Bitachon 228 - My Portion in the Land of the Living II

You're listening to the 228th edition of the podcast. We continue. We're studying together the I called out to you, Hashem. I said, you are my protector. You are my portion in the land of the living. Let's study together a little bit more. We saw last time a lot of different ideas. says what's it's the land of the living. One understanding was it was the land of Israel. One understanding was that it had to do with human beings trusting in other people. I'm not going to trust in people. Another explanation had to do with the fact that it's the land of the living is the bish the place where I attach myself to the the tree of life. Let's see onwards. He brings here the alik and the alik says as follows the right before this says I look to the right and I see nobody recognizes me. So gives us a different understanding of what's going on here. This is important when we come to a time of judgment and that can be after a person passes away or it could be the judgment that we've experienced and we're in the middle of through rasher. So, Hashem has it set up in a similar way to what we find in a human court. You have those who are malus. You have angels who speak on on behalf of us, who speak positively for us, point out the good things that we've done. And then there are angels who spo who who point out the negative things that we've done. There are uh angels of mercy and there are angels of of judgment. And generally we speak about the angels of mercy as being on the right side. The concept of the right side is the concept of of compassion. The concept of the left which is the weaker side is the concept of judgment says look to the right. It's a request. Hashem look to the right. Look to those who are speaking of our merits. Look to those who recognize the rahim and the compassion. you'll see. I don't have so much faith in those angels. I don't, you know, I wish that I could say that I'm so great that they're going to have a lot to say, but I know the truth. I don't have anybody who's going to take my side. I know that this is true because I see that I've lost hope over here in this world. There are things that are happening to me which I know why they're happening. I know why the negative things occur in my life. It's because I'm not being the man that I could be as much as I'd like to be. I fail. I make mistakes. If something negative is occurring in my life, I need to take I need to take credit for it in a negative sense. I need to recognize that the mistakes that I make are that which bring about a negative result in my life. If there would be those who are speaking on my behalf, finding merits for me in the upper realms, so then things would be good in the lower realms. Is being honest. He's saying, "When I see that things are not going my way, I see I see that there's nobody up there in Shamim speaking on my behalf." I want to go straight to the source. I don't want to look at the angels of mercy, the angels of judgment. I don't I'm honest. I know the truth. So I call to you, Hashem. If Hashem, you are not if you're not going to be able to be on my side, then who's going to be on my side? You are the compassionate one? Maybe he'll say that once it's true that there's nobody to to seek my soul, there's nobody, there's no angel that's looking and finding some positive aspect of my life, some merit. So I got to be concerned. Maybe Hashem, you're going to say, I I agree to them. There's nothing there's no redeeming factor for you. But this is what I say in my heart. This is how I reassure myself that you are absolutely there's no question in my mind. You are my protector. You care about me. You're worried about me. You're looking for my benefit. and you're trying to find maybe one little good thing maybe that I did or or some redeeming factor. So wait, King David is saying I'm I'm I'm concerned that maybe you don't want me to be in this world. Maybe you don't want to be me. You don't want me to have my portion in the in the land of the living in the physical realm. And maybe you want to take me away from here. Heaven forbid. Maybe it's my time to go. As the next says, listen to my to my prayer. Listen to my supplication and save me. Oh. Oh, mistake. According to the way the alik understands it is maybe you want me in the world of the living, the soul world. Maybe you want to take me out of this physical realm cuz you see it's not worth it for me to remain here anymore. And you want to bring me out of here. Heaven forbid. But no, says, you don't need me there in the in the world to come. Not yet. You don't need me there in the world of the souls. Guys, I'm very weak. I'm so weak. I'm I'm so poor. I don't have enough merits. Hashem, please let me let me get some some treasure. Let me pile up the treasure in my treasure chest. Let me be able to fill up in this world on the things that are important. Let me learn Tyra. Let me be able to have another chance here to study your will for me. Help me have another chance to do a m to have mit to do good deeds. Help me fill up my storehouse so that I don't get up to the world to come. I don't get up to the world of the souls empty-handed, but rather I come with something real in my hand, something worthwhile. That's the alsh. beautiful alik brings here from the malb says like this therefore after all that was said in the beginning of this mismar which we read last week after all that was said I don't see that I have any chance I don't see that anything is going my way all these things therefore I call out This corresponds to what he said at the very beginning of the mism he said I shall raise my voice up and I shall scream to you and that's that's that's the and that which and corresponding to that which he said he said two things I will scream to Hashem my voice will scream and my voice will supplicate So corresponding to the supplication so he explains I'm sorry he explains the supplications that's what he says that you are my protector right why am I what am I saying when I say hashem you're my protector what I'm really saying is I don't deserve serve it a supplication. The the root of the word means to beem give me give me something with grace. Be gracious. Give me something I don't deserve. I don't deserve to be saved. I didn't do what's right. I'm not on the level I'd like to be. I'm not I'm not, you know, I'm not banging it out of the park in my relationship with you, Hashem. But nevertheless, you're my protector. You're my You're the one who I know I can nestle in your wing. So give me a free gift. Give me a free gift. So he's coming now with the following two claims. Since you are always my protector, you always you always take care of me. Maybe it's because I deserve it sometimes, but you always take care of me. I think you also take care of me when I don't deserve it. So you always do it. So please continue to do it. You've taken care of me in the past. Continue please to take care of me in the future. Don't change. And second of all, the second claim as it were from the perspective of the fact that you are my portion in the land of the living. You are the one who made me alive in this physical realm. The M is understanding to mean this world you you gave me life. You put me into the land of the living. So keep me here in the land of the living. Let it not be in vain. Let it not be for not that you've placed me here in this life in this world. Let me be able to continue my life here in this world. He brings from a s called written by he says like this king David says in front of master of the world when I screamed out to you when I called out to you begging you please do the thing that I'm asking you that I'm requesting of you. said you are my protector says the s of what means to say is I'm asking that you do my request you fulfill my request because of your compassion and your great kindnesses not because of my good deeds it's not because I deserve it. Oh, he says a different idea. Here he uses the word to mean the future world, the land of the living of the souls. He's saying, I want the good things that I do. Don't use up those merits in granting me help and salvation and livelihood or whatever it is, every good thing that I request. Don't grant my request because of my merits. Let me be able to save my merits for the world to come. I'm putting away money for for the future. I've got my investments. I' I've put I put my life into doing good deeds, learning Tyra. Let that remain for later. Let the let me reap the rewards for that in the world to come. And please, Hashem, do good things for me, protect me, save me, whatever it is. for for free so that I don't have to use up my merits here in this world but it's saved for me in the next world and finally he brings here called Elazar and he says like this mosh says an analogy somebody comes to a doctor because his hand has become muted. It stopped working. His hand is not functioning properly. Maybe had a stroke. And now what the doctor does is he takes his stick. He has a stick right next to him and he he lifts it and he starts hitting the guy and he starts playing with him. It's really strange kind of interaction. I came to a doctor. Imagine you come to a doctor and the guy starts hitting you. He bangs him on his hand with his stick and he says there's no magic potion that can cure you. So the guy whose arm is not working anymore, he says he cries, I know that a guy came to you, a friend of mine had the same problem and he cured him. So the king says to him, "You fool." Sorry, not the king. The the doctor says to him, "You fool." I did the same thing with this other guy. I took my stick. I banged it on his arm. He said, "Ow." The guy said, "Ow." whenever I hit him. So, I knew that there's still a chance for his hand to be cured because he can feel the pain when I when I hit him. And I knew that I could cure the guy. But it's not so with you. I saw you. You just kind of laughed when I hit your arm. You had no feeling in your arm. You didn't You didn't feel the pain of me hitting your arm. So in that case, what can the doctor do? The doctor can't help the guy. There's no feeling left in his arm. There's nothing to cure. The analogy is originally when difficulties came upon us, we did what was wrong. We were mishak. We were disconnected from Hashem. Our our spiritual limbs stopped working. But Hashem brought upon us, heaven forbid, but that's the nature of things. Difficulties happened. We felt it. We felt ow. We said ow. We called out in pain and we we screamed to hashem that he should arouse his compassion and his kindness so then he would cure us like but that's not the case now. We don't feel the the punishments and the pain. We see what's going on and we just feel like these are natural occurrences and and the doctor is smacking the patient and there's no response. The person starts to laugh at it. And the Pik is complaining about this and says I called out to you at the beginning is saying it used to be that I used to care used to care when we got when we got challenged we got difficult situations occurring to us we used to scream out and I call that Hashem please protect me be my protector You're my portion of the land of the living of where the says but now look at my joy can mean my joy can mean prayer but could also mean the fact that I'm happy it's almost like a desperation I've gotten to the point where I become accustomed to the pain it doesn't it doesn't move me anymore more. It's a different kind of feel that David is saying in the second part. So the very lastim saying originally I cared and I called out and I asked I need and you helped me. I felt it. I felt it. I needed your help but I've gotten to the point where it no longer moves me. I see how how far I've gone. I've gotten really low. I've come to a really low state and I don't I no longer feel that pain. So, Hashem, I have to say an extra and I have to know that I have to be reensitized. I don't want the pain, but but I don't want to be indifferent to the pain as well. So, it's an important concept. We need to know that every single thing that occurs to us is from Hashem and it's a wakeup call. But we can't become indifferent to the many wakeup calls. Time's running out. Wake up from that slumber. Wake up from that sleep. Let's go into the into a yum kiper. Let's go into that time with a proper perspective with that awakeness with that sense of reality that no matter what, whatever is going on in our lives, it's from Hashem and he wants us to wake up. Let's do our best to do so to wake up. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you again next time.