Thank the One Who Spreads out the Earth on the Water with Rabbi Kalman Flaks

Heat. Heat. [music] [singing] [music] [singing] You [music and singing] see your sh [music and singing] na. N okay, we're going to dedicate our Torah for the protection of all of Isel and thank you to Yon for sponsoring tonight's event. Um today we're going to learn the of alham and as [clears throat] always we'll try to give simple kavanas and some of the more deeper kavanas. Hopefully we come up with a bunch of kavanas every day of the week. We'll have a different kavana for the beautiful baraka that we say every day. So according to the simple understanding the from the are in order of going walking right. So again you open up your eyes and then you put on your clothing and then you start stretching and now you finally put your feet on the ground. And at that point, you say, "Whoa, something amazing just happened. I'm not splashing [snorts] myself on water. I have firm ground. I can actually walk and it feels strong and firm and that's amazing." And so you say, "Hashem, thank you, Hashem." Right? That is the past. Now this language of is a bit uh mystical. It sounds esoteric. He places the earth on the water. So what are we talking about here? So let me read it inside the first of all this this where we get that phrase from from it's one of the the >> [singing] >> give out. So that's inim and he is the one who gives us this beautiful language of alim. Okay. So now we know where took the language from. But what was he talking about with this beautiful language? So explains the lavush lavush we've said before y um and was tremendous source of ashkanazi customs and also beautiful explanations for the meanings behind our fila and our minhagen I believe 16th century you can check me up on that. So he says He switched the normal nature in order so that we could exist. What do you what do we mean? Water is fluid, right? So naturally water should surround the earth and we should be swimming. The water should win. And indeed if that was the case so then uh we couldn't exist because the whole world would be water. In fact I remember learning in like fifth grade I think it was called pangia right and the whole water was across the whole world and then at some point you know the earth appeared somehow and the water receded something like that you check check it out but that's unbelievable. That's a miracle. He placed the earth as a wa as a space on the water so that people can exist. Okay, which is not natural. This is the of in other words according to lush by the way this is also mentioned by many other mafarak and others it's explaining creation right it's saying thank you hashem that there is a world thank you hashem for the universe thank you hashem that I can exist in this universe and it's just a beautiful nice way of saying thank you hashem that there is what to I want to walk But if there's no world to exist in, then it doesn't help me much to walk. So therefore, thank you Hashem for the universe, for the beautiful universe. Otherwise, you I might be thinking to myself, wait a second, I don't know, there's a lot of cool things in the world. Why don't I bless Hashem for that? You know, it's true. It's nice to feel firmness, but is that really enough to make a bra? So no, the Bush is saying no, that is the whole point of the braha is I'm taking for the universe. Good. Similarly says God puts I think what he's referring to is land and even though water is bohem water is higher he places all the water in one place and that allows the earth to have its space he makes seder you know water here earth there otherwise we couldn't grow and that is the language of in a similar vein of the uh lavush. Okay. Um I saw another explanation that it's really talking about gravity. It's allowing the world to exist in such a way that there's an earth and then there's a water and that we can walk on the earth is not something muan may love. You know, you talked to Isaac Newton about that. But there's such a thing that we don't just go floating up into the world. We can actually walk. So maybe that's another kavana of the existence of the world and gravity and all that being another thing that we're thankful for. Right? If you if you were on the moon, would you say what do you think? Because you don't have gravity and you're not you don't have anything solid. Or if you wake up one morning and you're swimming and you don't have any solid earth around you. Yeah. So what's I don't have arts. Can I say the braha? So the answer is we've asked this question before, right? Remember we asked about a blind person. Can you still say the braha? Since in general it's good for the universe that there are people who can see a blind person can still say a braha. Right? Or according to the rambom no you actually have to get benefit. But according to that we baskin it's a general praise of Hashem and therefore on the moon I think you could say Raay but I don't know I've never never asked a pisic about it ask your local moon po >> okay I'll say it like this since you're asking >> just like a blind person benefits from someone who sees I think that the moon is stuck in the gravity of earth >> right >> and if it's connected to gravity in any way or the miracle that earth exists that people exist disc. The fact you're on the moon, it's only because of the people on the earth. >> Exactly. So, even on the moon, we need gravity and we need the world. So, give out. So, we're on we're in agreement. It was good you guys came to tonight. Now, you know, next time you're on the moon. I think I heard there's a Jewish girl who's in charge of the new uh NASA thing. Anyways, so >> there's a on the moon already. >> Makes sense. Makes sense. Good. All right. Good. We all came >> rabbi. >> Yes. >> Doesn't this come from >> braces olive tough? You know your stuff Elazar. That's right. Cuz it says in braces and all of the as we've been seeing is based on the creation of the world. Remember last week we talked about how when God gave man clothing. So based on it says Right? My fifth grade teacher didn't make it up. The water was everywhere and then it all got gathered together in one area and that's why the earth can exist and that's why we think every day right >> exactly great minds think alike. You know who also says that one of the most amazing sadikim and Elzar they're on the same page. So on a simple level we're thinking that there's a world that exists and that's okay if we just add that but as is our usual minhog we're going to try to take it to a few extra layers right a little more going a little deeper. So where do we start with? Let's start with thehat of RV cook. I'm sure you guys know Ravk Cook has an unbelievable safer uh about Fila and RV cook was such a creative genius. Only thing is it's so hard to understand RV cook. Okay, because try to read it. It's poetry. It's beautiful. but he like makes up his own words sometimes and you know he's just flying high and it's so beautiful but you kind of need someone to translate it. So don't worry I did a little bit of research and I'll give you the main idea that RV cook at least my understanding of what Rook explains of it's alien is who I'm referring to. So the by the way of cook is good to know has an amazing of course some controversial but also he he had a project of taking all every from making it he was a dian and also he has a beautiful book called which if you've never learned it you've never really understood the shas it's beautiful beautiful saber And he has his other but he has also his his which is beautiful. So he says like this >> yeah exactly. So Rook says like this God places the earth on the water. What does water symbolize and what does earth symbolize? So water represents fluidity, moving and earth represents solidness and in life we need both. You can't have one without the other. On the one hand in reality we need to have solidness. We need to have anchors in our lives. But on the other hand, we can't forget about fluidity, our desires, our chukot, our our yearnings for the for beyond, right? As a saying, he has his he has his he has his living in both worlds, right? And this is the essence of every person and especially us Jews. We have to live in both worlds. Okay? On a related note, the clear me and the rabbi both are big big fans. So he has a beautiful and the relationship between them. He says this in a few different [snorts] that is a Torah scholar and a Torah scholar has to be grounded. Okay. What do we say when you learn for you learn in a yeshiva? What does it mean to yeshiva? You're yv. You're sitting. You're not all over the place, right? Because when you're all over the place, you can't really learn Torah properly unless you have YouTube and you're listening to Shir on the road, you know, and then and then that that helps. It's nice, but it's not the same. You want to learn Ashark Gam, you're not you can't do it while you're on the treadmill. You know what I'm saying? Maybe some I can't you need to sit down you have yeshiva you need to have anchor yourself to sit and focus on the Torah that you're learning and that's is on the other hand we have Zulun now the interesting thing is when you look in the map of the tribes of Israel okay Zulun you would think is by >> the sea right but interestingly he's not by the sea you know it's take it out look Check on Google Maps, uh, Google images of the tribes right now and you'll see Vulan's in the middle. He's landlocked. So, what's a shot? He's going back and forth. He's a businessman. He's There's different shots about the business. Cleo is understanding he's he's not by the water actually. He's always moving. He's near the water, but he's not at the water itself because that's what makes a good businessman successful. Not that he's stagnant. If you're stagnant, you're not a businessman is always thinking, "How can I make more profits? How can I make as soon as you stop moving, your business is dead?" You got to be in with the times. So, Zulu is a mover and a shaker. And that's exactly why the two are put together because in life, you need to be a little bit of this and a little bit of that. You need to have know when there's a time to move and you know when there's a time to be stagnant. And we all have to find the balance in our schedule to to have both of those in our lives. If you have too much of any of those, it's not healthy. This is the >> this is this is my my saying of what the cleer says of of okay which is my understanding of of cook and cook is look I speaking personally I have to struggle with this a lot because I'm working right now as a tour guide. I just got back now from Shilo and from Betel and and Malona and that's my moving and sometime I'm all over the place. But on the other hand, I have to have my seat timra and that's our shear tonight, right? Or I told my my clients, I gotta get back. I have a 645 shear. I was almost on time. Okay. So, you know, in life and I have to find that balance in my life so that so that if I'm always moving, I'm never going to have any growth in my life. But if I'm always just sitting, I'm never going to be able to give over. And if if it's too much of one or the other, it's not healthy. Right? If I The Ram says all Torah is ultimately there to be given over. I'm taking and I'm internalizing it and I want to teach it. Teach it to my children. Teach it the people I'm interacting with in the supermarket. Teach it to my students, whatever it is. But I'm internalizing it to give it like food. It comes in, it comes out. But if I'm always giving and I don't have a a time to just receive Torah, then my students are going to pick up that it's it's not authentic. It's not real. I'm dry. It's just, you know, I'm just and even if you can internally your nama knows whether you know whether the Rebi is giving it over from a place of real in connection or he's just doing it, right? So, so that's the balance of life. We need to have anchor times when we're anchored in receiving and growing and yeshiva and set times. And then we also have times when we're moving and growing and giving and fluid. You with me? Especially in our generation, we have to have this balance. If I ask you guys, our generation, what do you think? Are we a, you know, a a fluid generation? a water a moving generation or we uh anchored uh you know you suck our generation >> definitely water if you ask me right we we were always moving every time you check your phone you do go on YouTube you think you were just checking out the yanesh here it turns out that you know you got distracted then you went to that you know meditation thing and then that political thing and then you know who you have 4 million options of things in in 3 seconds and this thing's on your WhatsApp app and that thing and this thing and that we're always moving and going at this to do and that and this year and that and it's so we're so we're all over the place, right? And so I think we need to kind kind of put the balance back of like okay but I need certain things in my life that are going to ground me in what's important you know and that's why I think you know to have setim and to have in our generation is more needed than any other generation because we have so many options. We can always do so many different things and we're going to just be scatterbrained and all over the place. So we need to create certain rituals and certain if it's ashb or it's a certain that we go to every week like this one for example you should come every week. So I'm just that my promo um to to ground ourselves so we don't just go all over the place. We need to als that we're not just because you know we're picking Jewish generation. And I'll take a little today and a little labb tomorrow and I'll do a gray the next day and with that I'll do some I mean look at this year we're all over the we're doing a little here a little there and that's fine it's beautiful but we also have to have our main okay but what's my what's what am I anchored in right for me I'm anchored in and I got to have my etc. So I'm I'm not here to tell anyone what their anchor should be. I think that you need to find your anchors and and ask oneself what is my anchors and but but I think in our generation we need more than ever anchors. On the other hand, Romo always talks about, you know, in his generation in the 60s, he was kind of rebelling about in the 50s there being too much anchorage people, people who are not willing to move or shift their their way of thinking at all because this is just how we do it. You know, I'm not willing to change anything even if it makes perfect sense and even if all the rabbi, but I don't care. But this is this is the way I do it. this is my 9 to5 and I don't care if there's a guy right there dying on the street and he needs a lot of help but you know I got to get to work right now right is is a mush and that's true you could apply this to so many different things I'm not willing to think even a little bit out of the box because I'm in my anchored I can't be I I I can't be fluid at all so would always you know say no we have to be willing to sometimes even if I'm on the way to a big maybe was very fluid you know He would be on the way to Ashir in a concert and and on the way save three people's lives and you know do this and that and the other thing and that's why he would sometimes come late to a year because he was doing every person he met he felt like he had to save their life and and and give them everything he had >> or a wedding three or four hours late >> right which I'm not recommending necessarily that that's should be our practice but that he was very very rooted in this Torah of fluidity of like like I I have to be in the moment and I'm right now I'm in the moment you know so you know for example someone would ask him a question in a shear and he would just get completely enveloped with the answer his question and kind of forget about everything else that mattered the guy screaming at him like you know cuz he just so wanted to give every person he met everything which is why we still tell stories about him cuz he was giving them everything he had but that that's may not be the balance that's appropriate for us but nonetheless it was that was his kind of shifting the balance. So I think for our generation we're very very imbalanced of we're all over the place of that may so we need to kind of get ourselves back to have the at least I'm giving myself I know I need to have anchors [snorts] in my life you know like just every night do ah or like for me like I know I don't I don't I don't make exceptions unless it's an emergency and then I do make but like these are things that like anchor uh anchor me to to to my schedule no matter what and to Torah mitzvah. So anyway, that was my rant about uh so is saying we have the and the is the under is the the is is the fluidity but we have to work on we have to walk on the ground. We have to walk on the world of flu of solidness but under the solidness is that fluidity which is motivating the solidness. So good you with me on chat number two. Okay. number one we said is thank you Hashem that a world exists and that I can walk and number two is that there's the fluidity of life and there's a solidness of life and Ruk is telling us to find the right balance beautiful shot number three is the hugup shot of the ashlag the reb ashog ashog is a particular school in Kabala which I happen to love. Um it's of all about giving. It's the cabala of taking the cabalistic concept and applying it to living a life of spirituality and constant looking to give. Okay. And there's a great English book by my friend of Aram invat. It's called inner work which is he he translated into English about his service of hashem and so in ashag they said like this is a wholeid in telstone ashlag and other places he says what's arat the garra says is the lion of desire [snorts] says arit alham M what's mim Allah Torah? So he's saying thank you Hashem that you put our is ultimately Torah. He's saying every morning we're waking up and we're reminding ourselves that even if my external level I get drawn after my tyas sometimes and after the millions of to-do lists we have but deep deep inside my rut zone is to connect to the to the olam to the to the Mayan to the infinite waters. Okay. Now why why why are we saying water is a is is a mush for the because if you look in the spirit of god flows on the water even though the water was not yet created so asked what's up the waters weren't even created and god's already hovering over the water so says it's in some way the world of Water is like it was there even before the world was created because it brings us back to the world of godliness. It brings us back to right. That's why when you want to connect back out of the world of distractions and physicality and you want to connect back to your what do we do? We go into the mikvah. We go into the water. We go into the sea which is the best type of mikvah. calls it a mikvah, right? That's why try to go to the mikvah every day before we dab him right men they go to the mikvah before as a to connect to spirituality and they go into the water and of course women not just as a but as when they want to connect to their husbands and to themselves they go into the water because water symbolizes spirituality there's even a nice boy song about it go yam Check it out later. My oven. So, I don't know about you guys, when I go swimming, I feel more connected just to my soul. So, anyways, so God is saying that we have to we're thanking Hashem and recognizing that our rats on is connect to spirituality. And he says at the end in our generation, the only thing that's going to bring people closer to to Hashem and to Yiddish is if it comes from a place of rat. We can't for we can't force people anymore. I can't force people to become religious. We can't force other people to become secular. It doesn't work. When you try to force it, just backfires. So in our generation more than ever, the generations of the we are generation of and that's how we have to do everything through love and empathy and connection. And that's what's also ultimately going to move people. forcing isn't isn't really gonna gonna gonna kick the can very far. Tap shot number three of the Ashlag. Yeah, you with me now. Thehat of a I believe is based on thehat of the Noam Elik. Okay. Who is the Noam of Elikmeinsk? Okay. He is the third generation ofidis. Okay. From the BMT. He's got a famous brother and Zusha. Okay, mention I have to give Zusha a shout out, right? They were brothers and uh anyways was also an amazing and he wrote the no um a lot of they read the katan which is like different guidance and advice how to live a good life and there's even a little no school for a good birth put it under the pillow anyways so no melik is someone I'm very connected to because I'm descendant of the age kesh of the of the more of a hashmish who was a who's claimed him as that's why I'm named K and he was his rebi was no that was his his in any case he was a great master and he said the following a little bit of a different twist he says connects to artsus earthiness iness. In other words, we all have within us earthiness. In other words, in a amidos, what does earthiness connect to? Laziness, materialism, tyas, physicality. We all have an earth part of us. But under the earthliness is water is like we were saying before the aims is the the the mind which represents Torah is a mind which represents Hashem. So every morning we're reminding ourselves yes I have earthliness but right under the surface if I just first I just have to be aware that the earthliness but right below this physical layer that we all have is an is spirituality okay and the first step is just to be aware of that of course the next step is okay great I know that I have a soul how do I connect to the soul right that's that's the next question. Well, the first step is just to open up our sensitivities of appreciation and and recognizing God as the source of everything and that itself is going to open ourselves up towards spirituality. How else can we open ourselves up towards connecting to the soul? I'm asking this as a real question, not as a hypothetical question. What do you think? The normal is saying we have an earthy layer in this lever and we have a soul layer. Very nice. But how do I connect to that soul layer? What do you guys think? >> That's a beautiful idea. The more we open up our mouth and connect to sincere since a human is a a nephesh mal which means a a speaking being. So the more that we have sincere prayer, the more we can open up our soul. Beautiful. What else? And Torah. It's just interesting. You have to learn Torah in the right way. Cuz if you just read read in a very external level, it's it could be almost like you're just like reading the menu, but you're not tasting the the the the food. >> But if you learn Torah with the right kavana, like I hope we are tonight, right? to connect to the Bolam and to Shama to automatically just that kavana switches the Torah experience into a soul experience. I believe I believe I've learned from my from my rebe um so Torah Torah with the right kavana I do believe can direct us towards our souls meditation and also dancing and singing for >> beautiful meditation breathing breathing connecting ourselves slowing ourselves down and connecting to our inner inner inner reverberations of the soul and for sure dancing and singing and getting our whole body involved can actually awaken us to our souls. And actually, from my experience, it's it's it's a way of like um showing ourselves that we're not just a body cuz a body naturally doesn't want to actually run. remember there was a time in my life when I had more discipline and more time because I wasn't I didn't have kids and I used to wake up in the morning and I would go for a run like a 15-minute run around the around and then I'd go to the mikvah and then I'd start my day at Nate. So, I was waking up at like 5 in the morning and I'd listen to like podcasts like give myself a I'd listen to Tony Robbins or whatever it was for a year and I remember just like the the concept is naturally you don't want to wake up at 5 in the morning. Naturally, you don't want to run but then you train yourself to overcome your body and be you're more than a body. You're a soul. And I don't know about if you guys have experienced this but that's what I experienced when I'm running when I'm exercising I'm overcoming my body my lazy earthliness it's coming and through this physical action showing myself that I'm more than a body I'm actually a soul dancing also many studies have shown that dancing uh can connect a person uh first of all just to the natural adrenaline and all the chemicals which bring you happiness but also it can be a spiritual experience um for people. Um I'm not much of a dancer except on Friday night at the Kotel, but you know, even for me that's just just going crazy. I don't know about the fancy dancing, but that that experience is just it opens me up. My estra is a different estra after I do that dance. I I I believe that when Mashiah comes, you know, he's going to make a decree every morning before Shak everybody has to, you know, dance dance and sing. And only then, you know, can you jump into the mikvah and start start shak out with the dancing and the singing. That's what I think. We'll find out. But um anyways, so good. So good. So we have some ideas about how to connect ourselves to our soul. But the first step is just to recognize that we are a soul. And that's alim that there's earth, but it's on the water. By the way, it's a followup to um no no and at the same time God didn't create us a soul. He created us earth on a soul. Which means that he didn't want it to be easy. If he wanted us to just be a soul swimming in spirituality, then that's the way he would have created the world, right? But heavka wants us to be that earthly guy who just wants to put up his feet, you know, and watch TV, you know, and just give into his earthy earthly desires. But then we have this challenge. We have this, you know, this struggle within us of the water or the or the earth, the earth or the waters. And apparently that's the point of life, right? That is the struggle. So the next time we're in a struggle, we're in a challenge of spirituality versus physicality, which by the way is every day for me at least. And we should recognize that's the point of life. That's why we're in the video game to overcome those challenges and and and and choose soul over the body. Not saying to to to denate the body, but but to to to uplift the body by once in a while choosing the soul over the body. and you know whatever that means everyone in their own where different people are in different you know levels of that but for me just that act back in the good old days when I was disciplined please God I should get back into it again of of getting onto that treadmill or running is like showing it's like physical over spiritual type of situation by the way also I think a mikvah at its core is is that a little bit because in the olden days they didn't have these beautiful warm heated mikvah that I have in you which was like nice. But when in the olden days, you had to jump into the cold mikvah, right? And your body, if you've ever been to a cold mikvah, is like, "I'm not going in there. Are you crazy, man? It's freezing. One one jumping out of there." And then your your soul is like, "No, no, you got to go." The rabbis say, "You got to jump into the mikvah. It's it's holy." And then you have this body soul thing going on there. They're struggling. And then at least for us men who go into these cold mikvah every once in a while when you get out of it, you feel great. You feel amazing cuz you you had that struggle in the body versus the soul. But if you always go just go into the warm mikvah like you know it's not you don't get that experience. Not I don't have anything against warm mikvah. I also go to the warm mikvah most of the time. But once in a while we got into we got to jump in the cold mikvah. You know we got to take the cold shower. >> There's cold >> warm and hot >> lobster pot. >> Yeah. There's a really really hot one. That's a different Nissan. Okay. Yeah, I did that one just to remember what hell's like every once in a while. You know, to give me a little so I, you know, you could do cha before shabis. Anyways, I can tell you my mikvah practices later. Uh the point is, uh that that's alim according to the ha ha noam el. I think that's all I got uh in terms of tonight. Trying to remember, did I have any other shots? Probably. But like I said, today was a little bit of a fluid day. I didn't even have a chance to write down uh to write down my notes. So, I hope I hope we got something out of it. Just quick cuz uh that's what they taught us in rabbi school. You don't remember anything without. So shot number one, we're going back to and we're reminding ourselves that God created solid earth that we have solid. This is what I wanted to say that we have solidness in our lives that we have certain anchors in our lives and every one of us can close our eyes and just think oh there's a few things in my life that I have you know could be my mom my dad whatever it is I have certain uh anchors of my life which which could be religious religion. Some people wake up, they don't have a religion. They don't have God. They don't have meaning in life. They don't know why they're waking up in the morning. And that from Jews, we have we we know why we're waking up in the morning. We we have a goal. We have a mission. We have a tikun. Okay? We have solidness in our lives. That's definitely not something to be taken for granted. That's what I wanted to say. So that's that that's shot number five. Shot number one is there is a universe. We have gravity. We're not floating in the just imagine, you know, you wake up and you're floating in in in the moon. As cool as that would be, we we get old eventually. Okay. So, we can we can walk and there's the universe. Shot number two we said was the cabalistic perspective of the of the holy uh Rafuk, right? of fluidity versus anchors in our life and finding the right balance of having the anchors and having the fluid and making and making those that balance. And then we gave the ashlag's shot of a rat ultimately being to be water to be spirituality to be to be connecting to which led us into the shot of the noamel malik that really we have the arts of the earthliness but right below it is spirituality. We gave some shots as to how we can jump into spirituality and connecting to our nishama and uh and and hashem should bless us that we can have even one of these kavanas tomorrow morning. You can every day pick a different kabana you know and uh there's a lot more more cabanas and more more to say but uh we'll call it for now and we'll let's sing a little niggan. They go from the solid world of Tyra into the fluid world of niggan and anchor these Toras into our Na [singing] I d [singing] n I I am [singing] n I know hey La [singing] [singing] [applause] [music] my name [singing] >> [music] >> My birthday [singing] [music] [singing] is my [music] sh [singing] My God.