Discovering G-d - Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller

[Music] so when you look at the world you'll see the majority of the world is mineral is that true the earth itself the sea okay so if you are a Rob hello okay so we're talking about purposefulness if you are a rock how would you spend your day you would spend your day doing what your rock you just be but in fact you're supporting the next level of life right so all vegetation is supported by mineral life okay so let's move beyond being a rock for some of us that's like oh no I was so happy it okay a plant what are some things a plant can do that a rock can't do you can grow tell me more mm-hmm could die tell me more reproduce photosynthesize flower okay so it's much more active okay but in terms of amount there's far more mineral life than there is vegetation okay okay so now you're focused on your favorite animal what are some things that your favorite animal could do that a plant can't do eat what clay see here move get from one place to another reproduced consciously have a sense of belonging to its own species primitive emotion some level of communication certainly it's a lot more okay so again the majority is mineral life which supports vegetation which supports animal life which is much less than vegetation all of these in turn support human life so what are some things that a human can do that an animal can do okay another thing that you would say that humans can do our level of conversation is different than animal communication even dolphins would never have a conversation like this one okay what are some other differences we're more creative in a certain sense before communicative in a certain sense we think we deeply we can make sure we could make choices that don't benefit ourselves for the sake of others which animals cannot do they will preserve the pack or the species but that's because from their perspective their identification with the pack and species is absolute but you won't find the giraffe picking the leaf turn looking downwards and Sancho Panza it's really good okay so this is the pyramid now if you were to take anything from the lowest level out of the world it would be a disaster could you see where this is so who was to take animal species out of the world it would be disastrous if you were to take humans off the planet what would happen nicer greener so the quiz is why we here so again nothing makes itself so this pyramid came from somewhere nothing makes itself and the interdependency of the of the pyramid is absolute but do any of you know what anthropic is it's a field within biology it's the study of humans from a biological perspective so what that means it's the study how many different biological components would you have to have work simultaneously for even one person to exist so if you go back for instance to Darwin he had a problem with the eyelid and the are you familiar with this problem gosh which came first with their eyes that were like drying out and being blinded within days saying well if I only had a shield if I only had a shield or with their Islands uselessly flapping around for eons I sang gosh I have no sense of purpose okay those conclusion is that they had to come about simultaneously Darwin lived around 200 years ago today how many things have to be there simultaneously what kind of numbers are we talking about tens thousands so clearly the existence of the human being is part of a very intricate and involved vision of what the creation is meant to be the places what are we here for could be since we have spiritual capacity okay certainly would have to do with spiritual capacity but I want to I want to throw an axiom at you and if you could accept that axiom good and if not we have to argue it out a little bit when you say something is good you mean it does do what it can do if I say this is a good pen I mean it writes so if it could whistle Dixie but it can't write it wouldn't be a good pen these kids are good because they open doors if they also act as good back scratchers that's fine but okay clear so I want to change your definition of a good human being now in order to to tell you why this is important many people like you know anyone who study sociology knows us it's fun to go amongst people with the microphone people psychologically have a need to answer questions that they're asking if they're very personal if someone thrusts a mic in their face have you seen this so suppose we were to go and ask somebody are you a good person what do you think most people answer yes or no yes now suppose the follow-up question is what makes you a good person what do you think people would say what would you say not hurting people almost all of the people who were surveyed give negative answers I don't steal I don't kill I don't act aggressively to people for no reasons but neither does a corpse okay a corpse doesn't steal doesn't kill isn't aggressive doesn't rape okay right so I would say that that definition doesn't work with what I just said to talk about being a good person using the same criteria by saying these are good Peas because they open doors a good person would have to be someone who uses what people can do a person who's creative a person who's moral a person who's articulate a person who thinks deeply could you see what that makes sense okay so that's Judaism's definition of a good person a person who's truly human so now we're going to digress and talk about the different components of being a human we're going to take being a human apart a little bit so the reason why this is important to talk about is different aspects of who you really are sometimes try to grab your whole identity but there's a specific path from a Judaic perspective that which part of your identity should come from which voice so the most basic statement of who you are is you're the person who you look like you are your body so if you ask a kindergarten God who are you so give you her name you say but who who is Janie so I'm a girl so you say yeah I have yellow hair I'm I'm where so give you a physical definition because she's a little girl okay so part of who you are is your physical definition make no mistake about this it's when a person says the real me isn't my that's not completely true your body is part of you okay your soul has no expression without a body and because of this in Judaism most of the mitzvot are physical because the body is also you okay so you've all been at religious homes for shelters right what is a religious living room look like they look like okay no you're in huge bookcase yeah and what else is there a couch and a table there has to be a table because you have to have guests so can't be like some secular news of living rooms where there's only the l-shaped couch and the TV and decorative items and paintings there has to be a bookshelf there has to be a table okay you're there now suppose you during the first time you see the books do you see big sets of matching books did you ever ask anybody what they are okay so suppose you weren't in your English right you would never ask people what books are on your show how you do that but like suppose any of you from California now if you were California and you would have no problem you could ask anything in California so you say but what are these books and what do you think they are odds are one of the big sets is a set of town would remember yesterday we learned what what Talmud is the other is going to be a big set 14 volumes of what who's the 14 volume one we learned this yesterday romba right so suppose the person then who rather rudely asked what the books are then picks it like what's that book about odds are it's either going to be about business relationships like what's considered yours what's considered somebody else's contract law stuff like that or it's going to be about food kosher not kosher where it's going to be a mikvah or one thing you have blessings okay so suppose they go through a whole bunch of them and they're all about concrete reality they say well where's your volume on fans and for meditation do you think that there is a whole volume of Talmud and kind of travel there isn't there are parts in which this is discussed but I want to tell you why your body is what your soul needs to find expression the difference between Judaism and other religions is that the body is not dismissed is that being somehow other the body is not the enemy there are laws of taking good care of your body treasuring your body because without your body you soul has no way of self-expression but your body's not your soul above that we have emotions okay give me a reasonable definition of the word emotion feelings so what emotions are to the soul is like what touches to the body it's experiential from a Judaic perspective all motions all of the huge spectrum of emotion flow from two basic ones what do you think they are the most basic emotions what sadness happiness I would take it a little more basic even you're good though yeah okay well hunger thirst of physical and not emotion okay so I'll get there okay you're both on the right track there's the desire for connection and there's the need to achieve and fear of failure so fear of failure could be fear of physical failure I'll die it could be fear of financial failure any kind of fear fear of God love could be love of any kind of connection love with human being love of what you're doing all of the other emotions flow down from those two that makes sense to you emotions in Judaism are your friends they're not your enemies so the Greeks thought emotions as weakness some of your English that a lot of the Greek know the Greek heritage carried or carried through take land via the Germans okay you know the Romans the Greeks were conquered by Rome which led to the Drude ever ok the English royal family is German do you know this so the division of emotion is weak is coming from a foreign source and Judaism emotions your friends emotions here your mind so whether you're afraid or not depends on the message your mind is giving to your emotions so you could have two people in the same exact situation who feel very differently because of the different messages their mind is giving them so I'll give you an example of this let's say you have a scientist who's working in a laboratory and you know I'm not gonna give you this I'm gonna tell you a true story something I did Here I am first year I married ok it was married at 8 ok-hee right in first year first Pacer so this was a very long time ago in Israel in those days they didn't have fancy cleaners they had basically two house cleaners one was called Amma was a liquid soap Alma means female slave okay if it was never a good of PR okay okay so you could buy our ma in a bottle and the other was called economica which is bleach so my housekeeping skills were non-existent when I got married like had never done anything I'm an only child like nothing like you know the word nothing like whatever you're thinking nothing it means even less than that nothing okay some keeping house and like you know doing my best and here it is my first Pesach I know you have to clean the house to see that you have no crumbs around nothing from bread so I had no idea like where to begin so I began by taking all the furniture out of the bedroom cleaning and then gosh I'm too tired to continue okay putting back so here it is like just a few days before Pesach I didn't even start the kitchen which is the main thing so my husband's friend who came from the family said you know I think maybe I'll come and help you with day or two because this kitchens going to take it's going to take some doing okay so I didn't know in my absolute absence of knowledge yeah I have a stove right so sometimes things boil over especially when you don't know how to cook there's a the burners that the fire come out of and there's a circle around them and then there's a metal covering where does it go when it when it boils over gosh we are if all that stuff I never thought about it so just clean the stovetop and so he says to me you know it's gonna be Pesach soon you have all this stuff in like under the cover maybe it's time to like clean it have you cleaned it this past week this past week I haven't introduced last year I never even know it comes up okay so there's like it's this thick of I all sorts of good and horrific like you know every possible food that ever boiled over and I've got an it's solid because of the heat of the stove okay now really in terms of pay something like I don't have to clean it there's nothing edible there but I didn't know that then and he didn't either how am I gonna clean this the armor wasn't doing it the economica wasn't doing it so it decided I'm going to go to the big store downtown that has things that are imported and maybe I'll get oven cleaner so he went there they didn't have oven cleaner so yes the woman what should I do so she suggested they buy ammonia okay so I decided any of you know chemistry you know what's gonna happen now that's right if you mix bleach and ammonia you make toxic fumes okay so I of course immediately mix them together the location fills with these horrific fumes this man who's helping me my husband's friend passed out immediately I dragged him out of the kitchen opening the kitchen window at the same time okay so we wouldn't kill the whole building and this is my husband comes home I'm in the living room this guy is pierced okay so the reason I'm telling you this horrific story is is that the message that a chemist would get was not a message my brain could convey to me because I didn't know that I was if a chemist was there in the kitchen with me he would say don't mix them okay so everything depends on your mind so I want to tell you from a Judaic perspective the way you relate to the different fragments any of you know any Hebrew at all you're familiar with the word Melek what does it mean that's right so here it's an acronym for these words the word forebrain in Hebrew is Moloch the brain should lead the brain speaks to live do you know what love is heart the hearts your friend remember this emotions are not enemies but they receive their instructions from the mind and together they should instruct the body and let the body follow their commands when a person is working backwards where their body informs their emotions and the mind is excluded or not or barely heard you have an unsuccessful life you have the emotions not hearing anything you're living an unsuccessful life Mela Moloch lived Ovid the word Safed means liver what is your liver do if you were a liver how would you spend your day it detox is how by separating what's good from what's not what's desirable from what's harmful that's what your body should be to be continually the person is brain dead their heart is not going to continue operating so the heart does have its own system it has a systemic base but in the end it does it does receive instructions from the brain because the heart the material from which the heart is made of is cells right what everything is made from cells for cells to reproduce themselves they require reception from the brain so on a cellular level the heart like everything else depends on the brain sending messages of survival and reproduction however as you know as you learned obviously from what you're saying this the heart has its own system it's the system itself is independent of the brain but if a person's brain did the heart walk function okay clear the heart in the end is the captain of the ship you're going to do what your heart tells you but the brain should be the navigator a captain who doesn't hear the navigator is in bad shape that makes sense to you so what does this have to do with what we were talking about yesterday in the day before we were talking about basics she said that the world didn't make itself nothing makes itself there's a hidden hand the hidden hand made human beings the way in which being a good human requires melih Moak live covered okay so on some level humans always had some level of cognizance of their being something beyond themselves is that true and if you studied anthropology if you were to study anthropology would know there's never been a salut as the civilization in which basic religious belief was not existent people on a deep level know nothing makes itself now what they do with that realization is very very independent so what I'm going to talk about today from this point onward is Avraham and his path idol worship and alternatives paths so here's our friends story so our friend was born at a time in the Bronze Age when Hammurabi was the ruler of what today would be Bab what today would be Iraq okay he had a dream his Hebrew name was Nimrod but she saw a child for in this day is thought to usurp my power so he declared that all the children boy that they should die could this happen today's Middle East probably whatever our mom's parents hit him because plenty parents are funny this way they don't like to have their children killed so when he was three the law was rescinded because it doesn't look good on the books how many of you know real three-year-olds book three year-olds but actual real three-year-olds you know real three-year-old anybody else in life okay so for three-year-olds who never saw a color texture whatever he was living in a cave wait to see this how would they respond fear okay okay interest I want so a picture that captured something like this do you like photography that if you ever see it's a classic did every see people of the world it's an old photographic classic okay there's people of the world and then children of the world very amazing pictures from way back so in children of the world they had a picture of a little girl was fitted with hearing aids and those days hearing aids were like enormous and with her hearing aid but she was just fitted with they've had her buy a Victrola you know what a Victrola is it's like a record player that had this horn like thing coming out of it to project the sound so the person before the picture was taken press the on button and she heard music for the first time what do you think she looked like capture her face believe if she looked like it was an amazing photograph so that was off for him you understand like he's looking at the world the three-year-olds were also very territorial so he but it's like who's is this so his his father related everything to the Sun so the Sun is a source of energy of he'd of light but I from who was only three said who made the Sun okay which opposed the problem to his father's I'm going to leave our I'm alone from it I'm going to tell you a true story that happens me with my child my eldest when he was four he came home from preschool and he said I need Arthur aha I'm Afra he decided that that's who he is okay sound good better than that man you know so to be Afra him he had to go to the linen closet and drape himself in a sheet okay so then we lived in a religiously mixed neighborhood at the time he decided he's going to convert everyone to belief in one God but he didn't share this plan with me so I thought it was just like playing on the porch with his sheet on but he escaped the house through the back porch which had an alternative entrance we went to the parallel building she had a little secular friend his age a girl so he knocked something on her door and he says yeah who made everything she also goes to preschool so she knows so she says TEVAR everything comes from TEVAR you have enough Hebrew to note ever it's a big company but you know what the word means no Tevez nature the company makes drugs so they considered themselves like you know okay so at that point in my life I had an aerobics class in my house and the name of the aerobic leader was Tara it's an Israeli name so he's hearing her say Ted everything comes from Ted but she meant nature that's the word they used in her preschool so he says whom a tether no he means the aerobic teacher so she's thinking gosh who did make nature okay so she says Ted I was always there no does that make sense to him gnosis no how did he ever get there okay now that neither of them were alternates know about human reproduction so it couldn't be from her mommy and her daddy you know what I mean so like they didn't know so she goes inside and to ask her parents like who made ever so father's like an important guy in Israel broadcasting so far left that like he could fall off the edge and his this little girl says who made tempeh and he said he's told about this lady so I was watching TV it was very popular news show in this book called my bad I was just watching my butt minding my business my little girl comes in to mate ever so I said so tell her I said Tara like things had always were their rules that just were always were but when you're four are you gonna buy that no so she didn't buy it she said like but how did it come they're so he's realizing this is a sophisticated question he said who asked you that question so if she said so you said my friend from the other building the religious building okay so he's getting he said he was furious like what are they doing tried to mission eyes to children so so he says well where's your friend so he got up what did he who did he expect to see by the door like what grant a man or like at least a teenager and so there's like this four-year-old and he says who are you and what does he say this is every secular parent's nightmare so you just go home from your mother's probably so it was sort of like left you don't question but the real lover um actually went through a similar process he got unsatisfactory answers from his father he kept the question he worshipped idols as a child with his parents he did whatever they wanted him to do but by the time he was 15 which is a long time to hold a question here's what he knew he knew that the idols are a distraction from the search for what word everything about so he knew what wasn't true but he didn't know what is true which is not an unusual thing we oftentimes peep have to find out who they're not before they know who they are right some goats digress and talk to you briefly about idol worship why didn't anybody ever worship an idol didn't you ever wonder about this like if I made the idol in the afternoon did I think it made me in the morning like what's going on so here's the story of how idol worship evolved people always had sensitivity to this that nothing makes itself the forces that they could see easily are the forces of nature did any of you do yoga and do salute to the Sun so that's so the next step is actually showing regard to nature and feeling connection to nature as a path of finding connection to the ultimate force right okay next step down you can't take Sun rise with you wherever you go okay so there are people say retain this Idol or this image or this talisman and that will remind you of the higher forces and you could relate to them through this this is how idols came about the next step is people get so involved and whatever other people tell them about how to worship this force that they forget that it's supposed to lead them further okay clear so all of the idols and icons that you see in any possible culture are pictures of forces people tend to make the force a picture whatever they admire in themselves some Christianity Jesus is a picture that to them of compassion and love which is the force that they see is the most beautiful and central and they see humans as being the ones will have that more than let's say animals or plants in Hinduism we have the Hindu Trinity where they have the force of life the force of death and the force of mean of maintained nurture which is what they would see a central and those forces they Center in their belief system both in their mythological beings Krishna and company but also various actual natural forces okay Ganesha the elephant whatever okay so taking this further okay I've been rejected that because he knew what he knew at 3 which is everything came about through another force but he didn't know what that horse was by the time he was 48 that's a long time here are the conclusions he drew whatever the initial force was it's not something physical because war physical things come from existing physical things and therefore can't be more than one and therefore can't be described but it made people with the capacity to search and make moral choices and therefore my part of the plan is to search and make moral choices so that's what he came to that other religious thinkers didn't get to they got almost as far as that but not far so I want to illustrate this Buddha and affirm lived in more or less the same time did you know that it's not interesting ok there's so there's their time difference but it's only it's less than 200 years ok so Buddha got as far as understanding that this force that word everything about and the true meditation you could feel the connection to the force but that you should actually make moral choices didn't get there so if you were to look at opera Hyman Buddha let's say at 11:00 in the morning on a given day what would boo to be doing meditating what would a friend be doing cutting vegetables because guests are going to come soon because he wanted to feed the hungry you understand this that's the difference between our from and Buddha and indeed that's the difference between Judaism and other religions so this is why the hospitality narrative in the tour of our firms hospitality is the longest avraham narrative saying and this is how you put you find your place in God's narrative of you by doing acts of kindness so hospitality was the first one that he latched on to but there are whole spectrum of acts of kindness to do judaics I'm going to spend the best Lucas running you through kindness from you view okay first one of the myths total kindness is indeed hospitality it submits it to seek guests have them feed them give them to drink give them a place to stay and the company company them out when you're doing there are two things are happening you're benefiting them and you're becoming more godlike because you're in sync with his plan for you and more similar to God was in the ultimate sense the host of the world okay clear okay next the next one is visiting the sick okay so when a person visits a sick the word for that and he was the coracle in live I care means to visit it also means something else do you know what live uh Cara's other meaning is be correct yes the Bacoor is a visit be curette is criticism okay so what does mean criticize the sitting like no means look at their situation critically and see what's really needed so if what they need is a social visit then be they're socially but that's not what they need they need someone to bring food into the house bring food they need something to change their linen change their linen if they need money give them money you have to look at their situation critically and see what's needed so it's for them as opposed to filling your empty space and desire for connection this is clear so visiting the sick is therefore considered to be as close as a human can get to reviving the dead which clearly good dog God doesn't nature continually write things die and then come back very clients whatever okay so I've rahama got into that as well next one next one is helping people get married okay why is that considered and important to act of kindness it's a to be part of the creative process and to do it in a way that's kind so that people find each other not only physically like man-woman but emotionally and intellectually as well okay clear next one taking care of the needs of the dead why is that considered important so the soul couldn't move on which is a great act of kindness so this is what I from dedicated his life to so the basic sense this is what Judaism is about but Avraham was only the first and a chain he had two sons Yitzhak and Ishmael one of them kept his heritage and the other one changed it what do you know about Arab culture and Islamic belief what okay so the first thing I want you to know is that it in Islam there is a belief in one God okay so they have that part but it doesn't take them to seeing life is sacred necessarily so they draw different conclusions okay Islam is from their perspective is all about power it's a very power oriented religion Judaism is not about power what's it about what connection it's a very different different approach so yesh Morel is who he is there's potentially there's potential in that world but it wasn't used at that time so the next link in the chain was he hits luck so you talk started whenever I'm left off he didn't have to start like with and who made the Sun he's like where'd he start with how come I don't feel good on the inside why is of all through searching on the outside who made this and I made that what's going on inside so the conclusion that he reached is that on the inside you have to overcome other forces that q so his trade is called Vora which means stroke which means strong his they live overcoming desires impulses escapism this is what he brought into the world so if you're going to say if you need a one-word description of arms path that would be yes if you need a one-word description if he attacks path it would be no not here not there I'm going to define who I am not be defined clear okay so he also had two sons okay Yaakov and Asaph itself is the ancestor of the West similar to similar to Islam but without what I consider to be the redeeming cause of monotheism the Western culture is also very power oriented because you see where this is so if you were to take bloodshed out of all Western literature and art movies media what would you have left you know Mickey Mouse okay but even know Knights around around around the round table we I remember as a child not having asked what the Knights do it never occurred to me like why would have somebody have know these great spears so they carry the armor they were killing people the whole time it was just the age of chivalry was a bloody and horrific era okay so Yaakov was the one who carried on the heritage Yaakov had twelve sons and a daughter his main ability was to see the truth of Hashem in any person so even though we had many children and they were all different one from the other he was able to give each one of them a pair using individual means of how to meet how to know God and keep and serve him so that's the final touch of what makes Judaism Judaism so not only do you serve not only with your minds in your heart but also with your body but everyone could find Hashem in their own way there isn't one image so I can't resist telling you a terrible joke I'm warning you that it's a bad joke this goes back to the medieval era where there was no literacy at that point hardly except in the monasteries there was a monastery there was a young monk who was copying manuscripts under the guidance of an old monk so the young man says to the old monk what have you made a mistake I'm copying it and other people will copy my manuscripts how do you know you didn't make a mistake so the old monk said well periodically I check all of the manuscripts against the really ancient ones in the cellar so the young man said look I've been here for four years I've never seen you go down to the cellar how often do you really check it so the old monk felt bad he said you know I'll tell you the truth they never check it but I really should he went down with the manuscripts to the cellar to check him against the ancient manuscripts okay he came up his eyes are red he's clearly been crying the case the young month month said did you make a mistake I said yes so what's the mistake he said I thought it said celibate but it said celebrate okay so the reason I'm telling you this terrible joke is that the Christian image of piety has to do with poverty chastity and obedience as you know there's the eastern vision of piety has to do with transcendence of everything worldly the Judaic vision of piety has to be it has to do with being in the real world of making it something so now that we know what God is who that what the foundations of Judaism our next class is going to be on what the Torah is and what it's telling us okay so save your questions about what the Torah is for next class okay that's it for now [Music] you [Applause]