Why Does Inspiration Fade? - The Secret to Genuine Growth - Rabbi Shmuel Reichman

[Music] have you ever noticed that when it comes to human experience things always tend to start out really inspiring really incredible almost like a high and then it almost like falls apart and the question is why this happens to almost all human experience for example when it comes to relationships relationships usually start out incredible they're amazing fresh exciting and then as time goes by they start to get through teen boring almost robotic when it comes to eating food when you when you start out a meal every single bite is delectable it's mouth-watering it's delicious halfway through the meal you're just eating that seem excitement that you once had just falls away and the question is why and this happens in life itself when when you're young you have that energy that excitement the dreams the ambition and a lot of people as they go through life they start to lose that inspiration that they once had and the question is why did I shine create us in a way that we start out with that inspiration with that first stage of excitement but then we have the second stage where that inspiration fades and this actually connects to a very famous gamar and NIDA that flavin M obeys the Gemara says that when you were a fetus you're going to call a Torah Kula all of Torah and you saw reality through a crystal clear lens a mile who's teaching you everything you were in this angelic state of being but then right before you were born the camera says something absolutely enigmatic something which doesn't make any sense it says right before you were born then I'll hit you on the mouth and you forgot everything so the question is why make you forget it if you're gonna go through this first stage of inspiration where you know everything why make you forget it but even more fundamentally why teach it in the first place if you're gonna make him forget it so you're gonna forget it why did you have to learn it in the first place so if you got resolved there I'm Hal the Vilna Gaon and many other Jewish thinkers explain one of the most fundamental Indy principles they say the every single process has three stages the first stage is a gift it's that inspiration it's that high but it's not real it's an illusion it's not earned it's not something which you invest in and created it's just a gift and that's why it has to fade away so that you can go through that second stage which is building it yourself which is creating that light in the darkness which is going through the stage where it's difficult where it's hard where you have to build it and then there's the third stage which is where you're back at that original first stage but this time it's real this time you earned it this time you put in your effort you it's a manifestation of yourself and this time it's real and you can just think of it you need that first stage you need to know the destination you need to know the goal if you don't know where you're aiming at if you don't know the endpoint the goal the destination you can't achieve anything I mean just think for example let's say you have the greatest arch man in the entire world person who could hit any shot with a bow and arrow but if you blindfold him even if he's just a couple feet away from the target if you blindfold him and start turning him around he's not gonna hit the target because he has no idea where he's aiming you need to know where you're aiming at if you're gonna hit the target it's a beautiful macho beautiful analogy just think about a father teaching a child to learn how to walk when the father teaches a child to learn how to walk the child for the first time is being lifted off of all fours and the first time that child is walking on just two feet and in that child mind it's ecstatic oh my gosh like this is incredible I can walk but then every single time the father teaches their child to walk what does the father do the father lets go and you can just imagine a child thinking that this is amazing I can learn how to walk in just when he feels excited just when he feels like so close to his father or his mother he feels betrayed that father let him go he falls to the floor why would he do that and again this happens and again this happens in every single time this child thinks he can walk and thinks he's building such a close relationship with his father or mother the father let's go why because eventually when the five let's go the child won't fall eventually the child will learn how to walk and will realize better actively that is only because the father let go that he was able to finally walk the father was holding him so that the child can do what he's supposed to do he can see the destination but only once the father lets go into that second stage where you're by yourself and you have to build it yourself only then can the child when I walk and this is really how the Vilna Gaon explains the Gomera needa and that Flaman are based so beautifully he says that when you were learning kolitar cool it doesn't mean you were learning commission Oishi it means that you are learning your tour you are seeing reality it with a crystal clear lens but we're also seeing everything that you are supposed to become in your lifetime your Torah your purpose your task and your potential everything that you were meant to accomplish which fits into the grander scheme of reality but then you lost it because that's not real you have to then coming to this world to build it yourself to choose it to use your freewill your but here scoffs just to becoming manifest who you're meant to become and that's why there doesn't gonna explain that you didn't forget everything you learned you lost access to it it's still there in your subconscious but you don't have access to it that's also why the Vilna Gaon explains that when you learn something deep you don't have a feeling like you're learning something you have a feeling almost like you're recognizing it almost like it's it's clicking why is it clicking because you did once learn it you're just rediscovering what you already know and that's why the Gemara above them and see enough daffy revolve on the bays it says that if you try really hard to learn something and you don't succeed you've got evil oh it's awesome we don't believe him and if what were your documents us a person says I even try hard and I succeeded we also employed him only if he says you got human saw see I tried really hard and I succeeded so the question is why you got to you Matt saw see but see I mean something that you find why are we connecting succeed succeeding and learning to finding a lost object but Vilna Gaon explains because you are finding what was already inside you you're not learning something new you're relearning you're doing cause are you're resurfacing you read the sky furring and you're recognizing what was once there and that's also why when it comes to education you're not like a blank slate like there's nothing in your mind your mind is tapped into reality you're simply gaining access to what's deep within your own subconscious and also this really opens up the whole concept of desire human desire we desire things we've tasted for example you might desire a pizza or chocolate or ice cream or steak because you've tasted it before no one I know has a desire for kosher locusts or bugs even though in the Eastern countries those are delicacies because you've never tasted before that's disgusting and but you know if you think about it you have a desire for yabba Kula now because it doesn't exist I mean it up you can't desire something that you haven't tasted before and the reason we have such desires for example marriage the Gemara says that when you before you were born you and your wife for 101 in the shower just like Adam and Chava were one in dragoness being one essence before they were broken up into two you and your wife before you were born were one neshama you're broken up in this world the reason you have such a desire and craving to recreate that oneness is because a truth that's you that's also why we have such a desire for wisdom for greatness for meaning for purpose because when you were learning cult or a cooler when you were being shown your purpose you had it you tasted it and you lost that first is an inspiration so that you can come into this world to create and manifest yourself that's why the Rambam famously gives the analogy that life is like walking through a forest at night in the rain when it's stormy and you can't see anything and then there are flashes of lightning and for a moment everything is clear you see reality that's that moment of inspiration but that lightning fades and then you're left with the memory of that first stage of inspiration then you have to build your path that you build your journey back to that original light if the building the darkness so what we need to do is we need to hold grab hold of that stage of inspiration that first stage that gift and then we have to learn to journey in that second thing to build it for ourselves because ultimately we will get to that third stage that third stage which is back to that original first is but this time it's real this time it's our in this times it's yours forever because you built it yourself [Music] you [Applause]