5. Feeling the Tap on the Shoulder
Sponsored by the Silver family in memory of בתיה פייגא בת ישראל, by the Aaron family in memory of לייב בן יוסף, by the Postings לילוי נשמת פרידא שמחה בת יצחק. This week is sponsored by Michael Levy לילוי נשמת יוסף בן דב בער הלוי, ו'לאה רייזל בת יחיאל.Okay, in רב אשר, אמרי אשר. If you could open up to דף גמל. In דף גמל, we began the second letter that that רב אשר wrote, ציריך, אדר, 1971, תשל"א.We began, I'm going to do a quick recap because it's been a week or two since we learned from רב אשר.What page did you say we're on, I'm sorry?גמל, דף גמל.רב אשר explained to us, it was very, it was a very strong שיעור, it was a very, it's funny, not funny, but this, these classes, the חברה that were with us online and people that are in the room, this is striking some kind of a chord, it's very interesting.
I mean, I, I thought it would take us much longer to get accustomed to the טעם, to the taste of, of what's going on over here with this צדיק, but it seems like it's, it's cutting right through everything. So the last, just to remind ourselves, the last thing that we learned was that it's very hard to understand when, when, when חז"ל tell us that if unless God helps us, there's no way we could, we could, we could overcome the problems that we have. And it was a difficult thing to understand, what do you mean, what does it mean unless God helps us? Like helping means that as if I have, as if I have some strength and then oh God will fill in what I don't have. Really? And what you had in order to deal with in the beginning wasn't from השם? Remember?What's that?I have nothing if I don't have you.I have nothing.
And then רב אשר on דף דלד began explaining that real אמונה is אמונה in השגחה. Not just השגחה that everything works out, but also השגחה that every stumbling block that's in front of me is part of the process. That's just as key as the אמונה in everything's going to working out. That's where it gets hard.
To believe that everything just works out, it'll work out, מילא. To believe that even the צרות that I have, the exact issues that are presented before me are also part of the השגחה, that's where it gets, that's where it's not so פשוט. But that's just as much part of אמונה and part of אמונה and השגחה than everything else. He quotes a פסוק from דוד המלך, טוב לי כי עניתי למען אלמד חקיך.
Meaning it's good for me that I have been tortured and afflicted because this brought me to learn what you're all about, הקדוש ברוך הוא. He continues over here explaining that each person receives their פעקאלאך. Each person according to their שורש נשמה and in accordance to what their נפש needs to fix in this world has to, they get their own package based on that. They have to fix what they fix.
And all these יסורים that השם sent to us that are surrounding us, they all bring us to one place, to call out to הקדוש ברוך הוא, as רב אשר pointed out towards the end here, whoever has got a load of פרנסה, he's, he may like feel better that he donated money to a ספר or helped an institution, but that type of a lifestyle when I got what I need doesn't force me to call out and cry to הקדוש ברוך הוא. That's human nature. That's, that's what it is. One of the secrets of life is that דוקא when I have everything that I need, can you cry out to השם from that deep of a place of saying how much do I need you in my life? When you have whatever you need.
That is the ultimate. That's the ultimate, ultimate thing.And but, but, but רב אשר says the אייבישטער knows, this is how we're, he designed us like this. And that's why when we find ourselves in the places that we feel so, so lost and that, and that pain and affliction are confusing our mind, what it does is that it makes us feel heavy, it brings about עצלות, laziness. That's the wake up call.
That's exactly when השם is saying this is your time right now. This is your time. At this moment, this is your time. Now we're going to continue from דף ה on the top.
ואחרי כל זאת. After all this, בהגיע לאדם מחשבות אשר כאלו, you get to all these thoughts that surround you like this, יש בהם כדי לחזק ולאמץ רוחו גם בשאול ולמנוע מיאוש אף בבשן ומצולות ים שהרי עמנו קל ועצת אויבינו תופר. After all this when these types of thoughts reach a person like we're speaking about, it is to give us strength, to give us courageousness of the spirit also in the deepest depths and to prevent us from going into that word that רבי נחמן said doesn't exist. What word is that?בידיוק.
אלא שכל אותה העת סכנתנו מרובה מאוד מאוד. But what's the ענין? Throughout that whole time, the סכנה is very grave. לבלתי נשכח מאין צמחה ישועתנו. That we shouldn't forget from where our ישועה came from.
And you'll see how much this is שייך to exactly the time that we're living in. שהרי ההרגל הרע והנמהר מושכנו בצר לנו ליאוש ועצלות. Our habits, our bad habits always draw us to a place of laziness and sadness. וכאשר ירווח לנו לסיפוק עצמי ולגאוה ושנים אלו אוכלים בנו כל חלקה טובה.
והרי נמצאים סגורים ומסוגרים ומוצא ממנו אין. Okay, this is, this is, this is ארץ ישראל. This is our world right now. תמוז, end of June, 2025, תשפ"ה.
Last week at this time, there was a calling and screaming out to השם whenever a ballistic missile was sent. And it drew out from us rightfully so, ריבונו של עולם, אשא עיני אל ההרים, מאין יבוא עזרי? Now what happens when you let that שריי out, so what, what, what more or less transpires is that it becomes, I, I remember again, it's all only you. יוסף, what were you singing?I have nothing. I have nothing.
Only you. I have nothing, only you, to put those two things together. That's what happens when Iran does what it does. Okay, so we're, we're, we're a week later.
Do you guys think anything has actually changed? Now I'm not talking about the successes of the IDF, וכולי. I'm talking about, do you think anything changed in the design of the world, of the way השם created the world and relationships with השם? גורנישט. Nothing. So was there, has there been a קרעכץ since last Tuesday morning, אשא עיני אל ההרים, מאין יבוא עזרי? This is the ענין.
And רב אשר is saying that the more that years pass where I only cry out to השם when I'm forced to, those years are, I'm not going to say חלילה, זרק לבטלה, but I'm saying like it's כאילו like I'm missing the whole point. We're missing the whole point. It's true human nature cries out when you feel like you need shelter, that's true. But if anything has taught us anything, it means like, have you found a place in you when you have what you need, there's food in the fridge.
I always encourage you guys, go home today, open your fridge. Most people they have whatever they need for today. Was there ever, oh my God, you've given me everything that I need to get through today. Did that wake up anything inside, or is it only when, oh my God, I don't have everything that I need today because there's a, there's a missile flying over my head.
So the, the people that are living the life of that they can actually go to the place of I have everything that I need and ריבונו של עולם, it's so clear to me that if I don't have this, if חלילה, this feeling of התקשרות that I have to you gets tampered with, I got nothing. I got nothing. Remember, I think we learned this a long time ago. רב קוק says so beautifully that what's the, what's the merger, the, the dance, the sweet dance between אהבה and יראה, love and awe, is that when I'm really, really in awe, that means I'm petrified of חלילה losing the feeling of love that I feel right now.
That's where love and awe merge. That I, I if even the thought of God forbid not having this for a second, ממש scares me. ממש scares me. And that's where, that's where that merger comes together.
Yes, Eli.Yeah, I mean, the people nowadays, it's not really a נסיון of is אושר, like we have we in terms of lacking physically, we have. It's more the emotional and spiritual, like self esteem and inner qualities that we're suffering with, like feeling fulfilled.So because even if they we, we get everything we need, I mean, I mean, technology, but it doesn't mean inside we're getting what we need. That's, that's where the lack is.Define everything we need. That's exactly what he's saying.
If you had to define based on this, everything we need, what do we need?What do we need? There's, there's, there's so much money. What, what is it that we need?Connection to God.We, we need, what does that mean connection to השם?To feel complete.To feel complete. But what is that? I'm saying I want to go even deeper. Like, like, drive deeper to understand.You're doing your purpose the way it's supposed to be right now.That's what, that's what Eli means about lack of meaning.
Yeah?Yeah, Eli, is that what you mean? Lack of meaning.Fulfilling your שליחות like we had about this.Fulfilling the שליחות.נכון.Even though we have everything.נכון.Okay, weiter. ובאמת. אם גם נקיף עולם ומלואו בחיפוש אחר עצה להימלט מפני סכנתנו המאיימת לכלותינו, even if we search through the whole world looking for an עצה to escape the things that truly make life dangerous and that are a real, like what we've been hearing lately, סכנה מאיימת, like a threatening danger that's threatening to, to harm us, עד בלי השאר מאיתנו שריד, נעלה חרס בידינו אם לא שנדבק על ידי יסורינו בהשם. We're doing nothing unless we're actually looking straight in the eye of the affliction and kind of saying, oh, okay, I call you out, I see what it is.
You understand? Looking right into the eye of that which makes me so petrified and looking it in the eye and saying, yeah, this is very worrisome. I get it, but actually see what you're doing. What are you doing? You're making me run back to אבא. And if you can call it out while you're on, while you feel that, the attack, right? In the heart of the attack, like עם ישראל seeing these missiles and saying, ah, תתי, you want us to rid ourselves of all this גאוה that's been built up here for all these years in this, in this modern country, in this modern state, and calling it out, oh, that's what it's about.
Then you're already way, way, way ahead of the program. Way ahead of the program. The question is it's easy, it's easier said than done. We're all in here right now and right now we're not expecting to have a, an alarm or a siren.
But to do it בשעת מעשה, to look at the, look at the סכנה, look at the danger and be like, I'm calling you out because I know I could run all over the world looking for עצות, I can go Rebbe hopping. A lot of, you guys, you've been, you've had תקופות in life, Rebbe hopping? You know what Rebbe hopping means, right?Yeah, go to whatever Rebbe you want to get the answer you need.Or keep, right, until you find, yeah, Rebbe hopping. כל זה לא, זה זה שום דבר. אם לא שנדע כי כל הבא עלינו מאתו בא ולא חס ושלום לשם יסורים.
He's reminding us how he opened up this letter. What we must do is to know that everything that comes upon us is coming from השם, and it's not for the sake of suffering. Now that's a חידוש to many people. Many people are under the assumption God wants me to suffer.
לשם, it's יסורים לשם יסורים. I'm going through this. I've come to the calculation, we said this last time, that due to my being a bad boy in high school, college, or my first 40 years of my marriage, whatever it is, I'm paying, I understand why I have to go through this. I'm paying for all the stuff that I did.
This has to be, I'm supposed to suffer. Where does, what's the root of that train of thought, like we said last time? גאוה. You know? Wow. True.
You know. You're such a חכם. You've been able to calculate why you're suffering. רב אשר is telling us the root of that voice is גאוה.Wow.גאוה.
You know, he says, people go through יסורים and they actually experience it לשם יסורים. God forbid. This is חס ושלום. And for me, this is one of the breakthroughs from רב אשר's thought.
It's a breakthrough because I think at least for me and many of our חברה, this is something many of us have, have really struggled with and had to deal with.How does it jive with the idea of, hey, you're paying the price for now for, for the next world? I don't want to have to suffer there, so I'm suffering on that, that's like a big theology that's been permeated in teachings that I've, that I've come across.That what?That, that, that yeah, first of all, yes, there are יסורים and but really it's a חסד in that you're not going to have to pay the price in the next world. If you're going to have to pay the price.But that's different than saying it's because I did this.I don't know, I don't know specifically why I'm paying the price.But that's already good. But that's already, that's what we're saying.Not knowing is a little.I don't know.Is that what you were saying?It's not לשם?It's not לשם יסורים.It's לשם שלום.That's already a high level.Connection to the next world though is okay.Our whole lives are like that. That's not what we're speaking about.
That's a different story. That's a different זאך. Here he's saying a person that could really like look at what happened to him and be like, of course this happened to me. God wants me to suffer.
God wants me to suffer because I, I remember what I did.I don't think it's a matter of wanting me to suffer as opposed to there are consequences to our actions.Maybe, maybe for you. For many people, it's that they live a life of השם wants me to suffer because of what, of stuff that I've done.But I wonder if you, people think he's cruel.חס ושלום.Many, many, but חס וחלילה, but many people have come to that, to that, to that understanding. For sure.When something bad is happening, could you, could you kind of yourself say that not, not that that's why God is doing it, but you know, I'm taking this as a כפרה for my action.So listen, you can say it, but the test to know if it's really coming from a holy place is who are you the next second? Are you lazy and have you fallen into despair? If you say that and the next second you're ready to jump on the מצווה wagon and on the קידוש השם wagon, right? If you're able to do that, that's a סימן that the way you're saying it is, is probably real and sincere. If you're saying it as like, okay, I just, I can't, I need to get out of this בלאגן in my head, then then there's a problem with that too.
But I found it to be so, for me, I found it to be so breakthrough, such a breakthrough. This ענין of like, we think it sounds so holy. Oh, I'm paying for, I know why I have to go through this. I, I, I, I know why.
Saying I know why I have to go through something is such a, it's such a misleading, it's such a misleading notion with our יהדות. What do I know? What do I know? Yes, yes, the bigger picture, עולם הבא, וכו', our ענין is we'll get to עולם הבא, then then we'll be in עולם הבא. Here it's just about how do I navigate through now? Is it in about understanding why I'm going through what I'm going through? I don't know. I told you the story so many times, a good friend of mine, a while back, his wife, נבך, she got cancer on her tongue.
Couldn't understand. He was driving him crazy. Crazy how she got this cancer, נבך. חסדי השם, she's doing good now.
And we've דאווענען for her for, for years her name was one of the first names we said in שיעורים. So and I just saw them on מוצאי שבת and it was just such a, such a beautiful thing to see. And I remember that the husband lost his mind, he's one of my best friends, lost his mind. He was up nights researching, doing, you know, comparing family genetics and everything and lost his brain, his family called me.
So you got to snap him out of this, he looks like a, he looks like you know those when people get into that frenzy, he looks like he's lost his, you know, his marbles. I went to his house one day and the one נחמה I had was that he, he actually had a little bit of a beard because he didn't even shave for, for a few days. I was like, oh, this man, but besides that, I said to him, I said to him, actually, let me ask you one question. Tell me this.
נניח, let's say that you're going to spend two more nights and you're going to come to some type of understanding as to how your wife got what she got. What would be different? What would actually change? Would her cancer go away? Would you, do you think that your feelings would change if you understood how this happened? Forget about why this happened.You could target the problem.He's not a doctor. No.Something.Oh, but, but, but תשובה finding, finding these things, תשובה is regardless of me finding out how, how a bad thing happened.That's the teaching we just had, that's going back to that.Yeah, תשובה has to be always, meaning, תשובה is, is a constant, right? So this really wraps, this really wraps the whole, this whole letter is wrapped around this, this thing we're speaking about. Again, אם לא שנדע כי כל הבא עלינו.
We're about ten lines in the bottom on the right column. Everything that comes down upon us, מאתו בא, it comes from God, ולא חס ושלום לשם יסורים. לשם יסורים, for the sake of affliction. That's not a, that's not a Jewish concept of the אייבישטער.
That's not our concept. That's not a, that's not a Jewish concept.לשם כפרה is, would be a Jewish concept.Yeah, but not לשם יסורים. It's a world of a difference between the two.Cuz I, I think I've seen it. I've said it for many times there.
There's no, no punishment without transgression.No tribulations without transgressions is the wording that he uses.Say it again.No tribulations without transgressions.Right, right. And I'm going to understand.But you don't know what the transgressions, that's the whole of course.Yeah, but that's the, that's the trap. Exactly there.That's the trap.Which transgression I did that I deserved whatever.That's the trap. Yeah.It's good stuff.
Yeah.I saw by Rav Shmuel Zilberberg by I love this thinking cuz specifically him, he would stand in שולחן ערוך that those special around the rabbit moments and literally scream to the עולם, to himself, to השם, I don't know exactly where the direction was, but screaming חשבונות של אדם, screaming stop all these חשבונות, these big חשבונות of him and he brought פסוקים, and this is nothing to do with עבודת השם. This is all בלבולים and היצר הרע. He, he types against the הרע, ממש.That's amazing.And it just, he would scream, like it's this craziness that we get involved with. And you felt the intensity of his scream that he just wants to get to that pure, true way of being and not this.There's a, you know what the fear from that is? I'm having a little bit of my, uh, like triggering from childhood.
There was a teacher that always, uh, would, would refer to me as a, oh, you're copping out again. You're copping out from not really, that word cop out was thrown out a lot. Now, what, what where does cop out, uh, syndrome show up over here is that if I hear that, then I say, oh, this sounds so holy, but it's actually copping out from facing what I really need to do in this world. That's the יצר הרע.
But that is the יצר הרע like, oh my God, is it a trap.The cop out and say you're really relying on השם.Yeah, but you're not really, yeah. That relying on השם and אמונה is a cop out from really dealing with life.אחי, אתה צוחק, you know how many people live?He's so good, he's so good.No, I'm laughing. I'm laughing at the way.There is a, there is a, a crutch to some level of, of being numbing oneself and living with a, a numbing אמונה where they don't get anything, really feel the emotions, they're like everything's all good, but also says I want you to feel what's going on. If you don't feel it and have some, has to be channeled through your emotion and your connection and that pain or else it's not a real, it's not a super.נכון.So there is a level of a numbing אמונה.Yeah, but real חסידות, but they would say that that's not really אמונה.Meaning, when you go פנימיות wise, that numbing אמונה is not really אמונה.I was just beside the point.
רב אשר is teaching a דרך of how to be connected and how and the role that suffering plays in that. And that's it. The calculus serves to draw us to all these places that are not connected. They, we do a sort of, oh, I got this for that, okay, now I'm good.
No, no, you're not good. You're not good. You're not good unless you're connected and you have to understand that God, all want, God wants a relationship in the connection and he didn't set it up so that we should have all these things in your head. It's just beside the point.
And it's such a חבל to spend your time doing those calculations as opposed to saying, oh, this is a tap on the shoulder. I didn't think about you today. This is the way I had to think about you. Thank you very, very much.Yeah.But that doesn't fall into connecting to that ball which you're saying?What do you mean?When you're acknowledging, thank you very much for that awakening.All right, then you do say thank you.But you're, but you're saying you don't associate to an עבירה.Not to an עבירה, you're associated to the pain, to the connection.
The real, the real connection is the pain. The thing that's happening in my backside is not, is, my, that pain is taking me to all sorts of places. My mind is going nuts trying to figure out why, how, what? That's not the point of the pain.So we'll just say like this, based on what you're saying. A person that really wants to get his act together, if he goes through there, through this process, what may happen to him is like, but I don't want to keep on suffering.
So I, I get this wake up call, but can you please let me know exactly what I did wrong, right? But it doesn't work like that either. That's a calculation. אמונה means, this is what I want to say and I think this is very strong. אמונה means is that if I am מתעקש, if I make sure that what's most important for me is the awareness and the connection and the relationship and the calling out to the אייבישטער, I will, you'll, you'll get it.
But not the way that your גאוהדיק mind thinks that you're going to figure out what needs to be fixed. It's all in ענווה. It's not our minds that are and this is the חק. Can you trust the ריבונו של עולם that when there's real love and יראה and אהבה and the love is there, the connection is there, that which you were sent here to fix, to do, you're, you're going to be directed to there, but it's not going to be based on your scientific calculations.
But that's such a threat to so many people's understanding of what it means to be a Jew, what it means to do מצוות and not do עבירות.And the reward there is the connection.בטח.It's not having a יסורים stop.נכון. נכון.The prize at the end.נכון. Yeah. It's escapism.
It's not, yeah. Yeah, that's not... If you're, if a person is saying, whatever is going on at this illness with the hospital, everything's good. They're missing like, to some level some people use it as their...
I know. as their... I know, listen, for me, when people like say that, like they talk like that, I I can't, I can't any דבורים איתם. I I personally can't connect to that.
It's not saying I don't have a conversation. There's, I don't have... I I love them. I love people that בעזרת השם, I love them, but I can't, I have nowhere to go with the, with a person that's in that space.When I was younger, I I wanted, you know, those were triggering statements.
גם זו לטובה. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know what kind of level you have to be on? You think רב נחום, גם זו was כאילו to be, like the גם זו, the גם זו לטובה, of course, it's true. And אמת לאמיתו it's true.
For me to get to there, you you must not have it. That if it's numbing אמונה, that's my, that's what I'm trying to say. If the גם זו לטובה is, it has a numbing אמונה soundtrack to it, I can't. מה אני אעשה.I was once in an apartment, השם ירחם, I was visiting someone.
While I was there, his wife and a few little children, and the חשמל and she was making food, dinner for their, for her children. My wife and I were there visiting and the and the, the electricity went off for like the third or fourth time that, that, that, that like year. And right when it went off, and the kids are starving, she's like... she started doing a ריקוד of a גם זו לטובה with that, with the ניגון of גם זו לטובה.
Her children were watching. And, I remember we were discussing this on the way home in the car, thinking, someone may look at that and be like, wow, look at that, look at that אמונה. Right? To me, that that doesn't... That's not, it doesn't talk to me.
That's a ייסורים, where you can't cook food for your children, that's an affliction. That's an affliction. Now, why why did the חשמל get, get, get cut off? Because there's, there was complete עצלות. There was complete laziness and and and no responsibility about taking care of the family.
That's why. It wasn't because of an electrical problem. Just to make it clear. Oh, I wasn't clear before.
No, no, it wasn't like a אפרת blackout or something I'm saying. Yeah. They didn't pay their bill? Yes. Oh, okay.
Yes. Sorry, sorry. It came from that. Yeah.
Oh. Yeah.These are all, the afflictions are there to be like, not just, oh, it's all good. השם runs the world. Even though that's a true statement, is saying, you're not...
He said, what a waste of a life that you're not paying attention to the tap on the shoulder and saying, it's been a while. It's been some time. And that's generally what is saying, how השם gets our attention. He doesn't get our attention when suddenly out of nowhere, some aunt we never heard of or met that died childless, left us 800 grand in the, in the bank account as a ירושה.
That that that doesn't get our attention. It gets our attention for for five seconds like, oh my god, but it doesn't wake us up like the oh my god when there's a 800,000 שקל minus, or whatever else it is, right? It's just not the way it works. That's not, that's not how it happens, right? Oh my god, you got, yes, you got my attention. זה לא זה.
זה לא ככה. And again, the root of all this of thinking that I could חשבון out all these things prevents me from experiencing the tap on the shoulder. What a waste of a life. What a waste of a life.
The correction keeps us from making a connection. Repeat that? Correction or connection? We're trying to figure out corrections when really it's about connection. בדיוק. Very good.
Well that is a teachable option. The correction is to connect. Right, no, right. So, did you hear that? He's saying the the correction is the connection.
is the connection. Or the connection is the correction. בדיוק. נכון.
That's what he's bringing us to over here. Let's just finish this, let's just finish to the till the end over here.אלא כדי שנזעק אל השם בצר לנו ונרצה לבוא לתכלית תיקון נפשנו. The point of the tap on the shoulder is to get us to scream out to השם when things seem really rough, to want to come and be like, I don't want to have to come back to this world again. I want to get it done here.
Now, you could hear that statement and say, okay, so I got to figure out what the correction is. No. No. Can you imagine, I mean, it's not to talk bad about, you know, previous people and their previous תיקונים, but can you imagine how many people spent their whole lives in this world and never even knew that that's the point of life? The point of life was be a good person, pay taxes, and וכולי, but that never was like, you're here to tap into your נפש אלוקית.
Like that is your, that's everyone's תיקון. That's everyone's תיקון. Tapping into the נפש אלוקית, which will then lead me to what the actual תיקון in a more detailed level would be. But the calculating with נפש אלוקית, this is, this is דבורים של שטות.
It's דבורים של חוץ לארץ. Why am I saying that? Why why did I say that right now? Come on, what's what's one of my favorite תורות? It's this פרשה of הרב קוק. Why did I just say right now that the דיבור of the calculations is a חוץ לארץ תורה? חשבון. Yes.
סיחון מלך חשבון. That's the war we waged on the way to ארץ ישראל. The keys. Huh? We have to get through.
Yes. We're still fighting that battle. כי הוא ידע יצרנו, like we said before, כי הוא ידע יצרנו כי עפר אנחנו. אייבישטער knows we're not great.
It's like so funny. We're always trying to show השם like that we're something different than what he created us. It's such a funny thing. The אייבישטער knows exactly what who's standing in front of him.
And we're always trying to put on these costumes before השם like, we're we're kind of like you, but not exactly, don't worry. We're kind of like you, but not exactly. The אייבישטער knows who we are. וכל עוד אנו מנותקים מעפרנו, and as more the more that we are we are disconnected from our, from our עפר, meaning from that that that, when he means when he says עפר here, I think, and you correct me if I'm wrong, that vulnerable, complete, you know, עולם הזה משוגעת, and how much we need השם, the more we were we're disconnected it, אנו מנותקים מבוראנו, then we're disconnected from the one that created us like this.
ולכן שולח לנו כאבים וייסורים אשר הם הגורמים לנפשנו כי תשוב עד עפר, ואו אז הייסורים הם המאורים ליבנו להתקשרות והדבקות בבוראנו. And the more that we're disconnected from who we really are, from from the way השם created us, and we stop having the God complex that many people have, but they don't even realize it, they have a God complex. The thinking I could figure, crack these codes that were designed by השם, then the more that pain and ייסורים may keep on coming on and I won't be listening, I won't have the wake-up call. It's not going to wake me up.
And I'll continue living like this. ואין לנו אלא להישען על אבינו שבשמים. Now, what does it mean that all we have is to rely on השם? Numbing אמונה, cop-out, no. It means שבידו הכח, הגדולה והגבורה לתומכנו בעת משברי החיים המציפים אותנו ומאיימים לבלענו חס ושלום.
Relying on השם doesn't mean I just have to trust in השם and everything will be okay. It means that I rely on this relationship, to nurture this relationship, to be vulnerable in this relationship, to open up my heart in this relationship because it's only through this relationship that the strength that I need to get through what I need to get through right now will come. ואין מצב שיוכל בן אנוש להחזיק עצמו בלי שישוה השם לנגדו תמיד. ולהזכיר לעצמו חטאתו תמיד.
There is no way that a human being can hold himself in this world without having שיויתי השם לנגדי תמיד, that the ריבונו של עולם is always right there, right right here, right now at this moment. Now, he ends off here in a very interesting way, because this sounds like what Yossi said before. ולהזכיר לעצמו חטאתו תמיד. But what...
okay, but I want to I want to I want to say like this. I don't hear the Rov that the the person you mentioned before in this last line. What's my חטא that I have to remind myself in front of me all the time? That you're disconnected. בדיוק.
If I have the חטא of going to that that place I shouldn't have gone in front of me all the time, ain't no, there's no chance in the world it'll lead me to the point that he's trying to drive us to. That's the moshel. Huh? The בעל חטא, like when you made... It's just missing.
It's it's the חטא is, if the חטא in front of me is I missed, I'm missing the point of life, that's what's in front of me all the time. Not the עבירה. Why? You tell me, how has it been for you guys when you've been stuck in שמונה עשרה and to many people it happens on יום כיפור when that חטא is right in front of you while you're davening. It's מעורר הלב, it's, it's געשמאק.
Horrible. It's, it's the worst. And and and it's even worse when we when we understand Yiddishkeit to be like, no, this is the point. You're supposed to have this right in front of you right now.
זה לא זה. זה לא זה. It's all the disconnection. That's the.
The הרב שלמה וולבה used to cry the most, and he said על חטא שחטאנו בביטול תורה. That type of, that could be more of like a, yeah, we don't have that one, by the way. It says a lot. Right, we don't have that.
You know? כל נדרי. I mean, you can have a lot of... That was, in הרב חיים מוולוז'ין's, every second was דביקות in terms of the amount of... And that was the one that...
You know, הרב שלמה's last מוצאי יום כיפור in this world, he was, the שול, the קרליבך שול, he lived in the apartment that's in the second floor, like on on top. That was his, that was where his parents lived. His father was the Rav of the שול on 79th Street and he lived there up on top. I I had an I had a mind-blowing זכות that after he died, I went in, I I went in there to put the, to לסדר את הספרייה because the שול a few years after he died needed the space to make it into office space, the bedroom.
That was insane. So I spent a few days in there going through the the library and and then those books were then, we we put it up in a certain way and then they made it to LA and then they made it to the מושב and then that whole miracle story that we דוקא the room that we we set up as a library on the מושב in הרב שלמה's house, I get the chills thinking about this, was the only room in the house that didn't burn down, those ספרים. So to me it's a very it's a very emotional story because at מוצאי יום כיפור, his last מוצאי יום כיפור in the world, he was standing by the ספרים up there in the in his apartment. He's going by the ספרים.
He took out a בבא מציעא. Right? אלו מציאות שלו ואלו חייב להכריז. He started learning מוצאי יום כיפור. That פרק in בבא קמא, many people start teaching children גמרא with that פרק in בבא מציעא.
Findings. Which are the findings that you don't have to proclaim and which are the findings you have to proclaim? אלו מציאות שלו ואלו חייב להכריז. But then הרב שלמה kept on saying a sentence, he said, wow, ועל חטא שחטאנו לפניך ביודעים ובלא יודעים. So we all, we all mean, we we I mean usually the כוונה is the חטא for those, for the things that we know about and all the things that we don't know about, right? But even that's a גאוותיק thing, right? Based on what we learned today, but the way he said it was, wow, I have to do תשובה for all the things that I know about and for all the things that I wish I never knew about.
So part of me wishes like, I never knew about this side of גאווה in me, because it's when you taste it, it's so that's more bitter than any עבירה you could ever do. When you have an exposure of your גאווה, of your God's complex, it's such a, you feel like the, you feel like such an idiot. Basically, you feel so ridiculous when you have a moment of, ah, I actually have been playing God without realizing it. I wish I never found out about such a thing.
ועל חטא שחטאנו לפניך ביודעים ובלא יודעים. So I think that that listen, I pray that when מכוון here to the, thank God we have the, we have you to make sure we're staying on track, but I think that if we could continue this דרך about understanding his עצות to us, we we could have a chance of we're doing some serious pre-אלול תורה right now, which is very much needed בעזרת השם. Okay, we'll continue this next week and we'll...
