Ten Minutes of Meaning (Part 157): Clinging to Hashem - Mesillas Yesharim

Yes. Now it is. Good morning Boca help yourself to some coffee and some donuts. Special thanks to Jeffrey Gelbart sponsor the 10 minutes of meaning series for the year memory of the Sherman we greatly appreciate. Also as you know our BRS global campaign is in full swing. If you are a BRS member do nothing. You do your part already. You're not a BRS member and you benefit from our writings, our classes, our programs. You watch, you listen or you diving here enjoy a cup of coffee or donut. Please do your part at brsonline.org/global. Okay, we are in Mesillas Yesharim perek yud tes. We are learning about the Ramchal's famous formula for how to be a better or best version of ourselves. Nathan is in the house. How to learn, how to grow, how to improve and never be stagnant, never be apathetic, never be indifferent, never think we've arrived but constantly be on a trajectory of growth, always improving, always journeying, always learning, always advancing. We talked about it begins with zerizus with mindfulness, not mindlessly coasting through life but mindfully being present in all that we do. Zerizus alacrity zeal passion and all the other middos that have led us up to chasidus. Chasidus again is not about what clothing you wear. Chasidus is not about what sect you belong to. Chasidus is about piety going above and beyond the Ramchal defines it. The chossid is not satisfied with good but the chossid strives for great. Chossid is not satisfied with it's good enough but rather strives for greatness in each and every area and now we continue so we talked about it in the realm of yirah. There's a fear of punishment. If we don't do the right things we'll pay the piper. There's accountability. There are consequences. Hashem has expectations of us. Hashem holds us accountable. There are consequences to the decisions we make, to the actions that we take. So on the one end there's a yiras onesh. We have to be mindful of the fear. We have to live with a sense of awe, sense of fear that we are accountable for our actions. You know we live in a world that stresses just be happy. Do whatever you want that makes you happy. And so Hashem's rules feel negotiable. I can't tell you how often I hear someone say doesn't God want me to be happy? Doesn't he want me to be happy? Well that definition of Shabbos that doesn't make me happy. So the answer is Hashem does want you to be happy and he knows better for you what will lead to your happiness than you do and he gave us the magic winning formula as the designer, as the programmer, as the creator of this universe and all in it including us, he knows. So we are accountable. There are consequences. It's not negotiable. It's not all or nothing. A person could be on a path of growth. It's not everything or don't bother doing anything but we have to live with a sense that there is accountability and consequences. But then we move over from the yiras onesh fear to yiras aromemus a sense of awe. Hashem is amazing. Awe, he's great. I'm filled with a sense of awe when I look around the universe. We've been talking about in Sukkah snippets venora. We're up to following Shema and one of the words is venora. Hashem is awesome. Amalek will read the Shabbos parsha zachor. Amalek's sole attitude, Amalek's sole approach, Amalek in each and every one of us tries us to get us to say not that that's awesome but that's eh, no big deal, doesn't impress me, nothing impresses me. But we Rav Footnote says don't have the koach hahilul. We don't undermine and question and cynically challenge everything. We have the koach hahilul, hallel. We say with everything wow, it's amazing. Those clouds and that tree and that leaf and certainly those people. I'm in awe of Hashem's world and everything in it and I sing praises to him. So all of that's yirah now we move over to ahavah. And so Ramchal says ahavah love are three things. Hadveikus, v'simcha, v'kinah. Clinging to God, joy and kinah. Kinah here doesn't mean jealousy or envy. Kinah means zeal, zealousness. Not zealousness that you go and kill somebody who you don't think is acting the way you want them to act. Not that kind of a kanai but a kanai a zeal means that there's a passion. So many people are dispassionate. They're disengaged from their Judaism. We'll get to it. That's the third expression of love. I'll give you a little preview to it. There's a little contrast. I hope I don't get in trouble for saying this but two sides of our building. The Sephardic minyan in the other end of the building our beautiful Sephardi Beit Midrash and we Ashkenazim. In the Sephardic minyan if somebody stands up and uses the wrong tune a fight could break out. Chairs could go flying through the air. And I say that not negatively or to disparage although obviously that's not the ideal way to communicate. I say there's an incredible passion. Here the Ashkenazim say whatever tune you want just get me out of here. I don't really care what tune you use. I don't care which words you skipped. I don't care which version of Torah you said. Just can we finish already? Can I get to the kiddush? Can I get out of here? So there's a zealousness and a zeal. There's a passion for your customs and for your tradition and for our sacred Torah which is admirable. It has to be expressed appropriately and peacefully but there's an there's an admiration. So I say that not disparagingly. We have some Sephardim who've infiltrated here but I say that I say that with tremendous admiration and frankly some envy. I wish we could get some passion. I wish we had some zealousness. I wish occasionally a chair would fly not at anyone's head but you know just towards that empty direction that come on. What do you mean we skipped Tachanun? I want to say Tachanun. Where's our kinah? Where's our passion? We'll come back to it. So it starts these three pronged approach to passion, to love of Hashem. The love of Hashem is expressed in these three ways. The first one is dveikus. Says the Ramchal hadveikus so what is dveikus? We have a mitzvah in the Torah. We we reference dveikus on a regular basis. We use the word dveikus. What does the word dveikus mean? To cling, to cleave to Hashem. What does that mean? He's up there, I'm down here. He's infinite. He's omnipotent. He's omniscient. I'm finite. I'm mere mortal. What does it mean for me to cling to him? What does that look like? How do I do it? Says the Ramchal the Shema Yisbarach. It means that you're so in love and you're so attached and you're so connected to him, so completely connected to Hashem that there no longer are any personal aspirations, personal considerations, even a personal awareness. Personal awareness. Someone is so clinging, so cleaving to the other. And this is the example, the metaphor that King said a yallah via da da yarucha b'chol ya'avasa tishket tamid. Pasuk in Mishlei that says a beloved gazelle full of favor will associate you at all times. The Gemara in Eiruvin understands what does that mean that pasuk? Amra b'dasha yoshev b'taharah b'shuk tachton shel Tzippori. Rebbi Elazar ben Pedas was sitting and studying in the lower marketplace of Tzippori. Have you ever been to Tzippori? You can go to Tzippori today in Israel the north of Israel. It's incredible. It's where many of our Tanaim, many of our sages lived. It's where the Mishna Rebbi Yehuda Hanasi himself lived. Maybe where the Mishna was authored. You could go to for example they have in the museum in Tzippori they have the it's called the lintel the what goes over the doorpost of Rebbi Elazar HaKappar. It has his name engraved and it basically says welcome to the Beit Midrash. We say Boca Raton Synagogue Grand Sanctuary. It says Rebbi Elazar HaKappar. It's amazing. It's amazing. So in Tzippori he was in the bottom marketplace in Tzippori. Ustina muta b'shuk elyon shel Tzippori. He was in the lower marketplace and his overcoat was in the upper marketplace. Tachlis I mean that is the highest level of dveikus b'chol sha'ah umna u'fokos b'sha'as avodah. Im ohev es bor'o ad shelo dveikus hazeh. You know Rav Soloveitchik didn't drive. I I don't know this firsthand but they say the story the reason Rav Soloveitchik didn't drive, he once tried to drive. He got his license. His mind was always holding in a Rambam in a Tosfos somewhere that it was dangerous for him to drive. He lacked total awareness that he was behind the wheel with a gas pedal and driving a potential weapon of mass destruction. He could end up in a ditch on the side of the road. They had to take the keys away. Some people they take the keys away because we age. We forget where we are but some people are so davek to Hashem that it's dangerous for them to be supposedly doing something else. That's the level. Again, this is not the first chapter of Mesillas Yesharim. This is what we strive and we build and we grow and we try to get to the place that we can achieve to that level of a dveikus, to that level, that place of a dveikus that we can cling to Hashem in that way and in that manner. But that's what it was saying about Rebbi Elazar ben Pedas. He was in the lower market, his coat was in the upper market. You know he was driving, the door was open, the gas tank was still open, the trunk was up. He was so connected to Hashem there was nothing else. L'havdil you see I've been giving you this example but that couple who are in love whether they're newlyweds just got married or it's in the courtship and they can't wait and they're so absolutely and utterly nauseating to be around and they could have such a dveikus. They're so clinging connected. They're so consumed and obsessed with one another that they have an utter lack of awareness of everything else happening around them. They could step on a nail going through their foot. They're bleeding profusely but they're so in love they have no idea. And that's what we're meant to try to feel with Hashem. He's with me everywhere and at all times. He's informing and inspiring me. His presence is felt by me. I feel his loving embrace, his arm around my shoulder and therefore there is no self-awareness. There is no self-interest. It's all about how can I serve him? How can I be Marbec for Shamayim? How can I advance Hashem's will in this world? La'havdil again, you know, you have sports fanatics who are so over extremely um obsessed with a certain player or team, and like consumes everything about them. They can actually lose out on business deals or work or other opportunities in life or their marriage or their relationships because they're so consumed by something that's all they think about. It's all they tweet about, it's all they text about, it's all they read about, it's all they talk about. And they're so consumed and connected and cleaving to that other thing that they have no other personal awareness for their own benefit. So again, la'havdil la'havdil la'havdil, we can and we should strive for that with Hashem. You know, so subsumed, so obsessed and consumed, and so connected that that's all we think about. We shall be humble in the brachas. You shall be humble in the brachas. We shall be humble in the brachas. We shall be humble in the brachas. We shall be humble in the brachas. We shall be humble in the brachas. We shall be humble in the brachas. We shall be humble in the brachas. But he didn't interrupt his tefillah. So I'm going to tell you a story about him. Not a little iguana outside. Not a little lizard. A poisonous snake wrapped itself around his leg, and it was poisonous. So he said, "Rabeinu, lo hirgash'ta?" Did you not realize that there was a poisonous snake wrapped around your leg? Do you understand the potentially lethal consequence that your life is in danger?" He said, "I was so lost in my tefillah that I didn't feel anything." He said, "I was so lost in my tefillah that I didn't feel anything." He said, "I swear, I was in so lost in my davening, I didn't feel anything. I had no idea. I had no clue. I was in such a meditative state, I was in such a trance and communion and conversation with Hashem, I had no idea. Now, that can be dangerous. If a poisonous snake is wound around your ankle, Torah of course says preserving your life supersedes everything, including a conversation with Hashem. He wants you to take care of yourself. We're not suggesting we should get to the level that we endanger ourselves. Don't daven on the top of a crane, you know, where you're going to lose yourself and fall off a balcony or a building, chas v'shalom. However, it is a level that we can strive for, so we've begun the first form of first expression of of love is to make us to cling, to cleave, to be so obsessed, so consumed, so taken by Hashem, we're not even aware of our own interests, and we're not consumed with our own identity. It is subsumed under the pursuit of Hashem. Living with Emunah 8:45 behind the Bima, marathon staff edition tonight at 9:00 p.m. If you're not a member yet of the global community, non-BRS members, and you enjoy davening in our shul, coffee and donuts, enjoy our classes and programs, brsonline.org/global. Stay happy, stay healthy, and stay holy.