Eliminating Suffering from your Life - Rabbi Daniel Travis

When I was younger in my teenage years, I had this aspiration to be in the Olympics. I used to run maybe close to 100 miles a week. I was training for the 400-meter hurdles, and I wanted to be in the Olympics, perhaps even to represent Israel in the Olympics. And most of my friends were from a different uh culture, African-American culture, and they had a certain expression, which at the time I didn't appreciate it. But as I worked more on this topic of thanking Hashem for things which seem bad, I realized a tremendous truth in what they have to say. You know, when something is really good, they would say, "That's bad, man. That's really bad." And then I realized how right they are. Because a lot of things in our life which seem bad, they're really very There's a lot of good hidden in them. And actually, a lot of people didn't appreciate this story until my uh uh my machutenister, my um my daughter's uh mother-in-law, who's from England, she said, "Yes, in England, they all say that's wicked. That's wicked, you know." I like my one better, that's bad. But it's really what I speak about tonight, because I feel, especially today, there's so many people are suffering, and so many people are going through difficult experiences. And by the way, I'm not coming to tell that there's no such thing as difficult experiences. There are very difficult experiences, and as I write here on the cards that my mother gave out, and whoever didn't get one, they're available here, that while painful experiences are inevitable, our emotional response to them is in our hands. And this is what I'm coming to speak about tonight. Not that there's never painful experiences, but how we deal with them is in our control, and that could really make a major difference in our lives. My rebbe for 18 years, Rav Brevda used to say the mission in the beginning of Bava Kamma says there's arba avos nezikin, there's four types of nezikin. He used to say, "In this generation" and he got many, many people would speak to him for advice. He would say there's four problems which are rampant in our generation and that's problems with education, problems with shalom bayis, which marital harmony, problems with health and problems with financial situations. He says, "Everybody calls me has at least one of these problems, right? And they're problems, they're difficult. I'm not going to say this not difficult. Certainly I'm not coming to talk about the Holocaust or, you know, wars, inquisitions, people who are suffering from Yana Machla, from from they shouldn't know from such serious diseases. I'm certainly not coming to speak about anybody else. In fact, if you look at my card, I write here very clearly, there's two very important distinction to be made here. Everything I'm talking about tonight is for us ourselves, not to tell other people. When it comes to other people, the way to react is with complete empathy. You know, as Rav Yisrael Salanter once pointed out, he said, "When it comes to other people, you have to be an apikorus, like there's no God." You know, I remember once we were going through a certain problem, he said, "Just daven more." You know, so Rav Dr. Rabbi Dr. Avraham Twerski said about such a comment, he said, "How do you feel like at the other end of such brilliant consolation?" You know, it doesn't feel good. When it comes to other people suffering, the right response is to empathize with them and to feel for them as once I had the privilege many times to speak to Rav Zalman Auerbach and I told him we were going through a particularly difficult series of uh of yissurim and when I asked him about it, I said, "So, what should I do?" And he said in Hebrew, he said Ani lo yodea, aval ani me'od merachem alecha. He said, "I don't know, but I really feel for you." And he started crying and then I felt better, you know, if the biggest rabbi in the whole world feels for my problems, then I don't have to worry about them, right? They're They're on his shoulders. So, when it comes to other people, this is the correct response. What I'm going to talk about tonight is ourselves. How can we deal with situations that we come in to contact with and not to get flustered by them, to remain calm, cool, and collected, as they say. And I'll just tell you there's a law I You might be familiar with it, right? In Israel they call it "khok merfi". You've heard of this? Murphy's Law. Now, the Israelis think they invented it. In fact, one Israeli once asked me, "Aba, America yesh gam ken khok merfi?" In America, they also have khok merfi? Okay, so let them think they invented it. But so Murphy's Law goes as follows, right? If you've ever studied physics, you know, Steve Chernago and I were in Bronx Science together. So, we you know, we learned math and physics. So, you know, Murphy's Law though is not connected to math and physics. In fact, it's more in the philosophical realm. Which if something go wrong, it will. If something go wrong, it will. And basically he's right, right? If something can go wrong, it will. Just time after time after time, things don't seem to be going the way we'd like to. In fact, my rebbe here, Rav Brevda, zatzal, once gave a whole shiur about the musical Oklahoma. Oklahoma. When I was in uh school, I remember I once played in the musical Oklahoma. And the main song there was "Oh, what a beautiful morning. Oh, what a beautiful day. I got a beautiful feeling. Everything's going my way." So, said Rav Brevda, "If everything's going my way, that's a beautiful day." Mashma, you know, we can derive from that, if it's not going my way, then it's not a good day. So, most days, according to that definition, will not be good days. Cuz usually things don't go my way. Cuz Murphy was right. Murphy was right. Things don't always go our way. So, that's what I like to speak about tonight and I'll tell you a little story. My parents are going to be shocked by this story and I apologize for telling them the story because they don't know this and the only one knows about really is my wife and a couple of people I told. And you know, I'm very grateful that they're here tonight and I'm sorry I'm shocking them with with this story. They don't have to worry. It's everything by the everything turns out for the best. It actually has to it's actually quite a miracle that I'm here tonight speaking in this shul because I have a regular Caruso with my son. My son is 20 years old. He studies in the Shiva in Bnei Brak. It's a Shiva very good Shiva, right? And he We study every Thursday brain up. It happened to be the day I'm leaving to Israel from Israel to America. But I just decided I'm not going to cancel our Caruso. I went to go alone with him and my flight was at 10 12:45. At 10:15, so I was about to depart from him. I put my hand in my pocket and lo and behold my passport is not there, right? So, I'm thinking, "Wow, you know, like when you try to get on a plane without a passport is quite difficult to get on a plane without a passport. So, what is going to be, right?" And the truth is I if you look on my card here, I recently started to give a daily sheer on the topic of thanking Hashem's thanking Hashem for things that seem bad. So, since I started working on this, a lot of things have happened which seem bad, but they're really not. And again, remember what my African-American friend said, "If it's bad, that means bad means it's good." You know, so it seemed but at the time it seemed pretty bad. Not like the African-American bad, like bad, like Murphy's bad. In any event, I called my wife and she got panicked a little bit and she looked for my passport. She says it's not there. Okay, so I said, "Okay, what are we going to do?" So, just happens to be a little over 6 months ago my wife was from Rio de Janeiro. We decided we have to go to Rio de Janeiro. I hadn't been back there for 26 years since my wife and I got married. Um the reason I didn't go back is last time I went there I was almost choked to death on the beach. That's another story. We won't talk about it tonight. I write about it in my books. But uh whoever wants to hear it after this year, I could tell them about that. But in any event, I wanted to go to Rio de Janeiro. So, I took off one morning. I never take off for anything ever, but I took off one morning to go to Brazilian Embassy to get a um to get a vi- a permit a visa to go into Brazil. And I found out something very interesting there that the Brazilians do not like Americans. They really do not like Americans. If you're from any country, you can easily get a Brazilian visa, but not Americans. I don't know if Trump or I don't know if Obama, I don't know what they have against Americans. But they said, "Well, not giving you the visa for the following reasons. First of all, you don't have like $500,000 in the bank." I'm not sure why you need so much money to get into Brazil, but apparently they're worried that maybe uh you're going to like use the economy or something. I don't know. The whole Okay, I won't get into too much about Brazil. I'm not going to say anything now. But if you will follow the news, you'll know what's going on over there. Um that's one point. The other point is I did not have a letter from my mother-in-law inviting me to Brazil. You need a letter inviting you to go to Brazil. Anyway, so I quickly wrote a letter. You know, it's not such a nice thing to do, but I figured, you know, uh I could assume that my mother-in-law wanted to come cuz she asked us like 75 times to come. I wrote her the letter and I signed it, you know, okay, "Sincerely, Moskowitz, Young." In any event, they caught me. Why? Because Brazil is like 6 hours earlier and um no way a letter could have been sent. So, they caught me and they said they're not going to give me a Brazilian visa for these two reasons. One cuz I faked the law letter from my mother-in-law and two cuz I don't have $500,000 in the bank. So, you can imagine I was pretty upset. I took off the whole morning, went down to the Brazilian Embassy, and they're not giving me a uh visa for these reasons. So, I was pretty upset. And I was really you know, I don't know what I'm going to do. We have tickets, we're going to go. My mother-in-law wants to see us. What's going to be? Anyway, while I was busy getting upset, I met someone else who was there whose wife was British. He said, "Well, if you're British, then you don't need a visa. If you have a British passport." I said, "Well, I'm British. I have a British passport. My father's from England. We all heard about it here Friday night, some of the stories." So, I figured I'll just get a British passport and uh and it'll be fine. So, what happened, right? I got the British passport, they let me into Brazil with the British passport. They didn't even know I'm American, you know, they didn't even find out. And that was it. Okay. So, now I realized I don't have an American passport, but I can get a Brazilian passport. Okay, I can go So, I can go in on my English passport. Okay. Meanwhile, I remember my father telling me once, "If you come into America with a foreign passport, they take away your citizenship." Okay, so now I'm thinking, "Is it worth it to speak at Havurah Yisrael Motzei Shabbos and lose my American citizenship?" The answer is yes. So, I'm ready to give up my American citizenship to speak at Havurah Yisrael Motzei Shabbos. Okay, I also have a bar mitzvah to go to and a couple other things planned. Okay, but it's worth it to speak here on Motzei Shabbos my American citizenship. But then I found I found out, it's a good law to know, it only applies in Israel, not America, but if you have a certified copy by a lawyer of your American passport, then you don't really lose your American citizenship. It just so happens I've been running a yeshiva for 15 years. Last week, I said, "Everyone should get a certified copy from a lawyer of your American passports." We had them all there, they were on file. I called up my talmid, he sent the fax, and that was done. Yeah? Now, when I was at the Brazilian Embassy, I was really upset. And it turned out, if I wouldn't have that British passport, I wouldn't have, you know, been up here tonight. So, this is just one example of I could stand up here for the next 7 hours easily and tell you stories, but I'm not going to because, you know, it's Motzei Shabbos, I'm sure everyone has things to do, and I don't want to just tell stories. I want to also speak about some points halacha l'maaseh and understanding this concept better. But, this is just one small example of looking at a situation at the present doesn't always, and generally doesn't, give us a full gamut of the picture, and that's why we get upset. And we get upset. And in fact, if we teach ourselves to have broader vision, then our whole life will change. Our whole life will Now, I didn't get upset. I didn't get nervous when this happened with my passport, cuz it like happens to me every week, things like this, you know? So, I'm really used to it. Since I started giving this year, like all the time things happen, and I always see at the end it's all good, right? And it's even I made the card, it's all good. In fact, our school's putting a book about my stories, and the name of the book is "It's All Good." Cuz I see time and time again it's all good. This is what I'd like to speak about tonight. And I feel so strongly about this topic, I feel this is the message for our generation, you know? And in fact, it's halacha l'maaseh, if you look at the card on the opposite side, this picture, we looked a long time. I tried to find the most tranquil picture online that didn't cost $500. And this is what we found. Um and that tranquility, that could be your life. You could have that tranquility. If you look on the left side, I write like this, "While painful experiences are inevitable, our emotional response to them is in our hands." The halacha is l'havdil bein rogeh l'omer, kol ma d'avid Rachmana l'tov avid. A person should accustom himself to say, "Everything the Merciful One does, He does for good." Frequent repetition of this phrase changes one's perspective on negative experiences and helps reduce suffering. Now, if you're not used to doing this, yeah? So, we could get And myself included, right? But, I've been working on this for many, many years, but still half Oh, my a little more than half a year ago, when I was at the Brazilian Embassy, I got flustered. I got flustered because we get shocked. Like, how can it be? Like, ayeka, how could it be? They're not going to give me a American a Brazilian visa cuz I don't have $500,000 in my bank account cuz I faked a letter from my mother-in-law. You know, is that a national crime or something like that? But, we get flustered, and the key, I believe, is is buried in what uh our our sages tell taught us. Yeah? That we have to be rugged to do it. You have to accustom yourself to do it. You have to do it all the time. And again, Murphy said, "If something go wrong, it will." And happens all the time. The more we accustom ourselves, the more we make this part of our daily routine and our schedule, the more that we'll be able to function in that uh in that realm. Yeah? Just to tell you, Friday morning, I had to get into the city. I got a car service, right? And I'm really praising this driver cuz I want to get there on time. I had a 10:00 meeting. But, get this. Um in short, the driver gets on the phone, and he's like, telling somebody, "Wow, my passenger thinks I'm the best driver there ever was on planet Earth, and he's right." Just like this, the car stops. And what happened? He ran out of gas. Like, how does a taxi driver run out of gas? Sorry, kid. I don't know. Ran out of gas. Okay. That's pretty bad, right? And I'm bad. I don't mean bad. I mean bad, you know? Um when you have a 10:00 meeting with somebody like who's very He said, "If you come 1 minute after 10:00, I'm not opening the door." You know, I have to be there. And it's like quarter to 10:00, and I'm stuck on the 59th Street Bridge with a taxi driver with no gas, right? But, so what did I do? I got out. Just I said, "Let's flag a taxi." I didn't have to pay for the ride. It was a free ride. Like, really a free ride. And so, everything is good. Everything is good, and I'll tell you something you I'm not allowed to say this, but I'll say it anyway. Um cuz you're not supposed to reveal things from the Zohar, but I'll reveal I'll tell you anyway. The Zohar says a interesting thing. There's two midos of Hashem, there's 10 sfirot of Hashem, and there's two of them which are very prevalent in this world where which chesed and gvura. Chesed is Hashem's kindness, and gvura is when Hashem deals with us in a more harsh manner, right? And in this world they look like two. But upstairs they're one, right? Just when Hashem's uh hashpa'a, when Hashem's uh how do we translate hashpa'a? I'm sorry? Influence. Oh, that's pretty good. My wife is an English teacher, you know, so she knows all the all the right words. Um when Hashem's influence comes down into this world, it divides into two. And it looks That's why it looks like things are bad. But if we were to go to the shoresh, we go to the root of things, we'd see it's really one. There's just one thing. There's just good. And this is really, really important for us to internalize and to know that. Even though it looks bad, but it's really it's really good. And then we could just keep in mind what the after American say, the choose of their words when they say it's bad, they really mean it's good. Um and this is really critical. I just want to tell you a little bit of a of an idea from the Torah which really brings us out which could help us to do this. Now, the first thing is this halacha, right? If you ragel to do it, if you say it all the time, which I assume every day like at least 10, 20 things happen um that are that are things that we're not happy about, that's very helpful. But I want to share with you the following idea. The Gemara says that in the entire world history, the first person ever to thank Hashem was who? Oh, who said Leah? Leah, right? Was a woman. Leah, right? Hapan odeh et Hashem. Right? She said Hapan odeh Hashem. Now, this is a very difficult Gemara. Why? Cuz look, Leah was a great person. But what about Avraham and Yitzchak? Yaakov? Adam? Noach? They all thanked Hashem. In fact, the the the tfila that we said here Friday night, Mizmor shir leyom haShabbat, tov lehodot laHashem, right? That was written by Adam so what does it mean Leia was the first one to thank Hashem. So I have an explanation I've said this many many times already and I'll say it over tonight again. That Leia had a hard life. She had a difficult life, right? She was married to Yakovino. Yakovino was tricked into marrying her, right? He wanted to marry Rachel. He He had a little bit of a difficult father-in-law, Laban. You know, Laban who was called Laban Mr. White Guy. Laban Ha'Arami. Rabbi Shalom explain to us Arami means I he fooled himself. He thought he was Laban like this guy with a white suit, you know, Mr. Nice Guy, you know, clean. But really he was a bit of a what do they call it? Trickster. And he he switched the brides at the last minute. He said very simple. Yakov, you know, you don't know the halacha. We don't marry the younger one before the older one. Sure you can marry Leia, but just have to work for Rachel. You just have to work another 7 years for me, right? You know, in in in Yiddish a father-in-law is called a shver. Shver means like difficult, you know? And it's not for nothing that they're called a shver. My son-in-law told me the first Shabbos he was by your house, the first Shabbos by the shver is called Shabbos Gehenem. He said, "First Shabbos Gehenem was pretty nice this Shabbos." he told me. Um but any event, so Leia had a pretty difficult life and the possuk in fact says, right? Vayar Hashem ki snua Leah. She was She was hated. Now, Yakovino didn't hate Leah. But what's the difference? When Rachel walked by he says, "Oh, Rachel, good morning." When Leah walked by he says, "Oh, good morning, Leah." you know? She could feel the difference and that made her feel snua. And the Sforno says a very very brilliant observation. The Sforno explains that since she suffered she was really could not have children, all the imos were akaros, they couldn't have children. Since she suffered Vayar Hashem ki snua Leah v'yiftach es Hashem saw that she was suffering and he made her have children right away, right? So this is how I understand the Gemara there in Berachot 7b. Zion and Base. The Gemara means to say that Leah wasn't the first one to thank Hashem, right? Adam thanked Hashem, Noah thanked Hashem, Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, they all thanked Hashem. But Leah had an innovation in thanking Hashem. She thanked Hashem for something which looked bad, which seemed bad. That was her innovation. Right? And she was really that's the right way to thank Hashem. As I always say, if you wake up in the morning and you won the uh what do they call it in Israel? Mifal HaPayis. You won $10 million, right? 100 million or a billion, I don't know how much it's offering today in the lottery, right? And you um and you say thank you to Hashem, that's not hodaa. That's just like being a mensch. Of course. Hashem gave you such a gift. But if you have something bad and you thank Hashem, that's hodaa. The word hodaa means to admit. You admit that it's really good. In fact, I saw this idea a few weeks ago. I was at the levaya of Rav Steinman. That's how we lost such a tzaddik of the of generation with Rav Steinman. And I was waiting for the levaya to start. I was in um I was in the Bais Yaakov Bais Medrash across the street. And I opened up a sefer with the Chasam Sofer and I see he writes this idea. He asks in Chanukah we say al hanisim v'al hapurkan v'al hagvuros v'al hatshu'os v'al hamilchamos. He says I understand all them but milchamos? We're thanking Hashem for the wars? And he says this idea. He says, "When Hashem does something good, that's not a chiddush." He says, "Hu heitiv hu meitiv hu yeitiv lanu." Hashem is intrinsically good. He said, "To thank Hashem for things which seem bad, that's really the chiddush. And that's we have to accustom ourselves to do in our life." So how do we do that? So I think the secret Leah's secret. What was Leah's secret? Yeah? And you see in the names that Leah chose. Her first name first son was called Reuven. Look at how much I'm suffering. Shimon. Listen how much I'm suffering. Levi. This time my husband's going to be with me. Right? And the fourth one was a palm of Hashem. So someone once told me, she said, "Yeah, forget about my husband. I don't need him anymore, you know. Now I have Hashem. I have four children." But the the pshat I believe is is that she stopped complaining cuz now she realized that something good had come out of all this, right? But the possuk says "Hapam odeh et Hashem." So there's a little bit of a deep idea. It goes into more about Kabbalah, but I'll share with you. The name of Hashem, Yud Kay Vav Kay, represents that Hashem exists in the past, present, and future. And I believe that most of the problems we have is cuz you what I call we're trapped in time. We're trapped in time, right? Like when I had this Brazilian Embassy story. If I'd known 6 months later, if I didn't have that British passport, I wouldn't be able to speak here in Chaverim Israel tonight, I'd say, "Great, you know, make 50 more requirements for me, you know. I don't care. I'm not going to get your stupid visas anyway." You know, it was cheaper for me to get a a a English passport than get a Brazilian visa, like eight you know, $300 to get a visa to go into Brazil. Whatever it is. But okay, I don't have anything against Brazil, by the way. It's a wonderful country. And just, you know, don't go to the beach at 6:00 in the morning, you might meet some muggers there. But in any Aside from that, beautiful a beautiful place. But just if you want to get a visa, it's a little bit difficult. In any event, the point is cuz we're trapped in time. We're trapped in the present. Yeah? If we'd realize about the future that there's so many permutations of good that come about, then we won't get flustered, right? And I'll tell you a brilliant thing that I heard from Rav Zalman Auerbach. I had the privilege every week to speak to Rav Zalman Auerbach for many years. I used to walk him home every day once a week from shul. He told me like this, "We all know Megillat Esther. And on the surface, it's a a story about a king and a queen. and Ahasuerus, he gets mad at his wife, he kills her, and you know, he he marries Esther, etc., right? And the whole story, the Vilna Gaon explains the whole story is really a tapestry of hidden miracles. This happened and this happened and this happened and this happened. Reb Bolt explained that everyone has a Megillas Esther. Everyone in their life has a Megillas Esther. Some people are more um more uh clear than others. Hashem knows that I like to talk and I like to write, so he gives me a lot of stories to tell, right? Or else I wouldn't have material, right? But each and every one of us, if you start writing down your stories, and you write down when something seemingly uh not good happens, and just follow it through. Follow it through to the end, and almost always you'll see that there's something good coming out of it. In other words, we're trapped in time. We're standing in the present, and we don't see what's going to happen in the future. But if you follow it through, then you'll see that it's really there's really good things coming out. That's one point. The second point, which I heard from uh Reb Bloch, the Telzer Yeshiva, amazing, beautiful point. He says like this. He says that if we accept the things that look bad from Hashem, he said it becomes what we call Yissurim Shel Ahava. And Hashem makes it good. Baal Shem Tov says the same idea, right? The concept is that accepting Hashem difficult situations with love, then it turns into Yissurim Shel Ahava, and it becomes good. Even if it wasn't meant to be bad. Someone here in the audience, what where was he? Asked me, "Is it true that difficult situations are punishments for our sins?" And the answer is, maybe. You know, I don't know, because they didn't put me in charge of this department, right? But um we don't really know. We really don't know why things happen, and we're very small, and we can't really understand. All I know is, in the Shulchan Aruch it says that when something difficult happens, you're supposed to say everything God does is for good, right? So, this is also good. The Zohar in fact says that whatever we do down here, it creates a ripple effect all the way up to the heavens, and it comes right back down to us, right? So, that's why there's a great danger of speaking lashon hara. The The Zohar speaks about it as one of the most serious transgressions possible, cuz if we speak bad about someone, it goes up, and then it comes right back down to us. That's why we have to be very careful about lashon hara. But, this is all the concept that we're living in the present, and we have to be more global. We have to not global, we have to be beyond time and space, as it were. We have to understand that when it comes to Hashem actions with us in this world, that we have to be more rachav. We have to be broader broader mind, and we have to appreciate the fact that even though what we're seeing now looks terrible, but in the future, it could be incredibly incredibly good. Okay. Um I'll just throw in another story now, cuz it's a really good story. Um one time, I my my wife and I I usually um on Pesach, I I'm a scholar in residence at a hotel in Tveria. And uh okay, so they pay for us to take a taxi home, which is like about I like enough room in the taxi to breathe. Difficulty, yeah? Um with all our luggage, you know, we never know if it's going to be hot or we cold, we have to take a lot of clothing. So, one year we were coming back, and we were like sitting like this, you know, in the car. Um like difficulty breathing, you know, we have to like move the suitcase in order to breathe. In any event, um I had just given a shear about this topic, right? And there's two Gemaras. One Gemara says, like it says here on the card, that whenever something difficult happens, we're supposed to say, "Kol man d'avid rachmana l'tova avid." And the other Gemara says a famous Gemara says uh "Gamzu l'tova." This is also good. So, my son, who was 6 years old at the time, he asked me. He said, "Why do we say one and not the other?" I said, "That's a good question." I told them what the Marsha explains. The Marsha says that we want to say the name Rachmana. Rachmana is one of God's many names, and it means the merciful one. Hashem is merciful. We want to like uh infuse the situation with Hashem's mercy. So, we say Rachmana. He wasn't happy with that answer. He says, "I think we should say both. And the next time something bad happens, I'm going to say both statements." Okay. Within 5 minutes, literally, the car break down on the highway. And where are we? I had no idea where we were even. Like some stranded highway in the middle of nowhere. You know, we decide to take some backroad somewhere. Um I don't know if there were Arabs around or not. I don't know exactly. But uh in any event, the um the uh it looked pretty dismal. And my son was so happy. Gam zu l'tovah. Gam zu l'rachmana. Gam zu l'tovah. He was like dancing around, you know. And I can't I can't believe this is going on. In any event, so within another 5 minutes, this is like out of nowhere a pulled up this giant taxi, you know, like twice the size. And he says, "Is there anything I can do to help you?" So, the driver says, "Yes, by the way, there is you can. I'm waiting for the repair truck to come and fix my car. So, meanwhile, why don't you take these poor people back to Jerusalem? I'll pay the rest of the fare, and they'll be going." He said, "No problem. I have an empty car. I'm going that way anyway." He put us in the car. And within 10 minutes of this story, we went from being packed in, not being able to breathe, to a very big car. You know, right? And that was like really quick, you know. We didn't have to wait too long for that one. But that's just an example. If you get caught up in the present, you get flustered, you get nervous, you panic, you get worried, right? But if we're able to live broader and realize that, you know, God has something bigger in store, we're I'm privileged every week to hear a class uh sheer from Rav Don Segal. And he said a very important point. He says, "No such thing is mikrim." Mikrim means things that happen. The sea mots were placed in situations. Right, we're placed into nisyonaot, into test in this world, and we're constantly being tested to see how we're going to react in that situation. So, this is very, very, very important for us to remember. To share you with another important point, which is the Zohar says, I'm not supposed to speak so much, but I'm I'm going to tell you anyway. The Zohar says like this, the Zohar says there's something in English called a fair-weathered friend. Do you know about fair-weathered friends? What's a fair-weathered friend? Yeah? When it's good, he's your friend. And, you know, when things get tough, he's not your friend. I was telling someone over this story today. When I went to Bronx Science, I don't know, Steve was living in the Bronx, right? Where you from? Originally? From the Bronx, okay. But, I lived in Queens, so I'd take 2 hours every way um by the train. Okay, my parents had me take a car service, but I I wanted to be tough, take the subway. So, I met a lot of uh um friends. I won't say what uh uh what nationality they were from um who decided to like wanted my money. But, any event, like if you get mugged on the train, you have people like holding up the newspapers, like pretending you don't exist, right? Okay, cuz when it's bad, like nobody wants to deal with you. But, the Zohar says we can't be with Hashem a fair-weathered friend. The Zohar says what's called complete love of Hashem. We say it every day in the Shema. V'ahavta et Hashem Elokecha, love God. When do you love God? You only love God when it's good, right? You have to love God under all circumstances. And, one of my other teachers, Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch, he told me once that a very wealthy person came to him and he said, "Rabbi, I want a blessing." He said, "What blessing do you want?" "I want a blessing that God should not get involved with my business here. It's going great. Don't change anything, you know?" Okay. So, he said, "Well, you know, this is a little bit of a right way to look at things. You're not supposed to look at it like that, really. Cuz we know, look, you have to accept You have to accept when things are good, and you have to accept when things are bad. But, the point I'm making here tonight, which I think is a critical point, and I'm telling you, if you're able to incorporate into your life, it's like what they call um in Asia Torah, it's a paradigm shift. It's a paradigm shift because it really changes your whole attitude to things. If I just read this again, I spent hours and hours writing this line. But it said, "Painful experiences are inevitable, but our emotional response is in our hands." We can do it. We can change the way we see and we view situations. Now again, I'm not coming to talk about death or war or crisis or sickness or all these things. I'm not coming to talk about it. Even though I've seen very great people deal with very difficult situations. There were great sadikim who went through the Holocaust and they were able to survive that. My um my cousin's aunt, no, sorry, my cousin's mother-in-law and her husband, they were both in Auschwitz and she said that um people ask her, "How can you believe in God after the Holocaust?" So she responds to back to them, she says, "How can you not believe in Hashem, you know, after the Holocaust?" The people were very, very strong. They came out with even stronger faith and emunah. But that's very, very difficult uh test. We don't want those tests. But we don't want any test in fact cuz we don't ever know if we could ever stand up to a test as Reb Moshe Shapiro zatzal once told me, he says in Hebrew, he said, "Anachnu mevakshim nisyonos, AVAL AL TIMATEIL AF ECHAD MEHEM." He said, "We don't ask for tests, but if they come, accept them and don't give them up cuz anes, the Ramban says, is lashon nisayon, means something that pulls you up, right? If we have a challenging situation and we stand up to them, we become a greater person and we grow and we grow and we grow. And this is really what we're here for, to grow and grow and grow. But I'm not coming to tell you a religious year tonight. You know, I'm not talking from a religious side of things. I'm coming to tell you from a pragmatic, just, you know, life uh coaching attitude, right? There was somebody um uh what was that? I think is Pythagoras. No, one second. Was it Who's Who made the bet? Was Pythagoras? No, it was one of the big mathematicians. What? Pascal, right. Very good. Thank you. Who said that? Oh, good. Okay, very good. Someone is educated here. Pascal had Pascal made a bet one time. And the bet was like this. He said, "If religion is true, then it's great. You get very high dividends. If it's not true, you have a good life, right? So, we can say the same thing I believe over here, right here. Even though there's no doubt at all, right? If this halacha is correct, then, you know, then you win. And if it's not correct, well, at least it got, you know, it helped you really deal with your suffering. But, the answer is that it really is correct. We don't need Pascal to help us, even though I'm just showing that even even the people who don't necessarily had the truth revealed to them to such a great extent that the Jewish people do, they recognized it. Is that it just makes it so much more easier to deal with life if we adopt this attitude. And I'm not saying it's not hard. It's very, very hard. It's I think it's one of the hardest things to do. And that's why I started saying a daily class about it for like 3 to 5 minutes a day. And I found like by everything, if you're thinking about it on a constant basis, then it's easier to deal with it. The moment we call have something called hesech hadas, where you stop thinking about it, that's when you're in great danger, you know? And about 2 months ago, I was in the base madras, you know, and I learn with my fingers. All the time I'm typing, I'm typing, I'm typing. I'm I'm all the time typing. So, one of my students walks by and his foot got caught in the plug of my computer and it smashed on the floor. It smashed on the floor. And then it started making this sound like it was going to blow up, you know, you ever Click. Click. Click. Okay. And I was told that's like a dangerous sound. That means like it's gone, you know, forget about it. You know, it's be quack nefesh, as they say. In any event, how did I react? I said, "Okay, it's for the best, you know?" And someone said, "Like, how do you do that, you know?" Like, why don't you get upset? And look, no, I said it must be for the best. Everything's for the best. Okay, I'll tell you one more story. This is a really good story. I I haven't found out why that's for the best yet. I'm still working on it. I'm still waiting. You know, sometimes you have to wait like a long time, you know. And I had saved I had 3 days before I'm working on a book and it was saved on that computer and I hadn't saved it for a month, so I lost a lot of material that's not there. But, somebody's like working on trying to fix it. I'm still waiting to see why that's for the best. But, about 3 years ago, 4 years ago, I remember, I came here to New York and it was snowing like today, except it was much heavier. And I went to Davin um on the West Side. And as I came out of shul, I slipped on the snow and I broke my ankle. And I still remember, I looked at my ankle it was like this thick, you know, that's like three times the size. And it was pretty painful. And they took me to a hospital in Harlem. Um what's it called? St. Luke's Hospital. And they wheeled me in and I was smiling. I was smiling. They said, "Why are you smiling?" I said, "Cuz I know it's for the best." So, they said, "You don't belong here. You belong in Bellevue Hospital." In any event, um so, I might It was like It was Friday and it was getting late. It was a short Shabbos. And the doctor's name was uh Dr. Ezekiel. Yeah? So, finally after like waiting 2 hours, they finally get a doctor. I said, "First, um Ezekiel, I want to tell you a secret." I said, "You are named after the greatest prophet one of the greatest prophets that ever lived." And I proceeded to reveal to him the Ma'aseh Merkavah. And he was like blown away. Ezekiel. Okay, so uh then one of my teacher says, "You don't mess with people who could turn you into a frog, right?" So, I said, "Ezekiel, you know, not that I could turn into a frog, but I'm learning how to do it, so you should be careful." Um in any event, I told him, "Listen, Ezekiel, in in 2 hours it's going to be a Jewish holiday and if I don't get out of here in 2 hours, that means I'm going to have to spend the entire Sabbath in St. Luke's Hospital, which I don't want to do. That's right. That's right. Okay, so in 1 hour I'm going to be out of here, right Ezekiel? He said, right. He put the cast on and he sent me out. I was in Brooklyn for Shabbos for Shabbos. But and a lot a lot of things came out of that. Again, um I'm more careful. I walked on the snow today. Each step was like really careful, you know? Um I don't want to be having again, you know? Even though there was a lawyer who told me he came up to me my last day in America. He said, "I'm not letting you leave America until you sue." Right? Cuz that's the minhag in America is to sue. And if you don't sue, you're breaking the minhag, which is a very serious transgression. Right? So my mother took me to the lawyer uh the day on the way to the airport. We signed the thing and we got um we got a pretty nice settlement from it. But that's not why the That was one of the good things, but there were a lot more. In any event, what I'm coming to teach you tonight, I'm not teaching you. I'm just talking to myself. I have to keep talking to myself cuz these things keep happening to me and I want to make sure that I'm prepared. Um but you know, I'm talking to myself and maybe somebody will listen and and and uh make some sort of uh change in their life as a result. Then I'll feel like uh it was worth me talking here tonight. But the point here is is that we have to realize that who hated who mated who hated who hated who hated as the Chasam Sofer says, "Hashem is completely good." Right? And what we see in this world is an illusion. The uh Chassidim say the word olam is from hidden. Hashem is presence is completely hidden in this world and his hanhaga the way deals is hidden. Everything is really hidden. And our job is to as it were get behind the smoke screen and to see what's really going on. And there's only one way to do that. Like I told you, the Megillas Esther, write things down, start tracking them and you'll see in the end everything is turns out uh for the best. It's all good. And margo yourself. Custom yourself to say this. So I'm just going to go through the points now and then I'll take a few questions. People have questions. We said like this. We started off with um my lesson that I learned from my African-American friends, right? They said when something's uh really good, they say it's bad. That's bad, man. That's bad. So, we have to like think like that we also. When we think it's bad, we have to realize that it's good. That was one point that we said. And we had many, many examples of that. You remember the story about my son um in the car. There was another story. I was building the sukkah and I made the unwise decision to try talk to my mother on the phone while I'm building sukkah on a ladder, you know? I'm trying to talk to my mom. And suddenly she hears like ah! Like I The ladder collapsed and I smashed my ankle onto the floor. So, what happens? My son, the same son, he's a tzaddik. He comes, he brings I'm about to like scream and he runs to the bookshelf and he brings me his Tikkun Olam Anenu, right? And what is it? Kabbalistic sermon of Ahavah. So, like, I don't believe this is happening. Anyway, he said, "Look, I'll try it out." And I said it felt much better. In any event, um we have to realize that when things look bad, that it's the way they look. But in the end, it's really good. And again, that doesn't mean don't they're not painful, right? But our emotional response, the suffering that we feel is in our hands and try as much as possible to visualize all the times that things looked bad, but they were really good and to remember what it says in the Zohar that in this world, it's two, but upstairs it's one. Hesed and Gevurah are together, they're really one meter. We're just seeing it split up. So, it looks bad, but it's really good. And we had the manifestation, we had the proof to that concept from Leah. She was the first one to thank Hashem for something which seemed bad. Excuse me. She had a difficult relationship with her husband and because of that she got many, many good things came out of it. We said this is a law in Shulchan Aruch. If you want to look it up, it's here on this card. It's Siman Resh Lamed Tzaf Hey. It says a person should accustom himself to saying everything the merciful one does is for good. And we said why did this make the Allah and not Gamzu Letova? Because we mentioned the name of Hashem Rachmana and the name of God as being the merciful one. We mentioned that he's a merciful one. And this is basically the concept I wanted to share with you tonight. If you're interested, I give a daily sheer. It's on this card. The phone number um thanking Hashem for things which look bad, seem bad. And really like the only way to to grow in this area is to do it constantly over and over and over again. And we mentioned Murphy, right? Which the Israelis think they invented, but it was really before them. Murphy's Law, right? And Murphy is right that things do go wrong if they can and they do even if they can't, they still go wrong. Um but the response to Murphy is that who said it's wrong? Maybe that's right. That's the way Hashem wants it to be. So the more we think about these ideas and the more we internalize them, then the more we'll grow in these areas and it'll lessen our suffering. And this is really I feel like we live in such difficult times today. In fact, the Gemara says the Gemara in Sanhedrin says that the Amoraim said, "Put me in any generation, but don't put me in the generation uh before the Messiah comes, which is the generation we're in now. We're right before the end according to all Chachmei Yisrael, Sefardim, Ashkenazim, Chassidim, everyone agrees. We're right at the end. We're just like almost there for Messiah coming. And I'll just finish off with the amazing point that my Rebbi Reb Moshe Sternbuch said from uh he said it from uh Reb Elyah Lopian. We know in the Gemara, right? The Gemara in Berachot daf dal, it says that Reb Yochanan had 10 children and they all died. And he used to carry around the bone of his 10th child and he used to use it to be menachem avel. He said, "I had 10 children who passed away." He had a very difficult time in life. Yeah? And he said, "But I can take that nisayon, but don't put me in the last generation before Messiah comes, which we're in now, right? So, what comes out is that the challenges that we're dealing with today are worse than having 10 children die, which is incredible statement. So, why is it so bad? Said Rav Eliyahu Lapian, because today we live in such a time where the right and wrong is not clear. What should we do? What shouldn't we do? What should we involved with? What's right? What's wrong? Who's right? Who's wrong? These are very, very difficult challenges that we face today. What's really the right path that we should be taking? And because such a lack of clarity, this is why we have such a difficult time today, and people are not really sure, are they this? Are they that? You know, uh who, you know, there was things accepted in the moral world one time, you know, that uh that a man is supposed to be married to a woman, you know, this is like a simple thing. Today like this is being doubted, and other things are being doubted, you know, uh many, many things that were chal- are being challenged today, which were taken as simple fact, you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago. And as we get closer and closer to Messiah coming, this is what's going to happen. Rav Elchanan Wasserman explains it, he said, like it's like when, you know, you have a due date for a payment that's coming up in the bank. So, everything has to like at the end of the tax year, everything has to be uh sent in. So, therefore, everything is speeding up, and we're coming to the end, and these the difficult challenges are getting more and more challenging. So, I just share with everybody this concept, and the more you can make it regular, right? Like the Halacha says, the more it will affect you, and the calmer you'll be about it, right? I'm not wishing on anybody they should like find out 2 hours before the flight they have a passport. By the way, the person who was sitting me on back of me on the bus, right, who found my passport, which had dropped out of my dropped out of my pocket. Um as my wife said, you My mother told me you never leave your passport in the pocket, okay? I accept it, no more, never in the pocket. But, it happened to be my Rav's brother-in-law, you know? And he calls up his brother-in-law and he "Do you know this guy, Travis?" He says, "Yeah, he was by me 2 hours ago, you know." And it got right back to me right away like this, the passport. Um so, it's there, it's just not here. But, um but this is the story. The story is that everything that happens to us can be reframed in a new light. Of course, we should be careful. Don't put your passport in your pocket, carry it in a separate case, and you know, and when coming out of shul on a snowy day, be careful, don't, you know, slip, and a lot of other things. When you're on the ladder, you know, it's not a good time to be talking on the phone. These are all very important things to remember. But, when things do happen, remember the command of the Torah of it, and your life will be completely different. I promise you. And with Hashem, we should work on this, and we should grow and grow and grow. And the more we grow in it, the happier we'll be, and the more time there'll be to be happy instead of being worrying about all the things that there are to worry about. So, I give everyone a bracha, including myself, that we should grow in this area, and Hashem should help us to get closer and closer to him, and to get farther and farther away from the challenges which should disturb us. Amen, kein yehi ratzon. Are there any questions? Yes. So, so why do bad things happen if it's for the best? Oh, so this I already I mean, look, I can't I can't answer that question completely. But, if you heard what I said about the Zohar, that Hashem is constantly testing us, right? To see do we really love him or not, right? Um this phenomenon um sometimes happens Excuse me. In marriage, you know, sometimes spouses test each other to see they really love each other. And in fact, the Mesillas Yesharim writes a very powerful line. He says, you know, he writes that the generals in war are waiting for that battle to prove their prowess, greatness in battle. Remember, there was once I forgot his name, someone told me about recently, this guy who landed on the Hudson River, right? His plane landed What's that? Oh, yeah. Okay. So, he said I've been I've been waiting my whole life. I've been training my whole life for that moment, right? Is that we're being tested by Hashem. Now, look, we can't Um the Ramchal, Rav Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, says we don't understand Hashem's ways in this, but this is something that we are being tested constantly. Life is full of challenges and tests. The Arizal says every minute we have three of them, right? Every minute there's three tests going on. Some Most of them are very subtle, you know, we're not aware of them, but sometimes we're aware of them and they're clear, right? The test might be how you're going to talk to someone, are you going to say hello to them, are you going to be not nice to them, you know, a guy comes up to you and um you know, steps on your foot or something. I have a good story in Israel. I got on a bus one time and the guy closed the bus uh door on my foot, you know. Okay, so like I'm in a little bit of pain. I was going to scream, but before I could scream, the bus driver says, "You know, if you don't take your foot out of my door, you're going to break the bus. I'm going to have to pay a penalty." I'm like, "Okay, so be calm, you know, remember command of the Torah." Um I said, "Well, maybe you open the door I could take out my thing. Okay, well, what a brilliant idea." Anyway, so, you know, baruch Hashem, he decided to open the door. He let me in and then he gives me this whole speech, "You know how much it cost to fix the door of this bus? I could have been penalized in this." And if I would have said, "Well, but you closed the door on my foot, you know." I was trying to get on the bus. I didn't say that. I said, "You know what? You're right. I apologize. I'm so sorry. You know, um you know, please I I hope it won't happen again." And that was it. Finished, you know. If I start yelling at this guy, so then, you know, forget about it. You ever tried like the Israeli bus drivers? And I have no mercy on them, you know, cuz people come and give them a hard time. So, it's not so simple. But, the point is it's just, you know, take with a grain of salt. And we're being tested, right? We're being tested. You have an opportunity to make people feel good or make people feel bad, right? So, why not make them feel good? This guy obviously he had something to get off his chest, you know, maybe like he got into a fight with his wife in the morning, you know, or something. I don't know, you know, but whatever it is or maybe some guy broke the door of his bus once. I did have another story where I got on the back door of the bus, yeah? And apparently this is a federal offense, you know, because the only reason I got on the back door because the guy was going to drive away, you know? He wasn't going to wait for me. So, I got on the back door of the bus. So, the bus driver says, "If you don't get off the bus, I'm not going to move the bus." So, I decided he's not going to push me around. I just sat there. I was learning Chumash. He waited 20 minutes. He just turned off the engine and everybody was screaming back and forth. Some people said, "Just get off the bus and get back ON." SOME PEOPLE SAID, "DON'T GET OFF THE BUS AND GET BACK ON." I was just like out of Chumash there, you know, and I'm sitting there reading just ignoring the whole situation. In the end, um another bus came. Everyone got off the bus and got on that bus. So, then he started moving again. Okay, I'm not telling you what's right or wrong, but I'm just telling you just be calm. If you're calm, it's a lot easier to deal with these situations. You know, in Eretz Yisrael there are a high number of exasperating situations. And the reason for that is the Gemara says, because Eretz Yisrael is Nikta B'Yisurim. You can't get Israel for free. You know, when you go there you have to realize that there will be challenges and to live in Eretz Yisrael you need to have more tests than in other places in the world. So, that's something you have to be aware of. But in any event, um as far as your question, why do bad things happen? W- One reason I'm suggesting tonight is they're growth experiences. Yeah, growth experiences and they're really challenging us to see how much do we really love Hashem. As the Zohar says, Rachamim Shleima means complete love of Hashem. When things are good and when things are bad. That's one. I'm I'm not saying that is the answer. That is a partial explanation to a very difficult question. Yes, okay. Anything else? It's a good point, but I want to tell you a very important rule I heard from Adam Gadol. He said like this. He said, "Every day you're allowed eight mistakes. Five small ones and three big ones every day and you can carry them over, right? You're allowed to make mistakes. We're only human, right? And we do things wrong and we make mistakes. But so we shouldn't get worried if we make a mistake, we do something stupid. And sometimes we get, uh you know, lash backs from our mistakes we made. Just don't worry about it. Just go on. Pick yourself up and just keep going. And don't, you know, try not to blame God and try not to blame yourself. Don't blame anyone. That's just part of the challenge of life, you know? The It says in the Medrash, it says, "Sheva tipol tzadik vekum." He said the I saw once an explanation that says, "Seven times you fall down and get up." To get to make have one success, you need seven failures. And my friend, uh Seth Sackett, he was used to run when I was in Har Yisrael, used to run the youth group here. He told me a very important uh thing from Kentucky Fried Chicken, which you might not be aware of, that Colonel Sanders tried 1,000 people to sell his recipe for his fried chicken and nobody bought it. And they said, "This is a waste of time. It's a failure. It'll never happen." And in the end, he did a pretty good, you know, I think he had a pretty successful franchise over there, Kentucky Fried Chicken. When I public When my book Praying with Joy came out, I submitted it to a um publisher and they said to me, "This is like this book will never sell any copies. If you sell 500, you'll be lucky." And they I was devastated. You know, I prayed I davened to Hashem and we we sold maybe 30, 40,000 copies already, you know? So, it's a lot of things a question of persistence, making mistakes, trial and error. That's the way life goes. Never blame yourself. That's like no productivity from that at all, right? Try again. You have a mistake, you know, you have your you can have your five small mistakes, three big mistakes every single day. Just get up and keep going and don't blame yourself, you know? And if you did something wrong, that's why we we have every day in Shacharis we say, "Slach lanu asher avinu asher sachnu." We have two brochos that have to do with teshuvah. Do teshuvah and just move on. Don't think about the past. Think about the future. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's an excellent question. It's an excellent question. And again, I'm I'm specifically said that in the beginning, I'm only talking about how we should deal with ourselves. Not the global picture of things, you know, is Trump good for America, you know, what about the deal with Iran, you know, what about the fact that we have 70 million Arabs around who want to destroy us. I'm not talking about all those things. I'm talking about in our daily lives, right, to deal with the challenges that come to us. You know, how do we deal with that? Can you talk about that other issue? I can't really talk That's not what I'm here to speak about tonight. And that's already That's a very difficult question, you know, how God runs the world. And we know one thing the Ramchal says in the safer um Das Tunos, he says there's two hanhagas, there's two ways that Hashem deals with the world. One is called Mishpat, which is based on, you know, the laws of nature and and and other laws that exist, laws of economics, laws of this, laws of that. There's a second ago which is called Hanagas Yichud, which is Hashem just running the world exactly the way he wants, which we don't understand. Right? And things are happening in the world today, especially that we don't understand, that we don't understand why this and that and the other. I'm not coming to answer those questions. I'm not even coming to answer the questions why bad things happen to us. The only thing I'm coming to explain I'm coming to offer tonight is a way to deal with that, the challenges that we can in our own lives, if we train ourselves to think differently about it, it'll be different. But to say why there's bad in the world, Moshe Rabbeinu asked that question, and he didn't get a he didn't get a significant answer. Yeah, so this is really something we can't We have to have emunah. That we have to have emunah. Yeah. I I put the bad label on it. Right. Well, that's why I quoted my African Rabbi friends that the bad is bad, right? That's also good that everything is really good. But really you should be up here speaking, not you, not me after such a shiur. You just said everything I said in 3 minutes, so you got to save a lot of time for people tonight. I just want to share with you from this week's parsha, like a beautiful, beautiful idea that Hashem so far says exactly what What's your name? Stewart. Stewart. What Stewart said. The Hashem so far says, when Moshe Rabbeinu was by the sneh, so Hashem tells him while he's by the burning bush, he tells him, "The place where you are is kodesh." And said the Chasam Sofer, exactly Stewart's point. Every place where you are, that's kodesh because Hashem put you there, right? That's what the the Torah is coming to teach us. Wherever you are, it's where Hashem put you, and that's holy ground, right? So, we have to appreciate that and and learn from it. And again, we're not going to understand always. We generally won't understand what's going on. But, if we can appreciate that this is where we've been put, so that'll make it a lot um we can search more and try to understand more for like like you pointed out, what's going on. You want to say something? Yeah. Well, actually, I'm glad you pointed this out cuz this was a part of the card that I didn't explain, right? The picture everybody knows, that's like the best picture of Gan Eden that I could find. And then I have this little Shulchan Aruch. And then I have information about uh thank my shear, and also it has how you give money to the kol. Of course, the more money you give, the happier I'll be. Um for me, that's really good. And then finally, I have here something which is the last part. It's good you asked me this question. I was special tfilah here with my Rebbe, Rav Brevda, zt"l. After we had a tremendous tremendous amount of tzaros in the first year my wife and I got married, I went to many, many different uh great rabbais, and finally wound up by Rav Brevda, and I spoke to him many times. And one day he tells me, "Come back tomorrow with the answer to all your problems." Okay, so that sounds pretty good. I came back next day, and he wrote for us this special tfilah. It's based on the words of the Vilna Gaon, and basically, you ask for what you need, and then you say finish it off with this tfilah. He says, "I'm not worthy. I ask for your rachamim." The main point is ask for Hashem's mercy, and that's prayer is definitely very important. If things are going wrong in our life, if we have sickness, if we have like we said, shalom bayis, uh parnassah, chinuch, all those things, should definitely pray for them. But, although what I sound sound sound said sound very simple and simplistic almost about saying kol man d'amer Rachmana l'tova v'it, in practice it's extremely extremely difficult. It's probably one of the most difficult to keep in the entire you know cuz if I tell you well when you wake up in the morning wash your hands three times with a cup okay you know could do it that's not so hard but this means like changing your whole perspective on life which is very difficult. So in practice it sounds very you know it sounds very straightforward but it's not at all it's one of the biggest challenges that we face today to be able to do that and it can only come from years and years of working on it right that's the only way to do it and there is no shortcuts you know this is the way that prescribed to live a life like if you want to be living in this place um if you want to be living that's what you have to do and there's no shortcuts you have to work on it prayer definitely you know if you're going through hard time increase your prayers and you know pray for things which are you need and you have to have but it can't be replaced by the fact you have to just keep working on your way of looking at things and and to see things differently. Yeah. Yeah. Something that you know that Right. Look I hear where you're going and I appreciate it and it's very difficult you know and I think I'll I'll tell you what I'm just not ready to say such a nice thing to say to you but I'm going to say it anyway. Um there was a woman who was about to go into a surgery and it was very complicated surgery. Before the surgery she told the doctor you know doctor don't feel bad you know if anything goes wrong I don't I believe it's I'm not worried. Right? And then as she was about to go in she said you should know if it goes right it's also not because of you right? Now A physician is right? If you feel that you're in control then guys it's a very stressful situation. Now it's a very delicate point because a person has to use his best to do his best job and if not they could be considered a murderer right? But at the same time there's a certain element of pulling back and like putting it into Hashem's hands, which is a very for a physician, you know, and the more complicated it is, you know, brain surgeon or you know, like heart surgeon, these are very very difficult balances to make to be able to pull back and realize it's in Hashem's hands, at the same time take full responsibility. But the burnout you said, the more you can like realize that you're you're just like a as it were, it's a staple in Hashem's hands, that should take away a little bit of the stress. But it's very hard. I'm just I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just saying that's the way what I've heard. You understand that not all outcomes are good. Of course, yeah. It's not of course. I mean, but again, the that terminology of good or bad, again, that's the same thing, right? Everything is really good, right? Even if Has v'shalom does malpractice and this in the end of the day it's good. Now, we obviously can't say that that's good. This is exactly what God wanted to happen. Why did God want to happen? We're not going to understand that. And we're allowed to be upset about it. We could sue, we could be in pain, we could do whatever ramifications we have to take, right? But in the end of the day, Hazal tell us that nothing bad ever comes from Hashem. And again, it's a very difficult point, right? It's a very difficult point. And if it wasn't for the fact that the Midrashim and the Gemara tells us this, we wouldn't be able to say it. And you certainly can't tell it. I know I know someone they the doctor cut off the wrong leg. They amputated the wrong leg, you know, and now I know it in America they're very careful. They they cross the leg three times that they're going to take off. But we certainly can't I'll just tell you a terrible story. It's like the worst thing I ever said in my life heard in my life, but I'll tell it to you anyway. I was by the Shiva of the Kapinsky family. The Kapinsky was the one one of the five Kedoshim was killed in Har Nof. Two years before that happened, they had a daughter died in her sleep. 14-year-old girl died and it was about two days after Tisha B'Av. And I came to the Shiva, he was a close friend of mine. He was a close friend of mine. Uh, I came like the second day of the Shiva and someone comes up to him and says, "You have other children. You'll just get on with life as if nothing happened." And I was like, "How can you say such a thing? That's like terrible, you know?" So, that's like terrible terrible thing to say, right? So, there's a dichotomy over here. We have to know for ourselves and for other people, right? Again, that's the epicurus theory of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. When it comes to other people, we have to be empathetic and something bad happens, we have to know that it's terrible. Empathy as much as possible. For ourselves, we have to know no matter what happens that it's good. We have to know and it's hard. I'm not saying it's it's not not hard and challenging. We may never see in our lifetime. We may never see it. We do know that the more we accept it with love, the more likely it is to see it quicker. Yeah? And the more we accustom ourselves to seeing the good in things, the more we'll see it quicker, the good that comes about. But, we may never see it and some of it is emunah, you know? There's always emunah. So, it's very difficult. The questions that everyone's asking, these are very difficult questions. I'm just coming to tell you what Hazal have told us how to deal with it, how to make it easier, how to get, you know, less high blood pressure as a result, and how to make it just a more happier life, you know, like Pascal said, you know? That's really I'm just you know like coming on Pascal's shoulders. Yeah. Any other questions? Yeah. Well, you asked maybe. No, thank you. That's a beautiful idea. I'll share you a point about this. It says David HaMelech, he had a very fruitful life and a very beautiful life even though he had a lot of challenges. And how did he have such a fruitful life? Some of my close friends, Rabbi Kermaier, when saying Kermaier once told me, he said because he was supposed to die at birth. Adam HaRishon gave 70 years of a life as a present to David HaMelech. He says he lived his life as a gift. If you live your life as a gift, then your life will be different, right? There's a famous story. Somebody once was diagnosed with with cancer. He told me I was only a week to live and that week he did everything, you know, he he was you know, spoke to everyone lovingly and he you know, I don't know he finished shots and he took care of everything and then at the end of the week he found out he didn't really have to die. It was a it was a mistake. They sent him the wrong medical record, you know. So, but look, if you live every day as if it's your last that and it's a present then there is something Rabbi Dr. Aaron Twerski wrote a book of psychology based on Charlie Brown cartoons and one time Lucy comes to Charlie Brown she said oh no, Charlie Brown comes to Lucy and says, you know, we should live every day as if it's your last. So, Lucy starts running back and forth and says, I'M GOING TO DIE. IT'S ALL OVER. I'M GOING TO DIE. SO, he says, some philosophies are not for everyone, you know. So, that's important to remember. Everyone has to like practically use what I said according to their own personality, according to their own nature, fit it in. Each person is a little bit different and has a little bit of a cycle different makeup, right? The main point is is that to remember it and that's why I made these cards up and um, you know, if you want to take a couple extra ones for people that you like or you don't like, you know, you might want to do that and just to get used to it. Call my rugel. That's I don't think anywhere else our sages told us to be rugel in something. You have to do it all the time all the time cuz this is something you can't like one day of not thinking about it so then you'll already might slip up. Okay. I think if there are any other questions well, I'll take them privately because it's a little bit late and I have some sperm over here to to sell and the price is a donation for our Yeshiva and Baruch Hashem we have 50 talmidim learning in Israel and some of them are doing kiruv and some are learning to be poskim for Klal Yisrael. We're doing big things so everyone who wants to contribute very happy to accept that the price of the sperm is a contribution for the Yeshiva Whatever you can give, the suggested contribution is $1,000. Whoever wants to give less they're welcome to. I'm just suggesting that, you know, because sometimes people give it. In any event, I thank everyone for coming tonight, even though like there was a lot of snow outside. Um and if there wasn't so much snow, but it was enough to get I'm sure a few people didn't come because of it. Whoever came, I hope it was worth it. And if you have feedback, I'm definitely interested in hearing it cuz I this by me I think is a topic that I speak about often. And I thank everyone very much and I give everyone a welcome from my heart that they should be successful in internalizing these very important concepts. Amen. So be it.