When money problems FLOOD your mind | (MAYIM RABIM Class 1)

all right welcome to a new weekly class many of you also attend Mondays our weekly text based Tanya many of you are watching online and watch the weekly TX Bas T and recognize the train in the background that is the iconic train at the Le yok library in Cedarhurst and this is the location where we have this class this is not Monday text based Tanya this is something different what is this we're going to study different my discourses also text based but um it's not like tan where it's been taking us years to get through it these are these are shorter texts and we'll send out the PDF to those who are in the group we'll send out a PDF beforehand so that you have the text and it'll probably take us 3 4 weeks depending on the length of the particular discourse we're studying to get through that discourse um also because it's not as long the material is not as long I'll probably be able to allow a little bit more side conversations in Tanya I'm sort of a Taskmaster I say let's stay on point because I'm trying to finish you know it's been two years and we're not finished yet so with Tanya I'm sort of trying to keep us moving with these texts they're smaller so I think we have a little bit more wiggle room to get into side conversations also the goal is that I do want these these texts to be a jumping off point to gain some literacy in Jewish mysticism so when we encounter different ideas if there's a discussion that ensues I'm not going to I'm not going to cut that off so quickly okay if it gets really crazy crazy and out of hand then I'll let you know but um I think this could be a little bit more laid back than Tanya where we're we're pushing to finish okay make sense all right so this first discourse that I've chosen uh why did I choose it first of all it's a classic but also because this week is Paras the second Torah portion of the the new year and this discourse was said in the week or just following the week of Paras and it's related to the theme of Paras of course is the Torah portion of the flaw and this discourse is about not the flaw but a flood that we all encounter at some point or at more than one point and it starts I should give you a little bit of History by the way the MIM interestingly enough was not recited at a faan which is normally where a Reb will say a m discourse at a fa at a gathering this was said in the Reb's private room and was recorded and transmitted on a speaker system um and of that year meaning the last few months of 1977 that ABBA had a massive heart attack during hofus during the dancing and they turned his room into a a hospital room and that is where he was treated by doctors and that's where he recovered and in order to continue to lift the spirits of the yeah that ebba was the one recovering from a massive heart attack you'd think people would lift his spirits but that's that EBA that EBA lifts his his spirits by lifting other people's Spirits so he wanted to continue to teach um so what they did is they set up a uh like a PA system where that debba could teach from his room and this was one of the Saturday night addresses basically after chabas theb would speak on a speaker system from his room and this was par so you remember how long ago shus was what was it two weeks ago so this was like two weeks after after the heart attack and this was the the M shabas the Saturday night uh live discourse from the de's room okay and the mimer starts as all my modm start or I shouldn't say all my mm um the mimer starts with a a verse not all my modm start with a verse most do okay and the verse is that is a verse from Song of Songs by Solomon I'll translate it abundant Waters cannot extinguish the love nor can Rivers Wash It Away what is this verse you know Song of Songs of Solomon is a love poem it's a love poem about the intimate relationship between the Jewish people and Hashem and it's written in the guise of Two Lovers but that is a metaphor or Parable so the waters the Abundant Waters cannot wash away the love meaning the love that we have for Hashem will not be extinguished they're like fires fiery passionate love they will not be extinguished By the Waters okay what are these Waters that would extinguish the love or you would think they might extinguish the love and we're being told no but don't worry the the the the love of Hashem is so fiery and passionate even the mighty Waters will not wash it away what are these Mighty Waters okay it is brought in the discourses of the that means the previous I should explain to you that the Reb Style is very much an analysis and study of six previous generations of Reb's teachings so when you learn the Reb mym you get a nice overview of all of the kabad teachings from the AL on down the Al and the it's all all included there so the rebba says it is brought in the my in in the discourses of his predecessors meaning this is not the Deb's a novel idea the debba will present some novel ideas but at this point this is stuff that anyone who's a student of kabad cus would be familiar witha that the Abundant waters are the worries about making a livelihood the Abundant waters are the worries about making a livelihood so in other words we worry about not being able to pay the bills and that preoccupation with our financial stability could threaten and often does pose a threat to our love of Hashem but we're being assured here in this verse that no it will not threaten our love for Hashem it will not diminish our love for AEM and that's really what the m is talking about it's talking about how does our preoccupation with our worldly Affairs and even our worries and anxiety about our worldly Affairs how does that interact with our love of God and what the m is going to tell us is that I'm without ruining it for you this is not a bug it's a feature the fact that we were taken from Heaven our souls were taken from heaven and put down here in bodies and given physical needs meaning we were put in a position where we have physical needs that's not a bug it's a feature and that the fact that we need to worry about our material security down here not only will it not diminish our love for Hashem but and this is what the m is going to explain it can actually amplify our love of Hashem and thoughts about the material world in other words it's not just Financial stuff but all all material stuff [Music] nevertheless these Waters cannot extinguish the Aus Tanya students AIS is a familiar uh phrase right what does aamus mean literal translation the hidden love an inheritance The Inheritance where does it we inherited it from whom the the aice very good from Abraham Isaac and Jacob which is in every Jewish soul in other words there are different types of love and different sources for Love sometimes like we're learning in Tanya right now happens to be we meditate our way into generating new love for Hashem but this isn't that this is the innate love this is part of the operating system this is part of the the default operating system it's already pre-installed it's part of your Nish it's instinctive so the Jewish Soul has an instinctive love of Hashem and of course it possesses that essentially meaning it that's part of what it is it loves Hashem and then it comes down into the physical world and it's embodied and you might think that the conditions of embodiment and the circumstances of embodiment would cause the Jew not to be able to access his or her instinctive love of Hashem what the verse here in Song of Songs is telling us that is not the case that the worries about our financial security are not going to extinguish or diminish our innate instinctive natural love of Hashem nor can Rivers wash it away as the verse says then even when these thoughts are extremely unsettling they are incessant constant meaning you don't get a break from these thoughts he's not saying that won't happen it could happen it could very well happen that you'll be in a situation where you are constantly beset with these thoughts of financial insecurity which is precisely why it's metaphorically described as a river because a river is constantly gushing in flowing a river is constantly going so these thoughts imagine them visualize it's like a river it's it just won't let up they are gushing and streaming with a powerful current nevertheless it will not wash away the love and it will not extinguish it okay so as I told you this is not the Reb's original thought obviously the verse is from from Song of Songs the explanation of the verse originally is in is a safer of my M of the AL for students how is TA and L for that matter different than Tanya well that that's that's one big difference it's a pract Tanya is a practical guide book a manual and the my modem are sometimes explorations of deeper ideas it doesn't necessarily have the practical application included in it but also another difference is just the way that it came to be the Tanya that the Ala sat down and wrote it over a period of many years and was extremely exact with every word sometimes it's called the written Torah uh are my that the AL himself delivered meaning just like we were describing the Reb delivering a an oral address so the AL would say my so are oral addresses that the the AL delivered and and were transcribed and obviously there were no recordings back then so everything was done purely with memorization and then transcribed and then edited and specifically in the case of to the final edits were done by the Al's grandson the who even included uh some notes in okay so at any rate the point is this concept that the Raging Waters described in shirim are the worries about our material security not putting out the fire means that it doesn't diminish the love the innate love the soul has for God that concept comes from as far back as the Al and and was rearticulated in various discourses of the previous R okay yeah all perhaps on a good day I can talk to and don't let me get so far away from you yeah however my bigger concern is I OPP okay it's a valid point for those who didn't hear the question question was all right so this mimer is promising me that I won't lose my love of Hashem but I'm not actually worried about that I'm worried about if I've lost hashem's love that's more of my uh concern here so I have two answers for you one is maybe that's a subject of a different M maybe that won't be addressed here second answer is maybe sometimes when there's a relationship that's dysfunctional or it's starting to fall apart and we feel that we're unloved or we question if we're loved or we question if we're appreciated and we don't like how we're being treated sometimes when we pause and look more deeply we find out that maybe some of the things we're picking up on are a reflection of what we've been putting out so it's possible possible I'm just saying it's possible that you may discover that your path to remedying what you perceive as a lack of Love of Hashem to you may be accessible through cultivating Your Love or magnifying Your Love of him right but in a parent child relationship we don't have the child do that work the that has to ex yeah andity so I would suggest to you then if you're you're mentioning the parent child relationship I would suggest to you then that that's perhaps precisely why King Solomon is using the metaphor of marriage because we're talking about that type of relationship so don't think about it as why does my tati neglect me think about it like my spouse and I are in a committed relationship and I'm not feeling the love and perhaps perhaps it's because I'm not being loved or perhaps it's because I'm not loving or perhaps a little bit of both and if I can learn how to tap into my love of my spouse maybe I'll come to feel more loved maybe maybe yeah two questions but first based on that our our whole interpretation of Hashem is that he is our father and not our spouse that's not a that's not true first of all never make a categorical statement categorical statements are always wrong thank you for getting that joke okay that itself was a categorical statement don't say our whole relationship with hasem no that's not true there are different contexts there no that no there are different Contex texts sometimes he's our father sometimes sometimes he's our King in this case we're talking about him as our as our spouse our husband there are different contexts and we use the context that's most helpful remember Hashem is infinite he's not limited to any of these descriptions these descriptions are for our sake to help us in particular contexts so the helpful context the way that King Solomon is contextualizing this aspect of the relationship is that of husband and wife so that's going to be the helpful Paradigm okay my other question was that that the m is describing as instinctive and natural love but Instinct and and nature seems easier to access even in troubling times it's our Instinct right like my instinct it could be super stressed out but my instinct is directing me telling me how it when it comes to our love for Hashem sometimes it doesn't feel instinctual or natural in those anxious yeah but that's precisely the point that it is instinctive and natural and therefore at worst we've lost touch with it but it's never gone and it's always there and it's not something we have to learn it's something we have to turn to so this is part of the message here is that we're talking about something that should be I don't want to call it easy because it's not easy it's hard work but simple to fix because we're not asking you to become something we're asking you to tap into to tap into something that's there and maybe you lost access to it but that's all it is you lost access doesn't feel like it yeah it doesn't feel like it you're right right that's cuz we lost access to it but it's still there sometimes uh isn't it why it's called a voida it's why it's called a VOA because it's work yeah yeah even tapping into something that's already there is called work what we GNA say I'm confused about the two categories of this there's those who don't struggle for livelihood and maybe don't relate to this stream of anxiety and then there are those trying eat and trying to give their kids food and if they don't think about their livelihood then their kids starve to death okay I think so the connection of love to hasem to me like it's not relating to do to dot okay so let's break it down here first of all when you're saying there are people who are wealthy and don't think about money and people who are poor and they're thinking about it all the time it's actually not true not in the extreme I'm just saying a lot of people are not struggling with anxiety livelihood right but that's not because of how much money they have people who are not experiencing anxiety over finances is not has actually zero correlation to how much money they have zero zero zero I think people could afford their bills there's definitely some Rel of you would think you would think yeah no there's zero correlation between how much money somebody has and how much they worry about money in fact some of the people the most about it or the people who have the most of it um but that wasn't your main point your I think your main point was I think you were responding sort of from an emotional place and you were saying well what if there's somebody who is worried they can't feed their family I think I this is what I picked up from your question it was more like somebody can't pay their bills and they can't feed their family why are you categorizing their worries as a lack of Love of God right well it's very simple because any preoccupation whether it's about money or anything else that takes your mind it pulls your focus is going to diminish your ability to focus on God so that's what we're saying we're saying a person would like to sit and learn more Torah or to pray at length and they just can't calm down and do it because they're thinking about the bills so it's not a judgment see here's the thing you got to understand something this is not a judgment it's not a judgment if somebody comes to the doctor and says it hurts when I walk it's not a judgment it's a it's a it's a fact we're not saying oh you Wicked person why is it hurting you when you walk so when somebody says I'm so preoccupied with money I can't think about God it's not a judgment it's it's just a fact the person is saying this this is the situation right now so we're not putting the person down by saying that's their their situation we're describing we're describing the facts I can't focus I can't focus I can't I can't meditate forget about meditating I I I can't relax and just be and tap into my I'm just in survival mode and my brain is is focused on that so that's what we're talking about we're talking about somebody who is concerned that because of the fact that they're in a in a physical world with physical needs they're not really able to tap into their spirituality and what we're telling them is don't worry being embodied and being in a physical world is not going to diminish your spirituality if you will listen and let us explain you will come to see how it will actually enhance your spirituality not automatically it has to be understood does this make sense what I'm saying here sounds really good sounds good yeah how we doing on time got a little time still okay let's continue here we're on chapter two first chapter is a short chapter okay now that EBA starts to analyze the exact wording the language that the AL ever used he used the word teos preoccupation or anx xiety about a livelihood it says it's a verse from tum from Psalms when you eat of the toil or the labor the work of your hands you eat from the work of your hands and it's known meaning this is something that's said in many places that the reason that the wording there in the that chapter of Psalms is the work of your hands means as he's about to explain the work of your hands not the work of your mind and heart that when you're earning a living you should invest your hands not your mind and heart now what does that mean do you do your work mindlessly no it doesn't mean that but hands means your extraneous uh capacity aties and mind and heart means your internal capacities that when you're making a living you shouldn't put your deepest self into it there should be something you do superficially meaning to say don't take it home with you don't identify with it don't make it your your identity and who you are and don't make it where you receive your validation and your meaning in life and your purpose in life do it because it's a means to an you have to make a living okay so make a living the G story you want to request stories here yeah okay why not no problem okay request for the galasa story there was a who spent the shabis in laich by theab and he owned a gashes manufacturing Factory and because he was the factory owner he was worried about the factory and he would think about it and uh even on chabus he was preoccupied with what's going to happen on Sunday at the business so after chabas theab said to him you know it's very funny I've seen many people with their feet in their gashes this is the first time I've met somebody with his head in his gashes yeah so put your hand put your hands into your work don't put your head in your heart into your work even though we know that one's livelihood in this world comes through natural means in other words you can't just sit on the couch and say God make my livelihood materialize miraculously in front of me we know that it has to go through natural channels and therefore there has to be some hisas some normal effort we caught making a vessel there has to be some type of physical action that can receive the blessing like the verse says Hashem will bless you in everything that you do everything that you do in other words of course the source of the livelihood is hashem's blessing but what you receive it through or what you draw it down with is your action so you have to do something your doing doesn't generate the livelihood but you're doing creates a natural vessel within which to receive that livelihood so you have to do something so we know you have to do something but then you you can't get carried away either yeah do something but it should be your G it should be your extraneous capacities don't get so deep into it what the says it's so relevant in this case is that yes you if you want to make a certain amount of money you decide which career is going to give you that money and pursue that career you're right but at that point you know you don't invest all your energy and thought and mind into it because it's all a funnel from has right it's just a it's just a pipeline right because Hashem wants what we call deniable plausibility he wants an alibi he wants to say it wasn't a a miracle that you received your livelihood so he needs you to provide a uh an alibi for him which is doing something that could naturally explain how your livelihood came to you but um you shouldn't get carried away with it just providing Hashem deniable plausibility so he can give you your livelihood without us identifying as a miracle so don't get carried away yeah we said that now now sometimes indeed granted there will be y it says y the toil of your hands toil means hard work it could be that you will have to work hard we're not telling you you're not going to have to work hard but even when you work hard it should be get it should be the toil of your hands and again I don't mean we have to be all manual laborers we don't have to all be ditch diggers but I'm saying hand symbolizes your more extraneous capacities don't put your deep thoughts and emotions into your means for making a living so we only invest our strous capacities do not invest your inner capacities your more lofty capacities that are in the mind and heart you know why because to put your mind and heart into your living is misappropriation you given a mind and a heart you're not an animal you're a human you were given the capacity to think deeply and to feel deeply in a uniquely human way why were you given that capacity for one reason to direct it toward your relationship with Hashem and in fact that is the purpose for which you were created so to take that capacity or those capacities of mind and heart and to apply them to anything else is misappropriate ation it already has a purpose for which it was designed yeah sounds you saying if your job is teaching or psychology so do you get paid to teach or do you get paid to submit lesson plans to the administration I tell people when I speak I don't get paid to speak I love speaking I get paid to sit on a plane so that's the part of it that's cap the part of it that's Capa right is booking the gig and getting the plane tickets and getting to JFK and making the flight if I wanted to I could get really really deeply connected to all that stuff and I could spend a lot of time with that silly stuff and have have to remember to keep a distance from it but if you're talking about the part of your job that's actually not a job it's actually itself part of your service of your creator yeah that put your put your whole soul into sure there are different aspects of a job but some people have jobs where you know they are ditch diggers so what do you want them to do they dig the ditch and then they uh they don't put themselves deeply into it maybe even while they're ditch digging they're thinking about God but uh depends on the type of job that you have some of us have jobs that are very interwoven with our Aus Hashem some people are not so lucky and they have a job and the way that they make it holy is after they're finished working they take that money and spend it on holy things like giving Sedaka and giving their children a Jewish Education and so on and so forth the point is that the the mundane aspect of your job whatever proportion of your job is mundane don't get so deeply invested in it emotionally or or mentally that's the point and is this idea something we should generalize to everything in our life yes yes now we're talking here specifically about making a living but it could be other mundane things sure sure absolutely yeah it just seemes like so many hours of your life like if you're working a full-time job yeah eight nine hours a day you're supposed to like compartmentalize these mundane activities and not be in the spiritual mindset and then you go home and like for a couple hours after work and so 90% of your day you're in like autopilot just coasting through the mundane stuff but it's also but it's also spiritual because when serve business wise to be ethical you have to treat your coworkers with that's all you're also serving Hashem that way in fact that's the most important way diter has to be nice to the animals living in the Burrows and be nice to his fellow ditch diggers so let me get more yeah exactly specific about what we're talking about tiosa doesn't so much mean focusing on the task that you do in order to make money it's more about when we speak about your mental and emotional investment what we really mean is not the task meaning when you do something do it well whatever it is if you if you dig ditches or you you stock a warehouse whatever you do do it well pay attention to it do it well what we're talking about is the preoccupation so while you're doing the job what's on your mind oh I got four more hours and how much am I getting paid per hour and then the end and that's going to be this amount of money and then they're going to take this amount of taxes and this is my credit card bill so that you could be thinking in your mind while you're working which many people are thinking that or you could be thinking here's what I'm doing right now let me just keep it simple and focus on doing what I'm doing well and if I have any other head space I'll think about God maybe even I'll think about the fact that God is right here right now maybe I'll look for opportunity to serve God right here while I'm working but what we're really talking about is not well be on autopilot while you're working that's not what we mean we're saying to whatever extent there's extra head space where are you applying it like while you're working and you have extra head space are you preoccupied about your bills or are you pre occupied with how you can be useful to hasem that's what we're talking about is there any space within the concept of moving up in your career or or aiming for Success monetarily is there any spiritual space for that any in is there any spiritual space for having Ambitions in your career yes yes but you have to be very careful with it it's a practical thing a lot of us especially men that's a sexist statement but I think it's true attach an an in an inordinate amount of emotional significance to their success in the workplace and it becomes incredibly important in their entire self-concept and that's precisely what we're saying not to do so is there a place for having a plan how you're going to get promoted and how you're going to grow your business or whatever of course just like there's a plan for having the job that you have now there's a plan for having a better job but don't get so emotionally attached that's what we're saying okay let's try to finish up this chapter because the way that we make a living is you have to do Irish stas you have to do natural normal things so obviously it's going to take some amount of thinking it's going to take some amount of thinking but it should just be what's necessary don't overthink it and definitely don't take it home with you and don't stay up at night thinking about it it shouldn't be with and I don't know how you would translate that but like overthinking and kiving and kiving means like like like nasty stuff where you're going to do something unethical this doesn't necessarily mean doesn't mean unethical it means obviously crossing the line of like doing something unethical is is wrong but we're saying even here like even if it's purely kosher but just a lot of thinking and you know like Ralph cramden you guys American you know who Ralph cramden was I'm old I don't get it is it an old refence Ralph cramden was a bus driver his best friend worked in the sewer he lived in a little one room apartment in the city and he was always coming up with these money-making schemes how he's going to finally make it make it rich he was obsessed with these silly money-making schemes okay we know that it is's blessings that provide wealth the job you do is just a garment it's just a vessel or a conduit to carry the blessing your work is not the source of your livelihood big misc misconception the the work you do is not the source of your livelihood the work you do is a vessel to contain the livelihood but the livelihood is hm's blessing and like we know this is from the from a of the that it's like clothing that if you're clothing is too big it's not functional if you if you say oh you know what I'll do I like this suit you know what make it even better make it 10 sizes more but now you're tripping on it so you have to think about I mean the word in Hebrew is Lush which literally means clothing but Lush also means the the pathway of investure how the blessing gets gets processed and transmitted so Lush doesn't just mean clothing it means a a conduit that means a vessel so just like you wouldn't say oh I got a great idea if I like this suit of clothes I know how to make it better I'll make it bigger but yeah but that's not functional now you're going to trip on it you're not making it better you're actually making it making it you're turning it into an impediment you're going to trip on it so too bigger is not necessarily better so if you say oh I'm working this hard and I'm making this amount of money I know what I'll do I'll I'll work even harder I'll put even more of myself into it it's not how it works really yeah really you see there are people who work very hard and never get ahead and other people who they fall backward into money and somehow they have a system that works yeah what it's only hasem that decides who gets what just oh yeah that that hard work is not proportionate to financial succcess it's totally not we see that we see the schwitzer who work so hard and they just never get ahead it's not about hard work maybe not hard physical work but maybe some people work like smarter they just have that yeah I I know very smart people who yeah those people usually become Consultants by the way the guys who have great business plans but they never succeeded in business they become Consultants I promise you because if they needed the money if they were succeeding in their own businesses they wouldn't be Consultants I have to tell you that [Music] okay this is what it means preoccupation with making a living so even when you're in a situation where you are preoccupied about money which the rebba says here means that apparently you weren't thinking clearly enough about the fact that the source of your livelihood is only hashem's blessing if you were clear on the fact that the source of your livelihood is only's blessing you wouldn't be worried about working more but since you weren't clear on that fact you're thinking a lot about working more nevertheless and this is the big Point here he even when you're in that situation which is not a good situation to be in but even when you're in that situation it will not extinguish the love now that requires explanation because it sounds a whole lot like it does extinguish the love or at least diminish the love but what we're going to explain this is what you got to come back for is that even when you succumb to these preoccupations which if you were in a more spiritual mode of thinking you wouldn't succumb to it but even when you do succumb to it it's not going to take you away from Hashem how is it not going to take me away from Hashem it already did it already did take me away from hm and you tell me it won't we're going to explain that's what you got to come back for that's the Cliffhanger yeah why do we like why do I if I came away from a if I already so this is the this is the constant conflict of the Jew that we think that we don't care we're like teenagers who tell our parents yeah we we don't need you and then we see how long we can go and before it starts knowing away at us so we really always do care we always care so we're never not we're never not caring we wish we could not care right it would be easier it would be much easier then we wouldn't come here then we wouldn't come here that's right that would h