Reveal Yourself In The Grandour of Your Great Might with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

Heat. Heat. Shalom everybody. Welcome back to the deb of midash. Welcome home to Torah. As you know on this Sunday night we deal with that is the theme of the evening. We heard from Rabbi Flax. Now we're going to hear again a little paragraph from Freellander in Reatim part of the Sith library. He was Msky in Panovich. And this safer mainly deals with the of Rashashana. You wonder why we're learning Rashashana. It's in the middle of the year because what we pray for on Rashashana is for the whole year if I'm not mistaken, right? we want to pray for. So it's it's full chalk full of hashkafa and and fundamental concepts. So we're only going to deal with a very small piece. It's going to be a very short class, but I'm going to add lib a few a few ideas. So on halfway down can move on the word. So it's understood or needless to say all of the expressions that we use in our using the word that Hashem should be exalted that we're praying that Hashem should be exalted. We're not praying that the essence of God should change from a state of non-exaltedness to exaltedness because he is always exalted. What we're talking about is our perception that we should understand him in an exalted state. And what does that take? First of all, it's really beyond our comprehension to a certain extent. How can we ever fully comprehend and understand Hashem? He is beyond our comprehension. It's absolutely not applicable that he has any changes, right? He's not a man that makes change. He's not he is as consistent as consistent can be. There's no growth. There's no change when it comes to it's all about our perception. It's it's coming from from us. And therefore, most of these ideas are just a metaphor. Really what we're talking about is recognizing his character. It's our recognition, the hakar shalanu and his manifestations or his conduct. It's all about our perception and it's going to be very important because we're we we have the ability to grow. We have the ability, I'm going to use the word to remove the veil from our own eyes. And that's going to be very shy to what we're gonna talk about. that the more we recognize God's greatness, right, through our growth, through learning Torah, through realizing how little or powerless we are, so then we can understand or hopefully understand the loftiness of Hashem even more. That is what is referred to when we talk about Hashem should be exalted that he's not exhaust exalted. Now it's about our perception. We also use these words and it's based on a verse we'll see shortly. And God should appear in his grander beauty with great might. Okay. So obviously it doesn't mean that he doesn't have great might now or he's not beautiful or splendorous but we're talking about our ability to see as the word is that the revelation is a revelation that's coming through his judgment on the entire earth and on its inhabitants. So we do say right when things when we hear let's say negative news we don't something that's not positive right uh a death a loss in uh a lot of money god forbid so the truth is that god's revelation of how great he is and we're talking about rashashan especially but really I I just have to just digress for one second that there's a makus in the Gmorrah. When does God judge mankind? There's an opinion that it's on rash. Okay. There's another opinion that it's every day. And there's a third opinion that it's every moment. And they're all true. There's just different levels of judgment. But when we stub our toe, when we, you know, reach into our pocket and don't come up with the right change and this is judgment. And are we happy? Should we be happy? Ultimately, yes. But even more so, we're we're seeing God's greatness. Now, we may not see it right away, but that is the goal. So, there's a P into 941. Oh God, to whom vengeance belongs. Hashem, oh God, to whom vengeance belongs. Arise, r appear, appear, rise up, oh judge of the earth. So that's means that he's going to rise up. He's going to judge the earth. This is a verse King David in Psalms that through his judgment. This has been the theme. If you want to go back, we have a playlist. The last few weeks, we've been discussing this idea of through God's judgment, he is exalted. So he it's basically a revelation of his greatness and his strength and his loftiness and his exaltedness that through his judgment we are coming to recognize or perceive even more of Hashemia. And this is what we're going to say or call the way that Hashem is perceived by us. It's palo I'm sorry these two words and because it said right this um idea of great might this great might. So the word and the word are coming together we're saying them together and it's like this verse in Isaiah 2 verse 19 which could be translated because of the fear of Hashem and from the grander of his greatness. So the word grander and greatness is going together. Splendor and greatness is going together. Okay. The there like from the greatness and from the grandor that is being revealed to us through judgment. We're learning. We're we're you know we have a process of 120 years and you know there were 42 different stops in the desert. The coalists explain every Jew we all have every human being has 42 distinct parts of their life. So we're growing hopefully we're growing and we're learning. So we're learning and we're seeing his grandeur through life. It's actually it's beauty that's noa. It's like flowing. The beauty is flowing like a spring from the perfection of his conduct. Um by the way so we hear some good news. So we say he is good and he bestows goodness. On the other hand, when we hear negative news, we say that he is the right, he is a truthful judge. Now, emotionally, I'm sure that we have different emotions. Kazal tell us in the Gmorrah that we're supposed to have the same emotion, different words, different nusak, but we're actually supposed to. Now, I'm sure it's very difficult at first when you hear bad news such as a death, especially a close relative, but ultimately we know that everything that happens is part of God's perfection. He is the true judge and ultimately he's in charge. Everything emanates from him and he is in charge. And we're going to see why that is important. Nimsa comes out. What results from this? That remember this is our request that Hashem should reveal and fully uncover for us through his judgment the the amount of perfection and his loftiness and his strength. There is another idea to explain the word is to reveal and I'm going to elaborate on this a little bit. So what is re what are we asking to reveal? Something that is hidden from our eyes. We're not able to see it. meaning his be his greatness, his grander, his splendor, his perfection as or when it's revealed to our own eyes. So we're we're saying that this is how it appears. This for sure is absolutely what we're requesting that the beauty of his great might should be revealed to us. We want we want to know Hashem but this whatever is hidden is actually always there and I'm going to talk about mehanes in a second. So what we're having I mentioned earlier as if there's a veil on our eyes and we're asking that it should be removed so that we can see Hashem's grander but that could be and usually is through seeing his perfection in judgment. And that's really our request that Hashem should app um reveal and unveil the the grander the beauty of his strength to our eyes. Now this reminded me if uh this is a Jewish tradition. I don't know if you all know who Rebi Mayor was. Rebeer the famous Rebi Mayor who was always in in arguing with Rabbi Yehuda. Whenever we see a Mishna or a Gomorrah where Rebe mayor and Rebi Huda are arguing. So we always when there when both names are mentioned we paskin like rebi Yehjuda whenever his name is not mentioned which is a million places we go like rebi mayor rebi mayor is really I mean he was a student of rebaka he was uh famous stories which I'm going to I'm going to share with you shortly um his wife was brea and he was um well he argued with her like all good husbands and wives have sometimes have a little bit of a a discussion. They don't always agree eye to eye. He was being bullied by certain um thugs in the neighborhood. And he came home to his wife and he said, "I I these people, they should die." And she said, "Rura," she said, "That's not what the puss says. There's a puss that says sin shall be eradicated. So it means the sin not the sinner. And she convinced him to pray that they should do chuva. They did chuva and he admitted that his wife was right. Okay. Now his wife was a daughter of another famous rabbi who had a sister who was I'm going to say kidnapped. I mean, she was taken to a brothel uh in Rome or by the Romans and uh and he she said, "You got to save my sister from this horrible tragedy." And uh he went, can you imagine this big rabbi going to the brothel uh to save? And he went dressed as a Roman soldier and he acted like he was going to uh hire this woman and she was such a teddy. When he got finally was alone with her, she convinced him. She says, "I'm having my my uh my monthly cycle. It's not possible." So, he explains who he was and whatnot. Finally, and there was a Roman soldier that was, I guess, guarding this brothel or maybe the manager. And uh he he bribed he bribed the guy. And the guy wasn't so willing. He says, "Look, my my life is at stake if I get caught." because he understood that this was the brother-in-law trying to save the sister-in-law and he did take the bribe in the end and Rebe promised if you say these words may the god of rebi mayor answer me you'll be saved in the end the the noose or the rope that he was going to be hung by because he was caught uh broke it broke and he was saved there a few other parts of the story Um, but the point is uh there's a lot of parts of the story where he ran away and I'll tell you and uh he ran into a non-coosher restaurant and uh he put his finger into the pork and then he took his other finger and licked it and the Romans said that can't be him cuz he would never do such a thing. I mean they didn't know that he did this the switcheroo the finger switcheroo and uh his life was saved but this idea that the thing is sitting right in front of you whenever you have a lost object this is what's brought down if you have a lost object you say may the god of rebi mayor answer me what does may mean mayor may means illuminate and his name that some say that wasn't even his name his name was nharai which also means illuminate So his this idea is that he was able talk about those bullies and requesting they do truva instead of dying. This idea that there's something right in front of you, right? You have a lost object and you kind of have a disconnect with reality for a moment. There's panic that sets in and your mind I think at least me have gone back and checked the same place many times. Right? Like if you're really looking for a lost object, you would go to a new place each time, right? Why would we keep going back? So there's a real disconnect. What happens is that it's right in front of us, but we don't see it. So we're asking God to illuminate our eyes that really everything belongs to Hashem. And if he wants us to find it, we'll find it. But when will that happen? When we recognize it's him. It belongs to him. if he wants to see it, he'll we'll see it. And that's the prayer. When we say may the God of Rebi May, we're talking about Hashem. There's only one Hashem. Um but it's somehow um connected to Rebi Mayor. He was a Balhan. He was a miracle worker. He he created mira he was famous and in fact his tomb rebalhanes which is southern part of Tiberius. If you as you're entering the city, it's on your left side with the sea on your right. um an amazing I suggest you all look up and hear more about his his life being a tana being a student of Rabi Aka. Um so the idea is that can you imagine your eyes just close your eyes for a second and you it's it's got to be there but you don't see it. So we're asking that Hashem illuminate be mayor illuminate our eyes to what is right in front of us. Now, the same thing with den. We're talking about den. When we have that, I call it tragedy. It sounds like a tragedy. Something negative happened. That's what den is. But it's for our benefit. It's going to benefit us. Hopefully, if we can learn the lesson, whatever it is, we need to make the tikunon. Um, just like that, when that happens, we say the same thing that God should illuminate from me what it is I need to see, what I need to fix. Okay? And hopefully I've tried it many times at least when you at Lost Objects that is. And uh I'm going to say it's like a 99.9% track record. I can't even remember any time that it didn't work. Okay. Now, could be because it was at least not stolen, uh not forgotten on a bus, but for some reason it mish appeared. Uh I'm going to say within a few minutes. I would even say a few seconds. But I happen to say it towards the end after I'm ready to give up. No, the point is to say it in the beginning. But when you're about to give up, it's the last place you look. You find it happens to work for me and I highly suggest that everyone else does it. But the point is that it's right in front of you and you're asking Hashem to illuminate your eyes. And it can work when you're looking for a source in the Torah, when you're looking for a lost object, or when you're looking at a person and you're judging them. let's say um not the to the side of merit. You want to find within that person something good. It's worthwhile taking that extra effort. And you know what? It's going to boomerang back on you. The way we judge others is the way Hashem will judge us. It's very important to have that in mind especially not just on rashana but every day because we are judged every moment. And then we'll end with that and we wish everyone a uh a good evening, a great week and that uh we have the three weeks coming up. These are in the prophets. It's going to turn into holidays. Uh the 17th of Tamuz is just around the corner. And then we have tishb. We have the three weeks. We're looking forward to the in gathering the exiles, the building of the base of mikdash, the revelation of Messiah, and we'll all see you on the other side. My heart