Transcript
Auto-generated transcript. Not time-synced to the video.
This video is brought to you by Caim
Pripas from Voyage Prestige. Look, I've
traveled to the far ends of the world
from busy cities to tiny towns that
you've never heard of. And I know
firsthand how important it is to have
someone who actually knows what they're
doing when it comes to travel, flights,
hotels, transfers, PES programs, family
vacations, yeshiva trips. It's
exhausting. That's where comes in. He
puts together full travel packages,
handles every little tiny detail, and
makes sure that your trip actually goes
the way it was meant to smoothly so you
can actually relax and enjoy your trip.
Whether it's a family vacation, a yip
program, a corporate getaway, reach out
to office voyagrest.net net and trust me
your future self will
>> a Torah anytime original series.
A few years ago I found myself standing
on top of Montusat a mountain in Spain
just outside of Barcelona staring at the
famous monastery carved straight into
the rock 4,000 ft in the air. The place
is completely breathtaking. an entire
village built into the jagged cliffs on
a mountaintop. Now, this place wasn't
built there by accident. It was designed
specifically to be a remote,
inaccessible, detached place from the
world. And the goal of these Christian
priests was simple, to get away from
life as far as possible. No families, no
careers, no noise, no responsibility,
just stone walls, silence, fasting, and
isolation. And Mata wasn't even the most
extreme. Across history, monks and
priests did things that sound almost
unbelievable. Some lived alone in caves
for decades, barely speaking to anyone.
Some took year-long vows of silence, so
strict communication only with hand
signals. Some wore chains under their
clothes to stay uncomfortable. One
famous monk, he lived on top of a pillar
for 37 years with no shelter and no
privacy because he believed that the
further he got from human life, the
closer he got to God. This wasn't like
some fringe behavior. This was their
philosophy. Holiness, they believed,
comes from withdrawal, from shrinking
life, from escaping desire, from running
away from the world, which is why
priests can't get married, which is why
family was seen as a distraction, which
is why monasteries were built on
mountaintops and deserts and caves
instead of cities. The assumption was
simple. Real holiness can't survive real
life.
But Judaism rejects that premise
completely. Judaism says the opposite.
Holiness is not found by escaping life.
It's found by sanctifying it. Marriage
is a mitzvah. Raising children is a
mitzvah. Building a home is a mitzvah.
Earning money honestly is a mitzvah. The
pope is not allowed to be married. The
kaying must be married. That's not a
coincidence because in Judaism, holiness
that can't survive responsibility isn't
holiness at all. The physical world
isn't the enemy. It's the arena. It's
the testing ground. It's where we're
meant to inject holiness. And here's the
point. A lot of people think my life
gets in the way of me and Hashem. The
traffic, the kids screaming in the back
seat, the emails that never stop, the
ridiculous chats that never end, the
bills, the deadlines, the dishes in the
sink, the phone that won't shut off for
10 seconds. And we sometimes start
saying things like, "I'd rather be more
spiritual if life wasn't so busy. I'd be
closer to Hashem if things would just
slow down. You know, I'd learn more and
dav better and focus more if I didn't
have all this going on." But that's the
mistake because you don't need to climb
a mountain to be holy. You don't need to
disappear into a cave. You don't need to
escape your job and your family or your
responsibilities. That's how monks
think. That's not how we think. Because
Hashem isn't waiting for you after the
traffic clears. He's with you in the
traffic watching how you react. He's
there in your dining room when your kid
tests your patience. He's there in your
boardroom when you speak honestly in
business. He's there when you put the
phone down for 2 minutes and actually
listen to someone who's trying to talk
to you. He's there in your life when you
choose calm over anger and integrity
over convenience and kindness over ego.
Other cultures ran away from life to
find God. Judaism taught us that God is
waiting for us right in the middle of
it. The chaos isn't blocking your
deashem. That chaos is your deashem.