looking around the world look at this amazing world it's not just about me look at what God has done that is supposed to motivate us to be compassionate to be givers and of course to be just it's not an accident that during Sookie does Imre the sage is established a very well accepted custom of giving sadaqa right some of you may know this that there's a custom of giving charity toward the end Sukie does Imre that's supposed to it's not supposed to be okay I gave charity in the morning now I'm done with that the whole point is I am supposed to be a charitable person I'm supposed to be a giver in a broad sense not just putting a money in that's in the stucco box but being a generous person the posickey does Emma are supposed to motivate us to be givers and the next stage moving up the chain here moving up the ladder the next stage the third stage of the chakras is of course the crotch MA with the bra holds now the Kriya Sh'ma of course is accepting Kabbalah omotchama I'm receiving the yoke of heaven and also the mitzvah and being a kind of person who is not just a generous kind compassionate person but also someone who is going to be a passionate lover of God and want to fulfill the divine Commandments and establish a relationship with God through fulfilling Commandments that's the upper hey and finally we get to the pinnacle of the chakras which is what the shamone s ray it's the Amidah right the Amidah is in some sense the ultimate climax of the dominie now what's going on in the Amidah we're praying for things on a superficial level it looks like the Amidah is all about asking s can God give us this give us this give us that the nefesh ik I am kind of illusion and the ballot Anya explained that the true purpose of prayer is really what we're doing is we are trying to bond our will with God's will when we pray for certain things that kazzal established us to pray for those are the kinds of things that we should want we should want that the six should be healed we should want that there should be justice in the world we should want that Jerusalem should be rebuilt we should want all of those things that we should want to be forgiven we should want to be and collegeand all the things that are established in the Shmona s ray are essentially what we're saying is God I want to be this person who wants these things and I want you God to fulfill your will all the things that we pray for are things that God wants to do but he's only going to do them if we want God to do them so essentially what we're praying for is that God do fulfill his will for the purpose of the world the way God has set it up in his brilliance in his wisdom is that he's only going to do it if we really want it to happen so the purpose of the shamone esterday and the culmination of the Shmona ashrae is of course sim Shalom and the in a way the most intense spiritual devotional aspect of the Shmona ezra is perhaps the very last paragraph which we know is a low kindness or lashena Mira was a time you'd ever Mir MA we pray that God should make it be that I don't I'm not a liar why do we pray that you ever wonder about that why did hazael establish that the thing that we say at the end of the shamone s ray is that we pray that God should guard our lips from being cheaters and Liars I think one of the answers might be is that it's like this we just got through praying we just got through praying for health we got through praying for the building of Jerusalem praying for the Messiah praying that God should be you know be generous and kind to us and so on and so forth I just finished praying and now I'm saying to myself I have to be true to what I just prayed for if I prayed that the sick should be healed then I have to be a healer if I prayed that God should give give give I need to be a giver because otherwise I'm not being faithful to my own words that I just prayed which shows that the purpose of Prayer again is not so much to change god it's really to transform ourselves to become people whose will conforms with what God wants which again is of course the they could and hits Bartlett's and just another aspect this is something I talk about a little more length in the book is that if you think about it if you know a little bit about the Holocaust of Dava 9 which part a asks a question again it's a rhetorical question I'm gonna answer but you think about this which part of the Dava neg is there the most room for personal inputs which part of the diverting has haa logically the most room for where you're allowed to insert your own ideas and your own prayers it's in the shamone s ray you're not supposed to change the Shema the Schmo doesn't change the bearclaw - ma you're not supposed to change anything in there Sookie does Imre you can skip a few things if you're in a rush but you're really not supposed to add anything you're not supposed to make up new Braavos new blessings in beer huh - ah fire but in the Shona s ray ironically paradoxically the Shamal and s ray which is in some sense the holiest it's the has the most severe laws regarding interruptions right the Shmona s mayor now that interrupts you're supposed to keep your feet still you're not supposed to even say a main to another brothel which you are allowed to in the other parts of the dominie right so the shamone s ray which is in some sense the most restricted part of the Dava name that's the place where each and every individual is allowed and some say encouraged there's a lot of basis in causal for saying that if you there's a place there's a oh well I won't try to quote you verse and page number but one sage says that a person who says the shamone s ray in such a way that they're not adding something new it's as if they just prayed by rote and just what's not even considered a prayer okay why because the shmona s ray is supposed to be prayed from your own individual perspective as a Jew together with all the other bro hos they're not supposed to skip any of the Bracco's but you're supposed to feel comfortable adding in your own personal input and in fact the L o kindness or which is the last paragraph was written by an individual Marva Ravena the gomera goes through a whole bunch of passages that different tama-reien had when they finished their Schmo Ness ray showing you again that the bottom line is and I'll close with this it's known and this is in the sitter many Sadam have this that at the very end when you reach the very end of the shamone s ray it's customary to insert a verse that has your own name or a verse that begins with the first letter and ends with the last letter of your name a lot of you people know this right why is that the reason is because you're in effect it's as if you're you wrote a letter to God and you signed it with your own name because that is the ultimate purpose of the shamone s rate to help us achieve that personal individual intense bond with God that is unique to each and every individual Jew so I'll stop here if you want to have questions or comments or thoughts I don't think I did just this to the book seriously so the book is a lot richer and more detailed and much more eloquent than than what I'm saying here so if you like to take a look at the book that'd be wonderful and if you like to buy the book I'm happy to sell it for 60 shekels thank you [Applause] does anybody have a question or comment yeah yes please I heard recently that the entire Torah the name of Hashem also can you speak about that I mentioned that in the book I don't I don't know I don't have a good sort of take on what that means other than that it clearly reinforces the notion that we speak about the Torah as the path the way the word Torah means teaching guidance and so it seems to reinforce the idea that the name of Hashem is somehow linked with that concept of a teaching and somehow the name itself is the teaching but I do not have a good like interpretation of what that really is all about and why it white had to be that way you know that's a good point then neat thank you oh sorry do you have a question or comment yes yes that's right right that she sort of right you're tailoring the prayer to an individual that's right mm-hmm it's a good point [Music]