KLM: Feeling Hashem's Presence - Escaping the Rut of Rote with Rabbi Asher Baruch Wegbreit

[Music] got it okay i'd like to welcome first of all the members of yebene the listeners of yibanet we are doing the kavanagh mitzvos foundation klm sheer here in live in harnauf and before we get started um there's a very special um sponsorship that the entire series is being sponsored um and that's for uh the ilia nishmas uh the least nashamah of uh yoni ashburn who who is the son of dan and rebecca ashburn his name for the elias the shama is and i just want to tell you that i'm very i feel very thankful that they agreed to be the sponsors because unfortunately this incredible neshama passed from the world on rosh hashanah of last year i didn't have the merit to know him but i i spent the shiva with mr ashburn and uh it was a life-changing experience for me to hear about him and their relationship and i had a different young kipper as a result so i feel that it's just so fitting and so wonderful that they're sponsoring this year okay let's get started okay last year um right before rosh hashanah i was giving a share on preparing for rosh hashanah and i was talking about and by the way just to give you some context it was the beginning of the second year of klm and it's working okay it was the beginning of the second year of klm right before rosh hashanah and my message to the group was if you want a good judgment you have to be humble you have to feel very humble and not just count that you're going to get a good judgment so one of the participants he's been a participant in the cavan of the mitzvos shearing for a while so he admitted something he says rabbi i have to be honest um i'm finding it hard to be humble before rosh hashanah why because he'd worked a year on applying the contents of uh klm and therefore he um therefore he he said look if i compare my russia last year to my rosh hashanah this year i really think i'm worthy of a good judgment right because he saw that you can do some very simple easy upgrades so if we are successful and of course we know we need hashem for this but if we're successful this year i hope everyone here and everyone listening has a problem working on humility before rosh hashanah i hope that will be what we have to work on okay so please god uh that's the uh what we're aiming for is that we've really enhanced our relationship with hashem and our merits etc and for everybody okay so that's what the aim is all right now um i think i want to tell you a little bit my story with what i'm doing right now to be uh um at a yeshiva the old say many people have heard of burka satara for 20 years i was mushkiyak there for 10 10 years and um at the time i would describe my i had a life-changing experience actually there and to tell you the truth my life was really going good thank god at the time yet it still changed now let me explain you know at the time i was learning gemara i was teaching gemara and i loved gamora i was learning musser i was teaching musser i loved musser i also thank god i've written a few books so i was like turned on however if i have to be honest [Music] you know i was i found myself try as i may i was throwing blessings out of my mouth and if you ask me out of the hundred blessings a day how many were good ones well let's move on to another subject okay also you know i would dutifully um do the mitzvahs like reading the shine mikra and chaba is okay i tried but it was kind of kind of a routine and i realized something's a little bit wrong with my mitzvahs i love torah and this one i'm sharing with you i think the feeling and engagement and enjoyment of torah is quite easy and natural and you can continue to do it time and time again but you know the myth says you're doing them every day so i realized i was in what i'll call the rut of rote okay that was what was happening with my mitzvos and i think that this the reason i ended up opening this foundation is because i found out i'm not alone not not even slightly and i'm going to talk a little bit more about why this is very important to work on okay but before i do i just want to um point out also why it is so wonderful to work on this now in elle okay because ello faces a similar situation i think that you know we we all go through is you know l's here you want to uh you know it's time to step it up to upgrade your mitzvahs and your connection with hashem in fact that's why people come out to sharim and things like this right you're you're turned on but then oftentimes like after a week or so it loses its magic in a certain sense and sometimes we can find yourself back in the same rut of rote right so this is what i really really want us to to make major inroads on this time and and we're really going to see that this is the challenge we have our whole life in fact let me just put this up yes let me leave the road thing for the screen so they can see the camera yeah will they be able to see anything okay right so i just want to show you that this is um what i would say the common experience that we often have let's say we're starting here but um and if you were to describe your your experience in connection with term business you know up sounds good but you have the inspiration but then what can happen is this there's a descent right with mitzvahs because they happen time and time again and we could um in a certain sense we can be finding ourselves running through the sitter like i said throwing blessings at our mouth so the repetition leads to a descent okay and then it could even go down to here now what do i describe as that we we you know we have more joy let's say connecting to the internet and other things in our lives we look for other types of pleasure and most importantly if we're not feeling if we're not an emblem of inspiration when we're doing mitzvahs what kind of uh impression do the kids get right so this is what can happen if one takes over okay now i'm going to share with you that i made a discovery which is this klm and that really moved to move things into an upward descent then by practicing it it really moved high and then i'm going to try to explain there's a very lofty goal we can achieve and that is [Music] the vegas with a shin okay so this is if you will a model of the process okay now so we're going to work on roads that's number one but the other thing i want to work on is two more things okay you know when we advertise this year and whenever i advertise a class i'm always worried that the sahara is going to attend that he might be one of the participants in the in this year right and so the thing is this we have to realize that we have a major foe as the messiah's isharm describes the yatahara is quite an opponent and here's i want to mention besides the rut of rote there's two other main places that he goes after us and that's and and by the way this is not my idea this is from rabbi victor miller okay he he wrote a book on ola maba or they put together that's part of it already [Music] is besides the mixes sometimes just getting repetitious and hard to connect to what about being aware being aware of shin's presence that is in a major agenda of the eight sahara you know you could be learning torah or you could be on shabbos you know you if you were on tribes there could be beautiful singing there could be divreitara if you ask someone to count the participants at the table they might leave out that hashem is present there right this is a major front that the yates are harassing is realizing we're in hashem's presence so that's something else we're going to work on thank god we found very effective ways to work on that okay so and then the third thing and interestingly enough the hospital says that the number the number one the number one place the atahara goes after us is now you might think it is on the existence of hashem right he says no that's not the main place the yate sahar's main attack is getting us not to think about the world to come and and he says that that and and our being there etc you think that's a main front and and the truth in there is again it observes every miller how often are we thinking about olamba how often even on shabbat shabbos right so these are three the three things we're going to work on is the rut of rote in terms of mitzvahs number two attaining a sense an awareness of shem's presence and thirdly being olamaba conscious okay that's the game plan all right so you hear what the problems are and this is what we're going to try to tackle okay so let me tell you i told you that my life changed six years ago so what did i what did i discover and and i'm just reviewing that i was connecting to learning i loved learning i loved the whole thing but with mitzvahs there seemed to be some sort of block on some level right so i found out i found a safer and it just talked about and leave it to hashem hashem of course knows that we're going to face this conflict after all you're repeating the same thing time and time again that's challenging so hashem says i have a mitzvah that if you work on it it's going to really help in this area and what mitzvah is that is the mitzvah to have kavanagh for mitzvos this was this is how my life changed from just this discovery which is a halacha okay but now let me explain it when we hear the word kavanagh most people think of kavanaugh in tefila right now that's different than the kevin i'm talking about here okay kavanagh the famous kavanagh um i don't know if i had the greatest kavanagh today in in davening that kalana would translate as focus right i focus and um focus and engagement in the in what you're involved with in you're present with the words and focused kavanagh mitzvahs the word kavanaugh means something else it means having conscious intention before you perform the mitzvah you hear this kevana for prayer is focus and concentration kavanaugh for missus is conscious intention and it's a game changer you should know they're both important but the truth of the matter is says that mr brewer not that you should do one or the other but more important is kavanaugh for missus why because in terms of the halacha there's only two places where you must have kavanaugh for prayer focus concentration to fulfill the mitzvah the first line of the krishma and the first blessing of the shmona s ray after that if you do not have focus and concentration it's unfortunate but you're fine you did the mitzvah okay the the disruptive information is when it comes to mitzvahs every mitzvah requires this intention beforehand conscious intention before you do it it's halapha for the ashkenazim the smarty men women it it's it's a now again i'm just giving you a little of the political background then we're going to see how this can provide such an upgrade in spiritual lift the thing is this don't get too alarmed okay like right now we're doing a mitzvah correct including the people listening doing a mitzvah what are we doing learning torah right so now everybody here has implicit intention to learn torah right now okay implicit okay and also let's say you're um uh uh making a blessing on shabbos candles right uh for sure even if you didn't have in mind the mitzvah of making a blessing on shabbos candles you have implicit what else are you doing this idea that implicit intention works comes from the high atom but it's not the same as having explicit intention okay all right so let me here let me let's just do this right now okay uh youtube listening we're gonna go move the other thing that i'm trying to do here is not give you a bunch of information and teach you torah i love teaching torah you guys love torah but we want to go from information to a cognitive experience that's what we're trying to achieve here okay and we can do it instantly and easily okay so everyone acknowledge we are learning tara right now okay so i want everybody there's two ways to express and by the way the good news you you don't even have to say it out loud if you say it out loud it affects the um spirituality of it but it's enough to just think this in your in your mind okay and it takes a second or two there's two ways to do it the simple way is to just think uh and we'll do both ways just think i'm doing this to fulfill a mitzvah that's all the shame mitzvah in hebrew okay for the sake of a mensah we are sitting here and you're listening there the shame is okay that's one way the more ideal way but okay the more ideal way is to say i have in mind to fulfill the mitzvah of learning torah kashar sivashem as hashem has commanded me okay so to identify the mitzvah and to acknowledge i'm doing this because hashem commanded me okay that's how you do it but now what's the difference between when you first came here and you sat here those who don't know about this allah which is many many people i i've discovered it was including myself six years ago but anyhow what's the difference between the first let's say 15 minutes where are you sat here having implicit intention and now what we have explicit what's the difference it's innovation at the midview you get more stuff yes and i want to tell you how correct you are she said you've elevated the mitzvah and you get more reward listen to this i would like to tell you you know i'll be honest with you i'm not very good at math okay but even if i had a the top computer okay i can't tell you the difference says the ron the ron says like this take two people one person has uh does the missile without what he calls complete kavana and the other does he says the difference in their reward cannot be calculated cannot be calculated right okay so that's that and we're talking about allah and also we're talking about your relationship with hashem right it's a big deal it's a big deal to do this and and let me explain why it's a big deal with your relationship with hashem you know if i were to ask you uh let's take the mitzvah of learning tara again that's what we're doing right now so when when were you commanded to learn torah right so from the torah at sinai right so to say that you were commanded to learn tarnis sinai is only partially correct now let's say you became religious right and you accepted the torah and then you learn about the minster right so you'll say when i learned about it again you're only partially correct when were you commanded to learn torah right now today it says in krishna and in other i'm commanding you today meaning hashem wants us to be responsive to him in the moment you hear that this so the beautiful thing about this besides the reward but look at your relationship with hashem it's not old it's present okay you know you see the thing is this many people when they hear what i'm training people do to be conscious of missions they compare it to mindfulness right and you know and mindfulness of course we know has the the um advantage of being present you're present in the moment right but you know we are so lucky to be jews because we're not just present in the moment we're present in the presence of hashem you hear so when you stop and say what am i doing right and you say because hashem commanded me this moment you hear so that's that's what this that's the overview of the importance of doing this okay and it's all about and and by the way the ram hal the ronko was into mindfulness very long time ago because you know what he says that if you want to achieve a purity of divine service of a vote is hashem right now don't we want to an ello of course right so he says you just you have to ask yourself two questions before you do anything what am i about to do what is the myth i'm about to do and before whom am i about to do it now do you bring hashem's presence in okay that okay so anyhow you now have the theory and i want to get a little bit into practice first of all let's just start uh let me just draw your attention to the opportunities now first of all i said to you that politically if you have implicit intention you don't have to repeat the mitzvah it accomplishes something it's a mitzvah but it we just said the difference of adding the explicit conscious intention is incalculable good but now the the other thing i want to point out is there's some places where implicit intention doesn't work for example let's say you have a serviceman over at your house or you take a cab this is a famous brought in the safer mitzvos by the huffington right so when you pay the cab right uh or you pay the service man so you have to you know you can go to jail if you don't right and you you're just it's not it's beneath your dignity not to pay for a service so guess what there even though the torah says you have a mitzvah to pay a worker within 12 hours but if you don't have explicit intention no misfit so it's the difference if the difference between you did you abided with the laws of society or you created an internal connection with shin we're going to talk we're going to do you know the same thing applies for having a glass of water or exercising because you know taking care of your health according to the kitzer shulkin aura based on the rambam is a mix of nismartin okay but you could be taking care of your health because you want to have good health right so but if you just add this moment's thoughts so i i call it spiritual alchemy that works okay you go from this act that's gonna stay here and be here and that's it to eternity okay so it's really really big okay so there are places where you you you have to learn what it is okay and we're gonna do some demonstrations but i want to i want to just have people i'm just going to give a little list of examples where it's good to get started and i must stress if you're coming if this information is new guess who realizes you just learned this information hashem and and does he realize that it may take some time to uh practice this and he said so so don't be alarmed don't head for the hills we just have to go about it in a step-by-step manner but i just want to give you an overview okay so first of all you have mitzvahs uh between man and hashem so you could start with torah commandments like uh benching reciting the krishna you know uh by tefila the rambam says once a day to pray is a torah commandment that's that's another place where if you add explicit intention it goes through the roof okay this is very important you know people are saying to hillam all the time right whenever you are praying um about troubles even for an individual uh but even more so called israel it's a torah commandment to cry out to hashem in times of trouble okay so i'm just giving you overview then here's another area where it's not obvious that you're doing a mitzvah let's say you pass by a friend and you say oh good morning right poker tov right so is that a mitzvah yeah it is it's after kamoka it's a mix of kindness because it makes people feel good but you could be doing it because of social convention okay but i must tell you when it comes to misses between man and p people they get a benefit so some say that that that it for sure equals implicit intention okay so even if you didn't have kavanagh you you gave a human uh creature of hashem benefit then there's still an accomplishment okay that's the overview and now since this is a series and and i'm also speaking to the people who are listening um i'm going to give you if you'll accept it a homework assignment okay i'll give you a homework assignment and then we're also going to do a special ceremony imply this for the ilya nishmas so the what i the first my homework assignment is this by the way if if you want like information or recording or or just instructions you have questions for me i can be reached at rabbi webbrite gmail.com you see it on the posters etc my name is not the easiest to spell but you'll see it okay so anyhow my whole uh my assignment is to pick pick e you really just have to know yourself on some level but to pick let's say one mitzvah and try it uh try to train yourself to have kevana for it let's say it's krishna or prayer you can make a mark in your sitter you know kevana for the mitzvah right or whatever it is you'll have to be creative to remind yourself see the thing is this i i heard a great like model about implementation see by the way this is the time to push ourselves and implement so i i heard this model it says like this if you um don't make a strong commitment it's not going to happen now if you make a strong commitment but you um don't set a time it still may not happen now you make a strong commitment and you set a time but you don't set a reminder but you do an alarm you hear set an alarm you hear because you could have a time you're committed you have a time but you could forget you can forget it happens we're you know we're going a different current right now we're becoming conscious right we're wedging into the current of our lives and trying to add something that's not going to be simple okay and the other thing is if you don't small this is from my wife if don't start small it won't continue okay so pick one you if uh pick one and try to set up that system okay for the week okay and that's number one i want you to do that i also want to give you some elo oriented ideas two quick ones and again they can just be part of your rotation you can make a rotation so for men when the chauffeur blows that's um you what mitzvah do you fulfill besides the minhag of hearing chauffeur does anyone know a torah commandment well it can be that's a purpose it's you can achieve fear of hashem in other words when the chauffeur blows and you say all you say is that russia is coming the day of judgment is coming and and you feel some concern you just finish your yours hashem and go on dabchuba that would be amazing but now for women okay so i was going to say that what's the other practice we do every day the david right do most of you recite david yes okay so there's two mitzvahs there one is for women even though you don't hear the chauffeur when it says hashem ori hashem is my light the midrash says that alludes to rosh hashanah so you can also go rosh hashanah or you're just saying why am i doing this because of rosh hashanah kipper and you can fulfill yours hashem but also for all men and women that to hillam is about to bake us to hashem and that's a torah commandment it's a terror commandment to cleave to hashem so okay those are the assignments all right and uh what we're going to do right now is uh i asked mr ashburn to please come and give a little background about his son and then what we're going to do is we're going to apply kavanagh mitzvahs for his alias i'm going to have him speak first and then we're going to do an exercise and then we're done okay mr ashford um i i want to thank rabbi webb wright so much for his uh foundation and for his ideas um i want to thank joseph over for helping us link up with um this particular um event and these this series um and i think rabbi mcbride's son also helped with the um with the setup here um and thank you all for coming um i do believe that it is a big a louis deschamps of the deshama of our son that we're all here uh focused on hashem focused on the mitzvahs of hashem to learn torah um our son uh yoni yoni ashburn i don't know how many of you knew him he was uh he was a amazing uh young man um and unfortunately he passed away last second day rosh hashanah he was 19 years old almost 20. and when i heard about what rabbi wegbrite was going to speak about i went onto his website and i looked at one of the introductory um videos and i thought wow this is really so uh appropriate for our son yoni because yoni was about hashem yoni was about serving hashem yoni was about knowing that everything that happened came from hashem that he was he was excited his last his second name was his assembly his name is jonathan simko hashem gave a symptom and that's what he was about he he gave so much sympathy to other people and he loved doing it he was a musician he played the keyboard and he would love whenever he had an opportunity to play for somebody else and to make them happy he played a different symphos and his main he was just so excited to have the opportunity to make other people happy and he knew that was a mitzvah and he knew that when things happened it was because of hashem he would see a person walking down the street that needed help was a blind as a blind individual in our community yoni would look for him and see him and he would go and help him uh go down the street other times the and he would say he would come home and tell me why it was seated they missed the bus because that helped him that he ended up a certain place or he went over this place at that time in order to help somebody else or to be where hashem wanted him to be so i think that a few things here that rabbi webb wright is talking about knowing that you're in a hashem's presence knowing that hashem is in control of everything and being aware of that in everything that you do um i think is uh you know what right was talking about you can learn torah and you can sing songs and you can do all kind of things that are fun and enjoyable but if you don't realize that it's for hashem you're missing so much and that really is what yoni was about he knew that hashem was with him wherever he was from the beginning of his life to the end he knew that hashem was with him and that hashem controlled everything and to have the opportunity to be aware of that and to inculcate that idea in our lives and to use that every day i think is just a huge blessing if we can all do that and try to use our to do mitzvos with the cavanagh and to to know that we're doing it for hashem we're in hashem's presence we're doing it because hashem commanded us and we want that relationship which is the ultimate relationship uh why we're created so i want to thank you again all for coming thank you all right right and everyone for being here and i i hope that you'll be able to uh see either in person or online the remainder of the of the messages of this series and that hashem should help us all to come closer to him you know i think it says that if a person turns towards it brings him towards him and that's what we need to do if we have that kavanagh to turn to hashem hashem is going to report us and help us to do it so i wish everybody a wonderful shanna coming up preparation for rosh hashanah the year to come thank you all beautiful um if everybody can uh just do one favor and i will cory we'll see if it stays but and um the ashburn's brought um some food for a bracha and we have a drink so if you can please uh bring something and come back here and i'm gonna let's try to create something to get give him a very special alias the shama by adding cavanas to what we're doing okay so if you'll please go get something and come right back and we'll be done does it matter which profile you're no no in fact one one one is enough but please help yourself okay so we'll just take a minute and and then we'll see how to maximize we'll be right back want me to bring you something uh yes yeah okay okay if everybody please come have a seat real quick judging by what most people took i think most people have come on to be healthy then i'll take the cookies guess what there's i mean there's some that needed to be represented they're very good you're going to see that chocolate and cake and these things can also be a mistake it's not the one to take care of our health but it is a mitzvah we'll see right now okay so um this is uh uh let me explain how we'll do this okay very good thank you okay perfect um the when uh when you do something i want to explain this idea of doing something for an elias the shaman okay so first we need to realize and i was taught very early on very important uh the main reason we do any mitzvah is because it's a mitzvah right because hashem commanded us right so when you want to let's say saya to hilum for a refuse lame with someone you should have in mind i'm fulfilling the mitzvah of reciting to him doing hesed right and for the revolution okay so right now we're going to fulfill the mitzvah of making blessings and eating the food we'll see the eating can be a misfit too okay but just always remember when you're doing things for ilya nishmas you should first say i'm doing this the cayenne mitzvah story to fulfill the commandment of my creator okay so that's number one so everybody should right now have in mind that i'm fulfilling the mitzvah of making blessings and we're going to add a little cabanas to it um to fulfill the myth of my glory of my creator and for everybody having this in mind the ilia nishmas of yonassen simcha benzinio okay so there but let's ready let's give him a further what mitzvah is giving an elias neshama what mitzvah is that he said you're doing hesita ms because the person can't respond it's high-level hazard is has it a rabbinic commandment or torah torah commandment two commandments whenever you do hessed you're doing a haftaraka kamoka have all this in mind as i speak and halakhtav emulating hashem's ways of kindness and goodness okay so right so we're doing that ilya nishmas for yonasan simcha okay so you had kavanaugh for those mitzvahs now i want to show you now this is part of uh don't run for the hills when you see how much is going here but i want to kind of point out that once you go into the world of mitzvahs you're not going to believe how enormous it is okay you know someone gave a great a metaphor is when you eat food you don't uh know what's going on down there but uh i was a physiologist and a biochemist i think it's incredible all the things that are taking place the same thing you you're in an atmosphere filled with mitzvahs okay so here let me show you this and we're not gonna try to do all these right now but these are five mitzvahs in the blessing okay okay no i'm not gonna do a whole thing but you know for example there's a mitzvah to thank hashem for his kindness when you're aware you're in hashem's presence that's anoki the first commandment right when you're careful with hashem's name okay that's your shen right when you talk about him being king of the universe or the universes that's uh aroma moose okay and again when you say she'll call me everyone in a single you got five commandments i think they're all torah commandments you see the world that's here okay now i don't expect you to master that immediately okay but let's do let's do a blessing [Music] right now whatever you would prefer the mizono like let's start with just first of all we have in mind the missile to make a blessing before eating that's a target recorded okay you're just gonna say atar and so that means you're hashem's presence so that's there is several missiles but i'm controlling myself okay ready so let's just aim for that that you're going to say since you're in you're speaking to him in his presence and have in mind the mitzvah of the first commandment of the moon okay so that le and okay and make your brand and make your brother okay okay everybody do that first part now most people think the spirituality is done and now we get to eat wrong let me show you all the mitzvahs in eating now this was designed for healthy but don't worry as i said there's for non-healthy too these are mixes in a glass of water when you drink a glass of water see if they can see that there we go okay let me see okay so anyhow what do we have here okay this is just an overview okay we have to start small in order to continue but if it's healthy okay then it's the smart temperature taking care of your health okay next uh yeah okay i'll go this way anything you eat and drink if you dedicated to that my purpose in eating and drinking is to have strength to serve hashem something that i know he would have done and does so that's because in all your ways no hashem everything do you realize your sleep i i don't know how much sleep you get you know if you get enough it's down here nishmar fishmart if you don't but your sleep can either be a mitzvah or sleep okay but anyhow so then ready also you can fulfill and especially and this one is with cake included is loving hashem with your yates or hara meaning because your yates are it's not as bad as it sounds also means your physicality so when you do when you dedicate again your physicality you can be expressing love with hashem everything i do is for you you just got loving hashem even with your gates of heart okay next okay right this is a take note of this in terms of pleasurable foods pleasurable activities it says in michele one who bestows to himself is a kind person okay so they learn from that that whenever you treat your body like um lovingly and kindly like you would a child like your neshama is taking care of your body you fulfill that mismatch okay and and then finally well this is for a glass of water if you if you have healthy foods you could be indulging you'd have to have an xl or pizza so if you have the healthy choice over the pizza kadoshim to you according to ron bun you're um you're separating from what that's which is permitted to you to be a holy person okay so just have a bite right now and uh since um i think well the people who had the water should have in mind the schwarzenegger and if you're having cake or something just have in mind doing kindness yourself and loving a stem with physicality okay we're done [Music] it's is