Living With Emunah (Part 183): Wake Up

good morning and boker tov and welcome back to living with ammuna our weekly support group to remind ourselves what is most important what matters the most upon whom we rely and with whom we have and are blessed to have this incredible relationship the ribbon islam the almighty the gift of a life of a moon abitakon how it comes and brings tranquility and gives us courage and faith how it relieves us from anger and from envy all the brachas all of the good that comes out of it i want to thank our generous sponsors for the yamuna shir for the year is that it there it is dr xavier and bella morgan in memory of rabbi dr brian galbert in memory of bella's mother dr ellen shanzer thank you so much for your generosity truly truly appreciate it if you'd like to sponsor a particular episode of living with amuna or any of our other classes please email leah beers online leahbeersonline.org also this morning's i'm going to class is sponsored by ellen fishel in commemoration of the 13th yard site of pesach zev benitro dovah levy on the 12th of adar thank you ellen fishel greatly appreciate your generosity i want to thank all those who participated and contributed to our global campaign who have joined our brs global community we've got great exciting things in store the privileges of being a member of the global community for a dollar just by giving back just by showing appreciation just by participating you are a member of that global community and we've got great things in store and even though we met our goal it's not too late to give at brsonline.org global brsonline.org slash global okay we are continuing morgenstern and his amazing safer beyond in which he has been teaching us about vegas how do we cling and attach ourselves how do we glue ourselves to hashem how do we feel his presence every day in our life never panic never be anxious never be worried but how do we feel his presence in our life each and every day how do we feel elevated how do we feel enriched so sikhum this is a summary of what we've seen so far and it appears that vichamiya provides it himself in the safer and he writes my parents in this chapter we've spoken about and we have examined the different path towards acquiring how to live with god vacus don't get anxious don't get worried but remain optimistic and what are they shame and munna number one and faith the recognition there is someone in something much greater than themselves we are not the end all and be all we are at the beginning in the end we cannot take credit there is a creator and he is in charge there is a king and he pulls the strings that our life is not filled with randomness and chance and happenstance but our life is by design his bonin is vargasha we have to be contemplative and we have to allow ourselves to feel and how important these qualities are in our time in particular in which there are so much noise so many distractions in which there is so much going on around us our life is constantly filled not with momentum but motion sickness filled with noise how can we stop and how can we breathe and how can we experience and just be de vicus bhattorovitz how do we use the religious activities we're doing already but how do we engage those religious activities with an awareness and a mindfulness of hashem so we're not just blindly putting out felon lighting candles saying the words of david and giving that stucco doing that mitzvah but we're actually taking a moment to pause to tap into the deeper meaning of the energy to allowing ourselves to become transformed by the mitzvah the isa kashemos and victor meyer spoke to us about the power of thinking about names concentrating on names seeing the names before us and we also talked about consistency and constancy it happens to be this week's parsha this week's parasha reminds us how important it is to find consistency we have the korbantami the daily sacrifice and the daily offering and if the the time that the daily offering was nullified and canceled we fast 17th of thomas commemorates when we lost that notion of the consistency that we had we feel that in our time we don't have uh this year earlier this year the shul was denied to us and so the daily davening and some of the gifts of our daily life we lost that opportunity because shul was closed down we couldn't have the daily dove and we couldn't have the kaddush and kedusha we didn't and still don't have many of the things that we were used to the the cal ripken junior record of consistency and constancy was broken and that's painful it's painful you have to set aside time and establish time to talk to god talk to him not as if he's your best friend he is your best friend what's going on in life what do you need help with what are you protesting what are you grateful for and a person has to make the effort to remember hashem to remember hashem we get so distracted with all of our to-do list and everything our obligations and our responsibilities and all we're drawn to our pleasure and to our wants that we confuse with our needs and we have to remember to insert hashem we have to remember hashem is in the room we have to remember hashem is looking over our shoulder when we choose what to watch what to say where to go even what we're thinking about hashem is always there and we cling to him in that moment of panic in that moment of anxiousness in that moment of fear in the moment of what will be we remember i have nothing to worry about because it's all by design it's all the way it's meant to be mesh throughout the day the fukuoka madrigal so according to the level that we're on and what we can do with zob we have to habituate ourselves we have to develop a pattern to talk to god regularly to look like a nutcase when we're driving in the car and we're talking to ourselves but we're never by ourselves or talking to ourselves we're always talking to him we're talking to him about whatever activity we're engaging about whatever project we're embarking on about whatever decision we have to make we're constantly and regularly talking to him and that our learning and our mitzvos he's there they're not absent him they're not simply going through the motions but rather we're mindful we're mindful this was to transition for one moment and to pivot to purim which is this week for a moment so this was hamad understood this was our kryptonite haman tells akheros yes there is a nation they are scattered they are fragmented among the other nations and the simple understanding of the megillah is yes there is a nation their mephus are spread out all over so they're not they're not empowered by a sense of unity they're not unified they don't have their own homeland but rather they are spread out they are spread out all over they are spread out all over sorry i just lost my camera and i don't know why see hashem did not want me to be seen in that moment but i think we're back i think we are back hold on sorry for the interruption for the brief moment okay you don't need to see me that close up so um hashem says says to spread all over so they don't have the power of unity they don't know the power of a country of a nation they're living among other host nations now let's go strike they're vulnerable they're fragile we can take them down now but the gemara gamora quotes a magilla rava who says no yes no don't read it yes no but yoshnu there is a nation they're asleep mithuzar um and i would suggest reading it means they are scatter brained they are not thinking clearly means to be scattered to be divided bain they are living among the nations and they are feeling the influence of the nations and the influence of the nations is causing them to be mifuzar um they are divided they are fragmented they are scattered they don't know how to concentrate they don't have to be focused they don't have to be mindful but they're constantly distracted and they're constantly chasing the next pleasure and they're constantly chasing the next on-demand moment of what they want but they've lost their sense of priority what's important yoshnu ahmed they're fast asleep at the wheel they're asleep walking through life yoshinou they're fast asleep than me fuzaruma because they're so scattered because they never carve time for this bone in us they never think and they're never contemplative and they're never focused therefore they're so easily distracted and now is the time when a person is easily distracted when a person is divided in their energy their resources their thoughts they're very vulnerable we're vulnerable physically we know that people are physically compromised when you don't get enough sleep and you're watching too much of this and you're worried too much about the other thing and you're trying to balance and concentrate and juggle a million things from a million directions how balanced and how well could you be in terms of physically and equally true emotionally and equally true spiritually and so a person is mifuzar a person who's scattered all over can't succeed indeed rabbena bache quotes i think it's remaining quotes that he knew a great person who used to say a daily prayer a yehi ratzon may it be your will god to save me you should be matsumi you should save me me pizzur it was a prayer for mindfulness each and every day let me not conclude this day let me not find myself at the end of the day having lived a mindless day having not achieved all that i wanted having been divided and distracted and having my agenda and to do list being organized by others don't let someone else organize your to-do list as the essentialism greg mckeon writes if you don't prioritize your life someone else will for too many of us our inbox is our to-do list and therefore the end of the day comes and we didn't achieve what we wanted or hoped or said we would why because we let others prioritize our life we let our inbox become our to-do list we got distracted and started surfing or watching or doing things that we never could have or should have or should not have been the best use of our time and then we find ourselves at the end of the day and so that he knew a great person he used to offer a daily prayer save me me pizzura nefesh save me from being fragmented and divided save me from being distracted enable and empower bless me with mindfulness with consciousness and conscientiousness let me go through my day and remain focused on what i want to do and who i'm meant to be let me arrive at the end of the day proud of what i achieved and how i lived that day and how the next will become and be even better and that's the language that's so perhaps what was saying is perhaps saying is they're living they're not focused as one people one nation they're not mindful of who they're meant to be of their charge their mission their mandate what they're meant to accomplish their mifuzar they're scatterbrained they're sleepwalking not yes sleep walking through life how many people arrive at the end of the day and they don't even remember what filled their day they get to the end of dominating and close the sitter they don't remember saying one word they get to the end of the daf and they don't even remember any part of experiencing that daf or that they finished that conversation that dinner with the family and no part of it embedded itself no part of it remains we are sleepwalking yoshinou saw that he knew it was the moment the time to strike we were the most fragile we were the most vulnerable and what was the antidote what was the answer go and gather all the jews go and remember what matters and what is important go and be focused go and be prioritized go and become mindful so what does this have to do with living with ammuna because the moon requires mindfulness you can't see or feel or touch or hear or smell god he is invisible and so it takes a mindful and conscious decision to invite him and involve him in your life and it will never happen if you are fragmented and divided distracted and unfocused a person has to be mindful in order to achieve the vacus you have to be mindful to cling to god because if you allow yourself to be mindless if you neglect and forget to be mind full you will never see feel or remember that there is a god so it requires a mindfulness requires a mindfulness when i wake up in the morning thank you hashem thank you hashem i'm alive i'm awake i can see i can hear i have a roof over my head and food to eat in a car and a job where i don't have to go to because it's probably out of my own house but i have a job thank you hashem thank you i'm about to eat thank you hashem i came out of the bathroom thank you hashem every aspect every part of my life i'm about to prepare a sheer i'm about to prepare cooking i'm about to prepare a closing argument i'm about to prepare to scrub into an operation i'm about to prepare to negotiate a deal i'm about to prepare for parent-teacher conferences i'm about to prepare for a challenge with my spouse with my child i have to be mindful to invite god into the conversation and to inspire me with his divine wisdom divine inspiration to succeed if i don't live a life of mindfulness i can never live a life of a muna and that's what happened to the people of shushan they had forgotten god they were doing all the mitzvos they were going through all the motions but they were doing it sleepwalking they attended the feast of where he served mikheilim shanim on the very utensils of our holy base on makdash they responded in the affirmative and they went to a party who the theme of the party was not the 60s 70s or 80s the theme of the party was the end of the jewish people they went to a party that celebrated their own demise and that's how asleep they were that they didn't even notice that's how asleep they were and the answer to the antidote part of purim is wake up wake up stop being mindless and start being mindful and i'll tell you an amazing insight over of druk here is a bonus of druk not just for the brs global community we're going to start having bonus content for the brs and brs global community so you better join now for as little as a dollar brsonline.org global there will be bonus content for the brs of course our primary community and the brs global community but here's a little bonus of drook for you where drukiz who we've been learning a lot in the parsha class on tuesday mornings uh rav druka ishtamid ravi saw mayor druk a great rash of shiva in yerushalayim today and he says the following even if you're listening to this after purim this is a well worthwhile message to listen to and to heed it says was the king he ruled from honduras and in case you didn't know how many provinces does that include how many voting districts does that include shadow of the estimated 127. the majoris british rabbit tells us the following yoshi vida used to sit and he used to teach that name i feel so much better when you read this message when you read this madrish what happened the great rebbi akiva one of the greatest scholars one of the greatest comeback stories one of the great stories of optimism and hope one of the greatest teachers in our entire history would begin to give his russia his lecture what happened hatseyborn the people started to fall asleep the people started to fall asleep i think i told you the story that people fall asleep from me all the time i always joke i have the same job as an anesthesiologist and if a person can't fall asleep at night now you don't even have to call me you could just go to youtube.org or youtube just press play better than melatonin knock you out it will put you right to sleep i was once giving a shirt back when we were able to learn together it was a shabbos afternoon a short shabbos so it's tough when you come from lunch your belly's filled with chunk maybe out of him your eyes are closing you sit down to your shirt there was a young guy wasn't an old person a young guy sitting in the front row this was a real wake-up call this humbled me in the moment he fell so fast asleep he fell so fast asleep happened again in the camera he fell so fast asleep that his eyes didn't just close he fell so fast asleep that in fact he fell off his chair he rolled off his chair onto the ground and only when he hit the ground only when he hit the ground did the impact wake him up and he tried to very nonchalantly get back in his chair and sit as if nothing had happened and i had to look in another direction because if i had made eye contact or looked there it would be impossible to continue my shear without bursting out until after so that was a great moment a humbling moment a moment of humility that such an anesthesiologist so successful was i that not only did his eyelids droop not only did he fall asleep not only did he snore he fell off his chair onto the ground wow that goes to the record books that is a hall of fame rabbinic drusha putting him to sleep so it's very reassuring to know that the great rebbi akiva it's not just me i'm not the only boring one the great rebbi akiva was giving his drasha that seabourn miss nam name the people fell asleep even wanted to wake him up so what did he do so some of us when we were kids you know the teacher threw the eraser at our head that's how he woke us up but today the teacher would go to jail or be featured on some blog so they can't do that so what did a bikini do omar that was a true story um how did ruby akiva wake them up he said why did esther merit that she when she became queen she was part of the royal family and therefore she too ruled over 127 provinces el tovo esther scheisse something fascinating esther is the descendant of whom esther is the descendant of sarah imenu our great matriarch sarah how many years did sarah live sarah lived 127 years sarah lived 127 years esther ruled 127 provinces wow they woke up let's continue with the lesson druk wonders as i'm sure all of you are right now is that the way you get a room full of people sleeping to wake up don't try that at home the room is passing out it's hot their belly's filled with challenge they're falling asleep their eyelids are drooping you say i know how to wake them up let me tell them a vort about how esther descends from sarah sarah lived 127 years and therefore esther ruled 127 medinos i know i'll tell them that vort and then oh they woke up what is the connection between sarah and esther just the cute association of the number that's what does it that makes no sense so listen to this insider of joke along the lines of what we were just saying about mindlessness and mindfulness and about the avodah the effort the work of purim that haman saw yoshino we were fast asleep and the antidote the answer mordechai went to esther and he said wake up you wake up you need to wake up maybe this is why you became queen you need to wake up and then you need to wake up the people because we've got to stop sleep walking through life we're vulnerable we're mephus around the furad peas we're scattered and fragmented everywhere sahada rabbi kiva wake up his tamidim with this govaldiga einfall with this incredible insight that sarah lived 127 years and that's why esther ruled 127 medino's cesaro have dropped the following you know what rabbi kiva was telling them why are we told in the torah in fact in khayes that sarah lived 100 years and 20 years and seven years it would have been much more efficient to tell us she lived 127 years so why is it communicated in the torah why is it captured 100 years 20 years and seven years and everybody knows when she was 100 she was like 20 when 2020 she was like seven but we also know listener of druk listen what does it mean that esther merited to rule 127 providence because of the merit of sarah it means that if you really apply the insight what comes out is in the merit of sara's 127 years esther ruled over 127 provinces 127 cities 127 streets buildings shamassentov the message about sarah imenu was that she was not mindless she was mindful she never squandered or wasted a moment her hundred and twenty seven years rashi quotes tells us were complete that they were shelling they were whole sarah did not waste time sarah was present in every moment every speech every thought every experience every interaction and that's what the majority is telling us and that's how rebi akiva was waking up his students he said you see how the result of sarah being mindful every moment of her life you see the merit of being mindful of not sleepwalking i'm not being a creature of habit and routine the merit of being mindful is that you have a great great granddaughter who rules 127 medino's and therefore wake up my dear tell me dim wake up students it wasn't he told him a great story he wasn't he told him a great joke he didn't throw an eraser at their head or slam down the desk where they had fallen asleep how did he wake them up it means that not necessarily they were sleeping physically what it means is that they were asleep walking through life and he woke them up through sleepwalking through life by telling them my dear tell me to my dear students and disciples you cannot afford none of us can afford to sleepwalk through life we're missing out on the greatest moments and the greatest experiences we're missing out on betting the greatest memories because we're asleep walking through life and we're going to wake up and the hours are going to bleed into days which will bleed into weeks which will bleed into months which will bleed into years and we'll wake up god forbid later in life and we won't even remember those years please god tonight i'm behind the bhima yesterday there's a couple here in boca raton both are under the hunt over 100 years old and yesterday kanai nahara they celebrated their 80th wedding anniversary that's right you heard me 80th wedding anniversary that's extraordinary for so many reasons but the 80th wedding anniversary 80th wedding anniversary a person is going to get to 100 years old be married 80 years but because we were mindless as we were living it not remember anything not fully draw out the totality of the experience of it all to be mindful and says rav druk that is the message why did esther rule 127 provinces because she was the great granddaughter of sarah just a cute connection that's all i lived 127 years no sarah was mindful all those years she was showing she was whole she was complete she was present she was conscious she made the moment most of every moment of those 127 years and you need to know what that can yield you need to know the merits that brings you need to know the results that creates being mindful and present in all that we do so haman yoshino that we were fast asleep so my dear emunah friends brothers and sisters stop sleep walking through life i'm speaking to myself not just you wake up wake up to see and feel hashem mcgillis esther wake up to be my gala the mister let's reveal god's hiddenness let's find him in every aspect let's turn to him and talk to him let's lean on him let's love him and feel his love for us stop sleepwalking through davening stop sleepwalking through mitzvos stop sleepwalking through judaism stop sleepwalking through your marriage your parenting or your career but wake up wake up and take your life back and live your best life yet we move over to parrot gimmel back in ravichammer kimmel chapter 3 is clinging and attaching ourselves to the almighty vicus is clinging and attaching ourselves to the ribonus to god um there are two ways that one can field vegas two ways there's the intellectual knowledge the intellectual leap the intellectual mindfulness the intellectual effort to be aware of god in our lives and to attach ourselves to him and then there's the experiential and then there's not just to know there's a god and there's not just to decide to connect with him there's the feeling there's the personal transformation there is the visceral experiential knowledge that i'm living with the first is not more gash the first is not with the feeling that there is a god the first is not with the feeling that there is a god but it is simply i know in my head in my heart that there's a god and i connect and i attach myself to him should we know that he's with me and i'm with him so i think about it wednesday mornings i listen and i get to whatapp group and i subscribe to 14 other ammuna opportunities there's a million barak hashem all over the place and so it's in my heart it's in my head and when i panic or when i'm in those moments i feel anger or envy i stop and i say i've got to live with the moon i'm going to attach myself to god right now i'm not going to panic i'm not going to fear but i'm going to remember everything's by design everything's for a reason hashem is with me and i'm with him he loves me and i love him that's the first type of margie believe yeah it's in your heart emotionally you know it you feel it it's in your head strategically intellectually you know it but it doesn't resonate and it doesn't permeate throughout all of your being in all your bones vashniya but there's a second type of duvecus there's a second type of attaching ourselves and clinging and feeling we're in the presence of god and that is bimurgash is clinging to god where my whole being reverberates with a sense of i am not living only in the here and now i am not alone i am not on my own i am attached to someone there is a siamese twin i am attached to someone so there is the lobe or gosh in my head in my heart and then there is the notion that i am walking around as a siamese twin attached to the almighty that i feel the light of tvakas in my bones and my kishkas it's hammer it's warming me up uberes believe it's burning in my heart the clihar gosha i am a vessel i feel it i feel it in every part of my being you ever see those people they're listening to a shirt they experience a moment they had an amazing davening and the way they react and their arms and their being they just entirely entirely it goes through them with their clock shot of zoho and when a person merits this level the joy is an incredible pleasure it's a high in your heart taught us that we can get high lord get me high you can get high on god you can get high on other things you can get high on other things you can get high on alcohol and high on drugs and higher narcotics and high on all kinds of gambling and ions all kinds of things but they're counterfeit they're fake they're inauthentic they're fraudulent and how do you know because they're fleeting they're not lasting and the moment that high wears off you crave it again and it clouds your judgment about what you're willing to do in order to get it again and it feels good in the moment but in the in the long haul it's not good for you several years ago many years ago i had meningitis in broke i was in the hospital for eight days and when i came home i could not get rid of the headaches from the meningitis and i was in uh i was on a pain pump in the hospital where you can give yourself the narcotics i used to set the alarm off because that's how much pain i was in i just wanted to get the most dosage i could get and when i went home they sent me home with oxycontin and 50 milligrams and down to 40 30 20 10 to wean myself off as i desperately did not want to be dependent or reliant on them but i will tell you and i remember and this now goes back it was when my daughter estee was born and i remember because my wife was recovering from labor when i told her my head hurt so badly i need to go lie down and that did not go so well but uh este is how old now sd is how old now where's your helmet when i need her estee is 14 maybe so 13 14. anyway so 14 years ago and yet i still remember that swallowing that oxycontin pill or getting the dilaudid in the hospital from the pump i remember this incredible feeling of a wave of warmth that came over from this intense pain that went throughout your body to taking that narcotic and feeling that this like warmth this tingle this calm this sense that everything feels good and will be fine and this incredible sense of relief i remember and i understand why that becomes addictive i understand why a person doesn't want to let go i understand why that becomes an escape or a person wants to numb themselves but it wears off it's not a solution a person has to get to the core of where the pain is coming from and solve the pain not treat the symptom and numb to the symptom because you'll never heal that way thank god i got off it very quickly acupuncture and yoga was the alternative it got rid of those headaches and i'm grateful until today but i give it as an example why because that was the high through a pill but what avecha myers describing and what we'll pick up with next week is that same sense of a high that i got from a pill thank god i was never addicted i'm not sharing in that context i'm just telling you after recovering many of you have given birth you come home from the hospital with a similar prescription for a narcotic for uh oxycontin or for what's the other one that everybody gets what's the other narcotic they send you home with anyway you know the feeling it gives but what he's describing of itchimeier is if we practice vegas authentically at the highest level then our whole body can get that same sense the same experience that that same calm the same relief that same warmth that same tingle that same knowledge that everything's gonna be okay that all my pain just went away that right now i feel such a wave of calm and connection that it doesn't require a substance all it requires is the vacus i'm not suggesting that if you have a chronic pain that you don't deserve to take a chemical help to get rid of the pain i'm not suggesting you've only had amuna and bitachon you could feel the hargasha you'd be murugash you'd be able to relieve that pain some of us need medicines with no judgment there are people who need the medicine but if a person doesn't have chronic pain they just have the ordinary everyday aches and pains of life then no percocet thank you rita then know that even the everyday aches and pains of life you can have a level of vagus bahar gasha that gives you that wave of calm relief confidence it gives you the sense that everything will be okay that right now the pain has gone away even for a little bit so we'll pick up with that next week how do we practice that vecus the vacus in our head in our hearts what we've been talking about for the last several years let's vacuum us in our head and our heart to know there's a god and in those moments we need him to remember and be mindful and attach ourselves to him that's what we've been not only talking about but hopefully working on but how do we get to that next level vegas how do we get to the level of devecos that it it goes throughout our being we feel it throughout our body it comes over us like a wave that you can see it resonate throughout and reverberate throughout our whole essence of who we are that we will pick up with next week we got a great purim episode tonight behind the bema that amazing couple the mirza sham liya hara and other other surprises so join us at 9pm behind the bmw on youtube i ask you to take a moment and to subscribe on youtube you see the subscribe button subscribe on youtube and you'll be notified in real time every time we go live with the next year class program panel conversation and the next opportunity to learn together so if you're not you join the br's global community it's not too late brsonline.org global get the extra content and get some surprises we have in store for you for any amount just be part of our global content if you did and you have from the bottom of my heart i thank you thank you for partnering supporting thank you for being a part of all that we're doing for coming to learn together until next time stay happy stay healthy and stay holy