Fire On The Mountain - Divine Intuition and Personal Responsibility

[Music] give on the event we were privileged to have Mendel Horowitz which I'll introduce short they just wanted to mention the tonight she is in a refresher Leila for Orly rock how about you woody truth and Annalise neshama for tango when you just passed away this past we get to bask on your Sophia actually remind everyone to turn their cell phones on silent and we have posters in the back for their other upcoming events really great stuff a special pest event that's not being amortized over there but September 6 we are having a hands-on press event at Eleazar we're looking forward to getting new volunteers it will be very not just inspirational we really feel you doing something how to take anymore of the ropes time away but there's a puss ik becoming more and more familiar with the buff success part of the concept is Cassidy I met who part of only kind acts kind acts and truth atone for sin and we're now at hello take a little more seriously how abide it should continue through the year but it's a good reminder that we are now in heaven and so I just want to introduce the topic to the rub and Lou it about the red light the topic is fire on the mountain that's the title and is regarding divine intuition and personal responsibility which is you know key on for he'll probably mental Horowitz is a family therapist and you sure lion where he maintains private practice working with children it was brother very well and I can't wait to use to say I like her I post him said he knows my brother he doesn't know me personally and you never heard me speak and he doesn't know what I'm gonna be speaking about so I don't know why he thinks it's gonna be so fabulous I guess I'd like to hear more from you if you think it's as fabulous as he hopes it's good I guess I just want to start with two sentences about myself do you know where I'm coming from and then I actually want to begin with a question like a repost and said I'm a family therapist but I'm not here tonight as a family therapist he did not mention that for the past 20 years I've been teaching in a yeshiva in Harnois Alliance for American teenagers who come to Israel for a year more Modern Orthodox community boys who come to study for a year or two or three before they go back to America to study in universities so my experience teaching is mainly teaching teenage boys I think this will probably be the first time ever that I'm speaking to a mixed gender one yes which is a little different than what I'm used to so I'm coming both from the perspective of having been a teacher in twenty years and I guess from the perspective of having been a therapist and that's why I chose to speak about what I'm going to be speaking about but I'm really not speaking as a rabbi or as a therapist rather as a human being and I think that this time of year which I want to talk a little bit about what this time of year actually is I find myself no different than anybody else trying to self reflect and trying to become better in whatever way that means to me and I want to share with you one of the struggles that I have and a point where I find that there's a little bit of a conflict the title fire on the mountain refers to Mount Sinai which we will talk about in a moment and divine intuition and personal responsibility where does one start and the other end where is it that we are responsible for making our lives better where is it that we can make an effort towards making our lives better and where is it that as we will talk a little bit perhaps about the 12 steps where is it that we admit that we are powerless and we ask a higher power to take over because we can only get so far with our own efforts so I want to start with a story last week I was camping with my family and it was about I would say 12:00 or 1:00 in the morning and it was dark and we had a little flashlight and one of the actually a niece of mine came to the adults that he said whoops I fell in the water and there was a little pond next to where we were camping and she had slipped and fell into the water and she had lost her sunglasses which she claimed were ray-bans she was all distraught a teenage girl lost my sunglasses and this was the middle of the night the water was dark and muddy and I said don't worry I will find them I have a professional and at the time I had absolutely no idea what I was talking about I was just trying to calm her down figuring in the morning I'll go somehow look for the Sun rises which I did I walked into the water and I did find her sunglasses in the bottom of this pool muddy dirty water and at the time that I found the sunglasses I started to think to myself well that was obviously lucky right there's absolutely no way that I'm professional enough to find sunglasses at the bottom of a muddy pond so what was it exactly that I did that allowed me to find those sunglasses I don't think that an expert sunglass recover I don't I didn't have any special equipment I just really got lucky but what I did was I put myself in a position to get lucky and I think that's what I want to talk about where is it that we could put in our effort and then where is it that luck or whatever luck is takes over does anybody have anything to say about that it's quite maybe we could start with a question for you if that topic sounds like something that you want to hear about yes okay so let's I feel like starting with another short introduction and that introduction is from the rum huh I don't know how many of you have heard of the rum how the rum Kyle was a little introduction over here Moshe fine would Sato from the 1700s a very famous thinker writer rabbi Kabbalists and he wrote a book called the Missy lassie charm the path of the just and he begins his book by stating al mohammed father a fever has LOC barthélemy Linnea other ASA Shelia guru he did not write his text to teach people anything that they did not know and what he goes on to explain is that the purpose of this book was on the contrary to remind people something that they intuitively know and to recommend to people that only as a result of reviewing and reviewing and reviewing and working and working and working will what they intuitively know actually be brought out and they will actually be able to actualize what it is that they know and the similar taking a cue from rabbi al Assad though I don't want to teach anybody anything that they don't know I don't think I'm going to teach you something that you don't I think anybody who wants to grow anybody who wants to change anybody who has habits that they want to get rid of I think everybody here knows themselves I think everybody here knows what works for them and what doesn't work for them and they don't really need me to tell them that but let's start with what this time of year really is because they think it's historically speaking people sometimes don't know why is LL so important well L is a month on the heating calendar and it comes before Tishri Tishrei is the first month on the Hebrew calendar which makes ll the last month and what's so special about this time of year in order to really understand what's so special we have to go back in time we go back in time to pace up Mesa happened in Mesa which according to another way of calculating the Jewish calendar is also the first month there are two ways of counting either Nissan is the first month or Tishrei is the first month but without really getting into the details of that discussion Pesach we the Jewish people got out of them it's Ryan on pace up right now coming out of the trying month pace up everybody who had the Seder and everybody who experienced pace off we talk about pace up being a time of freedom emancipation people are stuck in a place where they want to get out of and it's very easy to use it as a metaphor for personal growth and development because you respect somewhere where you don't want to be your slave - whatever habits that you have and you want to get out of that situation and you want to grow and you want to change and that's what the Jewish people did when they left me trying but we know that when we left Egypt it wasn't simply that we wanted to be free because the word freedom could mean a lot of different things somebody once said freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose and there's lots of different understandings of what freedom means but the word freedom according to the Torah means that we want our choices to make a difference that is the freedom that we began the process of freedom when we left miss Ryan and that process of leaving the tryam and that process of emancipation was not complete until we received the Torah so if you count up the days after we left them in triumph what happens next on the Jewish calendar is the holiday huh sure would and in between Pesach and she world is what we call spirit to Omer where we count the owner seven week seven times seven and then comes the holidays reward now if I asked everybody what happened on the holiday of should walk I'm pretty sure because I've done this before that I would get a similar answer for most of the people in the audience so I'm not gonna say it out loud but I will tell you what I assume that you would say if I said what happened in truth most people would say we got the Torah and that's the answer that my children give and that's the answer that students give and it's not true we did not get the Torah on it what happened was we heard the Ten Commandments the revelation happened on that day where we were told the Ten Commandments either by Moses or by God but we didn't actually receive anything swallowed that for a second trust me on it it's true we did not get anything we heard the Ten Commandments and that was the culmination of the exodus from Egypt because now after we heard that and we entered into a covenant with God now our choices made a difference now we were able to choose between good and bad and right and wrong and everything should have been according to plan except that it wasn't because what happened on tour was we heard the 10 commandments and then Moshe abaga Moses went back up the mountain and he was supposed to come down 40 days later with the Ten Commandments on the tablets and forty days after Shahrukh was the day when the Jewish people sinned with the Golden Cap and that day is commemorated as a fast day the 17th of Thomas so historically speaking as of the 17th day of time as the Jewish people still had not received anything other than that original revelation that had happened on Shiva Moshe Rabbeinu went back up the mountain for another 40 days so far it's two sets of 40 it's 80 and he came down again on Rosh Chodesh L the beginning of Ellis and even still then the Jewish people had not repented enough for their sin of the golden calf so Moshe Rabbeinu went back up onto the mountain for a third set of forty days and forty days after a foolish L is Yom Kippur right so Yom Kippur is a special day not because it's a day of atonement we know that it's a day of atonement because that was the day when we finally received the second set of MU code the second tablets and that is really the culmination of some process that begins that began with the Exodus in Mesa so the plan of the year that we are in right now what L is is the beginning of a forty day time period in which most are beta was up on the mountain for the third set of 40 days beseeching God for His forgiveness for the sin of the golden calf so the reason why this is a year of introspection and rejuvenation and renewal and repentance is because that's historically what it was and it was during those last 40 days that he was on the mountain where most Rebecca was actually successful and forty days later he came down with the second set of the lulav so if you want to know when we really got the Torah we've got the Torah on Yom Kippur okay so that's the history of ll that's the history of the time period that we are in now applause if anybody has a comment or a question or a thought right well okay so we did not receive the actual and you say the Torah we did not receive the Hunnish right we did not receive the five books of Moses they weren't written yet right they were written either throughout the 40 years in the desert or at the end of the 40 years in the desert but correct what we did receive were the actual tablets okay Moshe even came down with the actual tablets and in addition to that an oral teaching correct and horrible yeah but what we received were the actual tablets and receiving those actual tablets was a tangible sign that we were forgiven right when they sinned with the golden calf on the 17th day of Tamas that's the day one motion broke the first tablets which was a terrible thing and receiving the second set of tablets was an actual tangible sign that we will forgive him so when we observe Yom Kippur in another thirty something days what we are observing is a day in which we receive the ultimate forgiveness but by finally receiving the actual Commandments in stone okay and that's one the next thing on this paper is taken from Alcoholics Anonymous I don't know how many people are familiar with it I'm familiar with it just for reading I'm familiar with it a little bit from different people over the years who I've met who struggled with addictions and I find this set of 12 this this I don't even know what to call them and I don't want to call them the wrong thing but I think they're astoundingly beautiful and I think that by reading through them which I don't want to do right now they could really be a guide for self-help for personal growth for religious growth for spiritual growth for anybody and I'm not the first person to notice that many many many great greater than me rabbis and teachers educators have made that connection before but one of the things that stands out from the 12-step program and again the reason why I'm mentioning the 12-step program is because what that is is really a program for people who want change and repentance which is really a terrible word because it's only sounds so Christian is is is really not the right word chuhwa really means to return and what we're interested in is bringing out something within us that's natural bringing out I guess more of who we want to be and who we can become and that happens as a result of an introspective process and it also happens as a result of asking for help now the question is who do you ask for help from so the way that the 12-steps conceives of a Power greater than ourselves refers to humbly asking for the removal of shortcomings and the defects of character and themes that are very much in line with as Orthodox Jews we believe are part of our growth particularly at this time of year but one thing stands out and that is going back and forth between doing I don't know if the word fierce is here a fierce moral inventory of where a person will sit and actually think what is it about my life that I want to be different what is it about my life that I want to change and taking responsibility for that and at the same time how could you take responsibility if you're saying that you're powerless where's that power for your change going to come from if it can't come from within see it's almost a paradox if you're powerless then you don't have the power to change but you need power to change but you're powerless so what exactly are you supposed to do and how are you supposed to get further in this journey towards towards returning so if you turn to the next page I want learn with you something studying with me something that I find to be incredibly fascinating it's from a safer quality hobo Kalevala which in case you haven't picked up on I don't really speak Hebrew that way I would say the colossal vamos I don't know how many people here speak that dialect the Hebrew but the clove of Kalevala or the photocell above us or the duties of the heart whatever you want to call it was written by a rabbi and Wikipedia calls in the philosopher rabbi bhakti eben pakua and Raman mafia even khuda' composed what really is a book through which people can grow and change and live and learn and develop on the one hand using their own power and is in a moment we will see really relinquishing or admitting that we are powerless and needing to rely on divine intervention so the part that I want to study with you is the Sharmini sharp edge one on method and there's original Hebrew on top and then italics is I don't really know how literal the translation is I found it a lot so in this chapter the author of Ibaka women pagoda is talking about it's it's not at the beginning of the book you see it's the 8th gate so there were already seven gates of personal growth and development by then but at this stage of the process he says what a person needs to do is fishbone oh I'm not sure Almaty should be at home in my Sabo the a person needs to look inside and discover within him or herself what he or she is actually capable what are my abilities like looking in the mirror and saying this is what I can do this is what I can't do I really need to be honest and sometimes people are not honest with themselves sometimes people think that they can't do something and they really can and some of those people they catch something and they really can't and what he's talking about is a really serious type of introspection where a person comes to understand really what is within his ability and what isn't that's step one and step two is lajas middle of the yard sviyaga rats last Sousa odd touch of low lumenok I see there's a misprint there but a person needs to go over I don't know who's following in the Hebrew or the English there's a misprint in Hebrew but a person needs to review after he or she discovers what he's capable of then needs to review that again and again and again and again and again until it becomes second nature and after it becomes second nature I'm going back and forth myself between the English the avocado Stradella host of Amish HP occulta but yet some low Balibo by Allah all over my shaft oh but you show me I'll tell lesra Allah I'm so Ali oh sorry much the HP occult dominate idea my Sabbath so if you go along in the first paragraph there in the English what he says is that a person needs to do a moral inventory a person needs to think and a person needs to be diligent and review over and over and over again what am i capable of and one of my thing capable of and what am I really really really capable of and incapable of and I need to review that over and over and over until it becomes second nature and then one what do you do after it becomes second nature then you beg God to give you an ability that is beyond your current ability so what he's talking about is what we mentioned before this junction between how much can I actually do and then at what point do I need to step back and say I can't do anymore I need some help here but when do you reach that stage so according to him you reach that stage only after what in English I'm just reading in English diligence and zealous introspection that a person turns into a habit and when one persevere is more and more in this to create a wolf fulfill his request and open for him the gates of his understanding and he continues with the man he doesn't yes on the next page page three an analogy and talking about the skill of the trade and this is where perhaps we can go back to the sunglasses and the month learning the skills of a trade and learning mathematics when one who learns a trade at the beginning we will do only parts of it accorded his understanding and less than his ability when his understanding of the trade strengthens and he persists in it the Creator will enlighten him to the general principles of the trade and his fundamentals and he will be able to deduce new branches which were not taught to him by other people now I don't know how many of you like to cook or like to fix cars just let's pick cooking and fixing cars if you've ever watched somebody cook who knows how to cook it looks like an intuitive process but it's not really an intuitive process because this person has spent years and years and years perfecting their process until it becomes intuitive and car mechanics are the same way if you bring your car to a car mechanic who's been working for many years he seems to intuitively put his ear to the engine and know what's going on but that's not really intuition that's an intuition that came after many many many years of hard work so too says rabbi bakiyev in pune with personal growth and development the person needs to know himself or herself and a person to be honest and fearless and moral and to look in the mirror and say this is what I can do and this is what I can do and if there's something that I can do that's little I'm going to do it over and over over and over and over again and if there's something that I can't do I'm gonna try to do it over and over and over and over and over again and what's gonna happen is at a certain point if you ask for it you will if you're lucky you will receive this divine gift and at that moment your your your efforts will change from the efforts of somebody who's working with his or her abilities to somebody who's working with efforts that are a little bit more intuitive and that intuition according to him is divine so there's a point where your efforts go too and then your efforts stop and the inspiration sort of takes over and if we change the word to inspiration really I mean anybody can Google for famous quotes of that inspiration everybody knows that inspiration only comes from somewhere right a person could be inspired but that inspiration usually comes from putting yourself in the right place at the right time and that as a result of effort so I want to move on any questions about that does anybody find that to be interesting I mean I found to be interesting because the 12 steps was does anybody know what you're and that's problem maybe the 1930s yeah 1937 12 reps came about in the 1930 the 1930s which was slightly after this book was written and I mean I just write and I just I just I just went through I don't like sitting and reading texts to people so I'm just sort of paraphrasing but if you go back and you read it inside you'll see that that's what he's talking about he's talking about a process through which a person takes responsibility for his abilities and his shortcomings and works on himself and works on himself and works on himself and works on himself and then get or herself and gets to a point where the divine takes over and then there's all of a sudden there's a revelation or an inspiration and you real hey wait a second I'm really now I'm working with the set of abilities that I never realized that I had and all of a sudden I'm able to do something that five minutes ago I wasn't able to do I see this this point this point where you switch is a difficult point to get to and the question is how you get to that point and I just want to share with you one foot from the Dobbin Inc in the morning I don't even know how to describe this in English so I'll just say in Hebrew there's a point in the in the morning prayers where we say the creation of the shema the morning Shema and before the morning Shema there's a number of different prayers different blessings before the Shahada and one of them mentions a bunch addition different attributes so to speak of or abilities of God and one of them is osika gushes that God renews he makes things new and actually the end of that blessing is we talk about how Mahad is the tool that God renews things in his creation we're not dealing with a static creation that was created a long time ago we're dealing with the creation that is rejuvenated daily we sometimes see it we sometimes don't see it and we sometimes try to tap into that energy where we feel rejuvenated on a daily basis and one of the ways that we do that is by praying and when we pray we say the statement that God is the one he renews and right next to that we say that God is the one who wages war right that's in bold it says over there Oh Sofia shows about milking us and there's a juxtaposition where we talk about God being the one who rejuvenates and God being the one who wages war and it dawned on me one morning why don't we say these two things together what is one thing have to do with the other what is the fact that there's a world that is rejuvenated daily what does that have to do with waging war and I think the answer is because it's really hard to rejuvenate it's really hard to do something new anybody who's ever had any kind of a habit it doesn't have to be an addiction it could be an addiction to I don't know something stupid it could be doesn't have to be an addiction to a substance it could be an addiction to a behavior it could be an addiction to a way of thinking it could be an addiction to anything and the only way to renew your relationship with that thing it's like a war I mean it's not like a war it is a war it's a battle it's a struggle it's oh my gosh I need to defeat an enemy so what we're saying in the in the prayer is that God does both of those things because we're acknowledging that renewing yourself and rejuvenating yourself is a paddle it's a war it's um it's combat it's like and that is what this time of year is it's not that okay it's all I'm gonna say a few little solemn sand blow horn and my life is gonna change its I need to go out to war and I need to fight a battle who has energy for that I know I don't after July and August or on vacation you go camping you go did this that and the other thing and all of a sudden somebody says hey guess what time to fight a war and I say well I don't really want to maybe ask me again sometime later I'm not interested in fighting right now but that's really what we have to do and if we want to get to Yom Kippur with any sense of renewal then we need to spend time fighting a battle so how do you fight battles because what we're saying is the only way to get that divine inspiration is if you fight about but where do you get the energy Battlefront so for that I want to learn with you something in the flesh and something very interesting in part is most in the partial where we wind up camping at our Cena and I it's written here in Hebrew in English and this is a quote from a safer called the Shamy Shmuel which was a hundred years and he said the following if you look in the flemish it says in schmoes para q-test chapter 19 of Cornish Ashley she would say Spanish realm and Xmas trying biomas at Bowman bar C night in the third month from the time that the Jewish people left Egypt on that day they arrived at Mount Sinai it's a simple marriage we left Egypt and Nissan and then we had the 49 days and then we arrived at Mount Sinai so the pus of the verse sets it up and says ok we arrived at Mount Sinai that's beautiful but if you look at the next first the next verse goes back and says by you soon we were feed them for home in Barcena we left a place called Rafi demand we arrived at Mount Sinai now the way that we understand the verses is they are very precise so verse number one said we arrived at Mount Sinai verse number two says we left the place where we previously were and we arrived at Mount Sinai but that doesn't make sense was the first person already said we arrived in the house honor is the question clear so if we which one was it when did we leave Mount Sinai and when did we when did we leave this place called roof Edom where we were before Mount Sinai and when do we arrive at Mount Sinai so the shade nation will sense an amazing thing to me when I say amazing you'll find it to be amazing but Rashi explains that the word repeated it's a name it's just the name of a place but at the finish the names of the places have have a meaning to them and repeated according to the way Rashi explains means that they were removed the word roughly means that you were removed from something and the way that the rabbi's understand this is that in this last town so to speak that the Jews were dead before they arrived at Mount Sinai they were removed from the whole idea of Sinai meaning in simple English they were at a low level and they really weren't ready for receiving the Torah and that's where they were they were actually physically in that place and they were emotionally in that place as well so here is where the shame be small this rabbi says what I find to be an amazing vision when you are in a situation that you cannot get out of when you are in a situation where you experience yourself as very distant from your goal how do you actually get out now once you get out you can start the process and you could start the process of working on yourself like we said before and struggling and waging war and getting this divine help but how do you actually take the first step which is the most impossible step to take so he says something fascinating he says that the first verse that says that we arrived at Mount Sinai we didn't really arrive there we arrived there in our imagination which I find to be amazing now if you look back again at the verses what he says is on the third month from when the Jewish people left Egypt on that day they arrived at Mount Sinai in their imagination and then the next verse says they traveled from point A to point B and they arrived at and what the shame you small is teaching us is that the only way to ever get out of that hole that you're in is to have a good imagination and if you could imagine yourself somewhere else then you can actually get somewhere but if you can't imagine yourself somewhere else you will never get anywhere you will net you you can't even start waging war because you can't imagine success you need to be able to close your eyes and imagine success even if you can't yet do it because if you could close your eyes and you can imagine success or you can keep the moment and imagine success that's even better then what happens is you can start the war and you can start the struggle and you can start the process and you can move yourself further and further away from that mindset to a mindset where maybe one day you will merit that divine intuition and at divine the imagination was possible but perhaps those people sitting in the room change dreams and imagination too sure so I will quote there from William plaintiff and go to Google and you're right you know inspirational quotes about imagination you'll get all kinds of things but this is one that I liked what is now proved was once only imagine I think that we've all experienced that in areas of our life where we imagined something and then we go out and do it but what usually happens is then we forget that that's how it started and it starts with imagination anything that we've ever done started with imagination anybody who came here tonight had a thought about what it was going to be like before they came here and if you could zero in on that imagination and you could apply that imagination to anything in life so then you can start a process of growth but you can't start a process of growth without at all first having a process of imagination anybody want to share something about their imagination so I just share one thing about myself like I said earlier I'm not an addict and I am not personally familiar with having worked through the 12 steps but I have a marathon runner I have completed complete marathons and when you say one step at a time it's really true you need to be able to imagine yourself somewhere you need to be able to visualize yourself at the finish line of whatever it is whatever processes whatever growth is whatever development is whatever situation you want to get out of every situation you want to be different you need to have that imagination and the question is where do you get that imagination from so some people get that imagination from looking at other people some people get that imagination from having groups that they attend where they hear about other people's struggles and they are inspired by that some people get that imagination by having close family and friends and very often you can get that imagination by looking at children who live in imaginary worlds and are always always always imagining new worlds and changing and their dynamic and they're sometimes people are old in years but young at heart and they have imaginations I know a rabbi of mine I had a neighbor a woman who was in her 90s and this woman showed up in his house once with a brand-new Shadle I'm looking around the room I don't see that many shape hills but I think everybody knows on the Chaika ways so everybody this woman walked into Martha's house with a new wig on and he was surprised and she was talking about her new wig and she said to him that she just wanted a new look you're 93 years old and this woman just wanted a new look so she went out and she bought herself a new wig and and and the story was so inspirational to my rabbi and he then passed it on to me where it really is a matter how old you are or how young you are where you could always be finding something in life that's new and exciting and fresh and if you could use your imagination you can get far so I just want to move on to what's the final thing on this paper and then we could perhaps relate it a little bit to rush Hashanah and then really if anybody has anything that they want to share I would like hearing from somebody else page four which is the back of this little pamphlet is a little piece over here from sobotka coin Rabinowitz of lublin who was from Lublin and according to wikipedia was a significant Jewish thinker and a scenic leader and he wrote a safer call that sidqa satanic and he describes something that is similar I think to what we've been discussing and to review what we've been discussing is the process through which a person takes responsibility for his or her life struggles and works hard has an imagination and at some point divine inspiration or or personal intuition kicks in and he describes the following process I'm going to read it in English not in the original Hebrew but the original people for anybody who wants as soon as a person wants to return and he's talking about returning to God returning to a better way he comes to purify himself and the law is to help him as it is written in your what this is referring to is the Gemara the tractate of yama and there is a saying in the Gemara above lata Messiah know so that if somebody comes to purify himself God will help him so what what what this rabbi said is that if a person comes to return then he gets divine help and then when a person gets the divine help the divine help causes him to want to return more and if he wants to return more then he gets more divine huh and I think you could all see where this is going so there's like a snowball effect and in the end success and as the key rights until the opening like the tip of a needle becomes like the opening of a Great Hall now in English it doesn't really sound exactly the way that it is in the Gemara but what this means is is that you can take a slight opening if a person has any type of slight opening in their heart or in their intellect or and that opening all of a sudden could become a vast opening for how does that happen it happens because of this process where you started and God helped and then you took the help and then you invested more so if you have more to invest then you invest more and then you get more return and then you invest more you get more return and before you know it the process is complete right and I think it's very beautiful but this rabbi of southwark was was was a serious person and after he finished writing that paragraph I could imagine he said wait a second there's a problem with this whole description and he himself asked the question and the problem is and yet how can we explain the many individuals who want to return and cannot prove community process because guess what it doesn't always work I can tell you that it didn't work sometimes I've started many many things there's a lot more things in my life that I've started then things that I've finished so it's really nice to describe this process where you start something and then you get this divine snowball effect and everything works out in the end but it doesn't always work out that way so how do we explain that how do we explain that people start things and don't finish them how do we explain that people have a moment where they want to become better and then they're just not able to become better or they can only become so much better and then they stop becoming better and then they fall slightly short of where they want to get who how how do we explain that and the answer that he gives is really mysterious and I don't really want to get into his answer because I don't really understand it but he says the only reason why it doesn't work is because there's some kind of Kabbalistic for lack of better word demon that gets in the way like according to nature it should work because you're coming to do something good and then God is helping you and then you should use that help and the snowball works but we see it doesn't work right how many people have seen that it doesn't work where you have good intentions and then in the end it falls through it that's more I've seen it so according to episodic he says that that not working is the result of some demon that comes and gets in the way let's not talk about that but the next paragraph is fascinating yeah I'm sorry right but right exactly we think and we think and we think and then in the end it doesn't it doesn't work so he says that that is because of this demon that comes but what he says in the next paragraph is astounding he says the antidote for the demon and my advice is to maintain happiness and confidence that surely hashem adam is abundant kindness and mercy will accept the repentance again it doesn't really sound this good in english but he says we have this demon getting involved this demon comes and gets the way how do we get rid of this demon he says you have to be happy and confident because even though it's not working now in the end it will work so what he's describing is a process like if we go back from the beginning we have this process that starts with imagination we imagine our lives being different and once we imagine our lives being different we start this process of introspection and becoming better and once we imagine and then we start this process of becoming better and we work on it then we get this divine help and sometimes this little demon gets in the way and how do we defeat this demon with happiness and confidence and what this rabbi says is if you think about the different sounds of the chauffeur that we blow blow different amounts different times but in the morning after chakras during a low blow shelter and the sound of the chauffeur the first blast is one long string blast and then you have three short ones and nine shorter ones and then you have another straight blast and in Hebrew we call that the takea the She'arim teruah and the takea and the Gemara tells us that the sound of the shofar and the sound of the true are supposed to mimic the sound of crying that's actually what the Gemara says so we are mimicking the sound of crying there are different ways that people cry some people cry in what the Gemara describes as the short way or the long way and one has a lot of short talents and one has broken up into other sounds but they're wailing their sounds of wailing and that wailing according to this rabbi are the is the wailing of the bitterness of this demon getting involved in our lives and not letting us fulfill where we want to get to but he says you have a long sound of joy at the beginning and a long sound of joy and what you need to have is a long sound of confident joy at the beginning and a long sound of confident joy at the end and in the middle yeah of course there's crying because this process is not easy because it's a battle and it's a struggle and like we said before it's a war and it's introspection is not pleasant and to look in the mirror and to see things that are not pretty is not pleasant and to struggle and to work hard towards any type of personal growth and development it's hard and it's you know it's nice to pretend and to dance around but the struggle inside is hard and difficult but what this rabbi says is you need to have that blast of the chauffeur at the beginning of the end because you need to have some type of confidence and some type of joy and within that confidence and that joy the struggle is in the middle so you need like a little sandwich of struggle with confidence and joy and imagination and what he describes is if you look through the Tulalip the Book of Psalms from from King David lots of what King David talks about are our struggles in life that he had from experiences that he had that were difficult experiences and he was pretty hard on himself you know you could open up the book and you'll see the way he talks about himself and he's pretty hard on himself but what this rabbi points out is even in those chapters where he's really hard on himself he starts off by singing a song and he ends off by singing a song and he sings a song at the beginning and a song at the end and in the middle he's really hard on himself so this time of year is that time exactly where we need to be harden ourselves because if we're not on hard on ourselves we really won't get anywhere and if you pretend to be interested or you don't or you're not moral you're not fearless or fierce enough with yourself then you won't change then you'll start to fool yourself but if you are fearless and you do struggle you need to struggle with a confidence and a joy and if you do struggle with an imaginative confidence and joy then we can get through the next 40 days and we can get the old Kippur and we can achieve that salvation and everybody and their own personal struggles can like we're told by the forces of nature that those are the forces of nature that God created that with his help we can get out of whatever personal Egypt we have like we began with we had the exodus from Egypt and then 49 days later and then 40 days and another 40 days and another 40 days and then finally on Yom Kippur we get the Ten Commandments again everybody could achieve whatever it is they want to achieve both with personal responsibility and divine intuition and imagination and confidence and joy and with that maybe somebody has something to share a question of comment to thought positioning yourself in the place to receive the luck as you wish in the beginning it's all about being in the second time in a place and those sorts of things how can that be okay so so spiritually how can we how can we be luckier in that sense how can you achieve this I'll add to a lot of students where I'm where I teach often asked about the prayers on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur the high holiday prayers they're long and a lot of people don't like them I guess it depends where you are and if they sing or if they don't sing and some people think they sing too much and some people think they sink too little and what I always tell people is that well I tell people first of all prepare yourself for the holidays make sure you have a comfortable chair and make sure you have a mom ups are a prayer book that you're familiar with and if you need one in English take one in English and if you need one in French take one in French and if you need a book with you because you're going to get bored so bring the book with me but be there because you never know which moment is gonna work and like the yom kippur Yom Kippur is twenty five hours and you okay let's let's just pick on Yom Kippur it's twenty five hours and you're fasting and you're there in in tool in the synagogue for twenty five hours sometimes and some people are there actually for twenty five hours in a row but you're there for eight hours or ten hours or whatever it is you never know at which moment the song is going to really affect you and if you're not there you're not there and if you're not open to that experience it's not gonna happen so I think I don't know get yourself a rabbi get yourself a teacher get yourself a friend get yourself a book and put yourself in that situation search yeah put yourself in that situation where you never know when you're gonna get lucky you never know when that moment is gonna happen but you want to be there to be able to catch it when it happens interesting question she also said my caste or so I have a friend and actually pensively viously his name is higher but click basketball in Jung and his coach called him hurt it's a name anyway so he played inflate he was unhappy because the ball wasn't coming his way so you said this coach what's happening here the boat did not pass me the ball he says you have to be in the right place at the right time yeah take a better second the birds must stop you use word of luck in the beginning we translated masala this look was October but what does it really mean bucko it's mine blossom is to be in the right place at the right time doing the right thing so we have an instruction manual tutorial that teaches us effectively and with the practitioner and do this tablet to try to keep up as the twelve-step the program get with the program right that's what we have to do is get with the program and the Darvin try to try your best to be in the right place at the right time doing the right thing - your slide you referring to [Music] it was played best they change changes I don't know if it's a question I think that I couldn't agree with you more I couldn't with you more I don't think hitting does anything and I don't think fasting does it again and I don't think quick I just I think the process that I began describing is the only thing that works and that is a process that's difficult like you said where you hit rock bottom and you say I cannot do this anymore this is not working there's something wrong with me that's the only way that it will happen I could share with you whether I went once to a a weekend retreat and there was a man who got up to speak at the end and he he actually was my roommate his name was lucky I don't know if that was his real name but that's how everybody knew him is lucky I remember he was a man if I'm not mistaken I would have guessed he was in his 60s his name was lucky and he stood up at the end of the retreat and he said people thought that he had been clean I think it was for for 20-something years and he got up at the end and he said he's starting from day one and people couldn't understand what he meant and he said I'll tell you why I'm starting from day one he said because for 23 years I have not had any alcohol but last week I drank a non-alcoholic beer and I need to start again and for him drinking a non-alcoholic beer men and you needed to start all over again so when he was counting and he was counting and he was camping and he was up to 23 years and for somebody was up to 23 years and he's well-known in his community as lucky and he stands up and he says no 23 years one day and he was starting an ice took so much strength from that because that meant that this person was really serious about what it is that he was doing and he wasn't fully he could have fooled anybody but you can't fool yourself and I think sometimes in religion people people sometimes can't fool themselves and I think that's the value of having a close friend or a good rabbi or a spouse where they call you on where you're not being honest so I don't know if it's really the fault of the religion or it's the fault of somebody once said don't judge a religion by its practitioners I think people religious people can be introspective and can grow and change but it's not easy I agree with that somebody is deep down in the pit of Egypt so there are like do things that it's important to to say the first one is that you might not see a connection necessary for example a person who's into addictions who is into a bad lifestyle you might not see objectively relation of their fixing with a certain particular time of the year maybe it's not related necessarily with Rosh Hashanah with Yom Kippur but you know that you know in spiritually there is a way why every day is special so if it doesn't happen or Shoshanna it happens one month after or before but there is no way you can get away from the fact that ultimately when the person ultimately does the tikkun in their lives it's got to do there is like there is a religion factor there it doesn't matter if they do it through religion or but it it messes with their soul and always like be connected like it's a business of the soul there's a matter how I'm okay so they might not do it to religion but it's it's connected to the soul and if they fix it successfully there's no easy didn't do it like other than like looking into their soul and in that way it is always witness it is always yeah I think I could put the two things together and if you look I don't know anybody's name here so I can refer it to you by name but if you look at the sources that I brought you will see that what they're really talking about there's something difficult I think I would agree with you they're not talking about a process where you do this a rabbi of mine once said you know if we would do this with an icepick that maybe we would feel and that maybe we do it but even then probably not so I think there at least my religious teachers taught me to do things seriously and to not be fooled by the externalities of the religion but rather the what what what King David talks about in telling where he talks about it in Psalms real in real personal work real personal work where you realize hey wait a second I have really hit rock bottom and he explicitly says that numerous times but just to do it with some kind of joy and confidence and to know through this higher power which which people seem to find strengthened I know who my power is other people can could describe their higher power has they want but but like you said tapping into some kind of ability that that seems beyond me is really what we're talking about with some people just I think for the most of us it's also difficult as you mentioned throughout the show this lecture that to look at the extremely painful that weekend that I attended was one of the most inspirational weekends there and I just I really like at that point said about yesterday so I just I was really beautiful you're talking about what might set up a fund said about the antidote to like somebody else he did you by like it's to be happy and confident and I think that part of could be that maybe something that he was referring to the demon is that like when you start you got like you know we get inspired like everyone's made the same New Year's resolution like a million times you know some people see this I think a lot of people make the same ones every other like this year I'm gonna do it this month I'm gonna do it I'm gonna start you know changing it this time and then we get inspired and then like a day later or two days later later all of a sudden like all that insecurity and doubt and fear start like flooding it and instead of being like oh yeah okay now what we take it to heart and a really deep and powerful way and it discourages us from from like being open to the divine inspiration that you're talking about you know and so I think that maybe you know so it's a to stay happy and joyful and confident is really I think I mean it makes perfect sense to me that like that's what he's saying like to stay grounded in the process that like God is pouring inspiration down on you and are you that like teeny tiny opening to be if you enjoy phul I'm confident and the like fearful and insecure and doubtful and disappointing thinking well like you know beautiful process I also think it's beautiful that's why I mentioned that thank you and I think to put the two things I keep because coming back to the comment that you made I think when I hear this this idea about the chauffeur blasts right and you have the long one and you have a crying one and you have a long one it's not that I think that okay I'll build a chauffeur that my life will be better but if I combine the two things and somehow this teaching will allow me to stay confident and happy then that's where some of the things in religion wind up working for me because the symbols are really strong and really powerful and really meaningful so they're not hocus pocus magic you don't blow a ram's horn and change your life but if blowing that ram's horn and knowing that that ram's horn has been blown for thousands of years by people and there's thousands of years of history in that ram's horn there's thousands of years of crying and introspection and teaching then that could be inspirational at least to me so I just want to share everybody but I think when you say doubt insecurity is really the worst about insecure this lots of other teachings about how doubt and insecurity is is really the worst but that's for the son last story well first of all I started with a total false confidence where I said I'm a professional and actually not my daughter to my niece but what what I did was is in the morning I waded into this muddy pool and I thought to myself okay if I was a pair of ray-bans sunglasses and I was banking off the t-shirt of a young teenage girl who bend down to get something from the water and fell me what would I do and I sort of felt around on the floor with my feet I guess the water was about three feet deep and I sort of you know got a sense for what the terrain on the bottom was you know some rocks and then I noticed that there was like a little cliff in the water underneath the water line and I said okay well if I was sunglasses I probably would have fallen over there and then I would get to the edge and I would just fall right off and I probably be in the mud right at the bottom of that cliff and and that's where they were so it really wasn't rocket science it was lucky because I could have just as easily not found them and by the way they weren't Ray Bans I put myself in a situation where I said you know what I thought about it I said okay if this the nispom I put myself in that situation and for me it just became a way of conceiving of my own life Oh like like you were saying before the point thing you were saying before about putting yourself in a situation that allows you to get lucky so whatever it is just think about your life think about the times in your life when you got lucky like let's say a person well I once read a story about a baseball fan I don't know how many people are familiar with baseball but a baseball fan who had caught like 30 or 40 or 50 I don't remember the number of crazy number of foul balls does that mean anything to anybody so how does that happen I mean I've been to baseball games and I haven't caught a foul ball but he studied it like he studied the different ballparks and the different hitters and where the foul balls usually get and then like so is that luck or that's not luck but you know I don't know like I think if you think about a life can you think about all the situations where you were being successful in whatever battle or struggle that you are in think about the circumstances think about where you are when it happened think about what your attitude was what your mindset was what you were wearing I don't know but to really go into details and then maybe you'll get lucky again can I wear the glosses my daughter was in at any and she lost her glasses because like one evening it was just to god you couldn't see anything so the next morning we went really really my wife fell out and it was like a miracle we actually found it but the thing is it wouldn't have gone with the trance and stuff when he locked a minyan the bug going me and just having a look so it was like I should have called you by she doesn't live we thought there's no way school but it's just give it a try she waiting me a little time so I can past what you were mentioning before that confidence that happiness and that confidence yes I can I can do this whatever it is I worked very very hard for dnews going for it going for what important he finally broke it and the 359 like that he made it but after he did that all of a sudden all these different people started breaking in his lap like it became something that it was just something that he imagined he wanted to do nobody had done it and he worked for it and he achieved it and once he broke all the sudden people realized that it was a possibility once I saw it was a possibility they realized that they too could do it and so then it opens the his imagination to open the door for other people to do things exactly exactly and I know that guy was because I run the next thing they're not they truck yeah I would say yeah I agree that's why I say lucky like nah it's it's a result of effort I don't believe it's luck I believe it's some level of divine inspiration or into which intervention or intuition that comes from effort I don't think there's that's not the type of luck where you say okay I'm going to be sourcing different approaches to change well because we talked about addictions I think everybody's rock bottom is a personal place I don't think I can tell you what your rock bottom is you can't tell me what my rock bottom is and I happen to not believe that I don't think that everybody needs to hit rock bottom I think that people could trust other people and know what a rock bottom might feel right I couldn't feel like and then they can change before they get there so I don't know maybe it's maybe it's just a different way of thinking that I don't know if you necessarily have to hit right right I think you could climb out of a well with a rope or you could so I don't really know and I don't think it's a magical time where it automatically happens this time of year I think because of what I was mentioning historic me about about her scene I mean this is when we do it but really we're supposed to be doing this daily people who pray daily are praying for forgiveness daily they're praying for they're praying for themselves on a daily basis you don't just only pray for ourselves now but I think there's power in community I think there's power in people and like you said learning from other people's experiences and watching other people I don't think you have to hit rock bottom I mean if you find people that you trust who've hit what they describe as their own rock bottom then they could share that experience with you and you could learn from that and grow from that exchange as well you mentioned you touched on the subject of things that you know made a reference to that speaking but then there's the things that you don't know which is things to discover you know like people who have experienced the 12-step program you know so you may know about that participate you know really what that's all about per se but you learned about it you still don't know about that particular that experience and then there's a third ground the things that you don't know that you don't know I think that's where really the the gold is because once you open up that area things that you don't know you don't know that they're not even part of your being you know those are the things that give you the power to be found a shoe you strong then keep you from falling so what do you suggest how do you how did you start knowing things they don't know the things that you don't know that you don't know I'll tell you - taught by my teachers and what I am learning about and what I thought people is to start with what you do know I think you're right I think in the level of knowledge that you have about yourself grows and the best thing I think that you can tell anybody is to start with what you do know and I know that I do that with my children and I do that with students when when I asked them a question and the first thing that they say is well I don't know and I said well start with what you do know like if you if you opening up something and you know a text that you've never read before and the first thing that you do say well I don't know how to read you know something let's start with what you do know and I think if you start with what you do know and you polish that and you work with that and you grow with that then I know for myself I find that my knowledge starts to grow and when knowledge about myself starts to grow I would say that you have to start with something that you do know and I think we all know things about ourselves I mean we know too much too much we know things we know winter stock changes I know where to start changing I know what I needed to do I'm just sometimes don't have the courage to do it so I'm not gonna start with something that I don't know or something that I don't know that I don't know I'm gonna sound something that I do know now if I started something that I do know and I and I start some kind of process and that works then first of all I'll go back to feeling better about myself and once I feel better about myself then then I'll be able to work more you know in one of the sources I thought I skipped over the Gemara the Talmud says that a wise person is better than a prophet because we value wisdom value knowledge we don't value prophecy as much prophecy is just okay I happen to have a process a prophecy but wisdom that comes from what you're talking about wisdom that comes from life experience nothing beats that the to give you an exemple when referring to things you don't know that you don't know so you take a secular person and they don't know that they don't even know much about this they have no they don't even know what that experience is like what's that experience I think that shoppers experience so I would say I think I would say that your you expand always what you know and you expend what you know with your experiences I think if we go back to the beginning to your imagination if you could imagine new experiences and you could introduce yourself to new people and new experiences then your knowledge grows then your new wisdom grows and your understanding grows and then once you have that new knowledge and you aspirates a new understanding then that snowball happens where you use that and you you're constantly using your experiences but I think to embrace new experiences and to embrace new understandings and new ways of looking at life and new ways of looking at yourself that's that's where the focus [Music] is in the Torah to keep Shabbat and they don't even know what that experience is like it's like maybe that's what they've been dreaming of the whole work the whole life they've never had a Shabbat experience or maybe you're somebody like me who grew up with the Shabbat experience every Shabbat of my life since I was born and sometimes it's not inspirational it's just another day where I'm in the middle of a good book and don't feel God and I don't feel spiritual I don't feel holy I don't feel particularly religious it's just another day so I think the process of trying to squeeze all the meaning out of Shabbat is a lifelong process it doesn't matter if you were born Orthodox or not born Orthodox or how you were raised there's always a personal I need to I can make this better I can make this better I can this is more meaningful I can make this more a part of my life in a meaningful way and that process never ends better thing ever ever in stage one eleven I'm thinking because Clea carbon shaping a lot and he says the cockpit of Huffman the goal the purpose of wisdom so we eventually arrived delivery and know that you don't know that's a very humbling place to be so that's why it may be Samantha summer you know I never really understand you're saying just to clarify I really am jealous cuz I never had that and I never will have the opportunity because I have a shopping experience since I was born so I never had the opportunity to approach it new and be inspired by it it's different for me and I think everybody's experiences like that I just want to get some more inspiration it's like only catching what the word shall tell you and sometimes you are you think about sexual secular experience I'm talking about experience of pure the principle is completely Jewish environment anyway message and sometimes it's only a matter of being open to new messages and to understanding what the word and so everybody has a chance but to creation I also just like in terms of Shabbat that means I'd be more so much about of my life that I haven't from early age every prayer you add something to prayer you did you were not Yahtzee so you could be you know people do get stuck in you know a rope situation but I think environment you see community you know they care enough about each other inspire each other a continuous basis you did accomplish it and every Shabbat I was maybe left more to my imagination I agree I just want to stress and I think that I did stress that it's it's hard yes hard work none of this is easy it is not easy to grow it is not easy to change it's not easy to find inspiration but because it's so difficult that's where the pay office and I think hopefully together in whatever community everybody's in we could inspire each other and get through the next 40 days and then another 40 and another 40 at another 40 like you know Moses was up there three times it didn't work the first time or the second time or the third time and it was over and over and over again every precedent in the entire history of the Jewish people the religious history of the Jewish people every every achievement came after great-great-great-great struggle and falling and falling and falling and falling and falling and getting up again and there are verses about that and there are stories all throughout the kymaro about falling and getting up and falling and getting up and falling and getting up so if you fall you can get up and if you can't get up on yourself you can find somebody to help you hopefully together we can we can do that I guess I could just end because it I just dawned on me a rabbit I've been once taught me that a hand in Hebrew is called a Yad a Yad is the letters good and Dollard and the numerical value you go according to the numerology of the Hebrew alphabet a Eunice 10 and a dollar is 4 so you dollar the work for yacht is 14 if you look at a hand you have 14 knuckles one two three on each finger except you know three six nine twelve and two so your hand is called the odd and you have 14 knuckles if you take one yard and be together with another yard then you have caught 14 and 14 is strength so sometimes if by yourself you don't have the strength enjoy with somebody else and then you could find the strength so an evening like this perhaps we can all find strength together and hopefully have what we call a sieve of semen [Music]