The Faith of Our Fathers - Rabbi Akiva Fox

[Music] so we've discussed that in essence the Jewish heart already has Faith already believes and one of the things that we need to do we need to learn to do is to express it to reveal it to uncovered one of the ways we spoke about was specifically through speech specifically through constant reminders that we have in our speech or in prayer but let's let's take a step back for a second where did this Faith come from where did that heart the Jewish heart that beats with amuna where did it where did you get it from I know that shoppr does not have it I checked in Costco however you might be able to find Faith because you could find everything in Costco a friend of mine told me he was visiting Costco and he saw they were selling coffins coffins in imagine you're walking down the L the aisle in the shopping store with your uh With Your Wagon and you got you know oranges and uh soda and uh pretzels and then oh they have coffins great you call up your wife honey they have a great sale on coffins how many do you think I should get I mean uh well they have red For You Blue for me what about for the kids and what about for Grandma and Grandpa anyway you could get everything in Costco so maybe you could get Faith to possibly I don't know but where do we get our faith from the answer is that it comes from the forefathers there was three not four but they're called the forefather that was the one corny joke I'm going to say everything else will be absolutely serious again I said as a rabbi you're allowed one corny joke that was it four fathers three okay the fathers instilled into who we are certain qualities that they achieved and one of them was Faith abrahamu planted faith into his offspring yob Abraham Isaac and Jacob what they did the gamar says Sim lean the things the actions the achievements that the forefathers did it automatically affects their offspring so they in essence they planted they internalized into the very DNA that we have belief and faith in God it's there so let's take a step back in history where did the forefathers get their amuna from after all if it comes from the forefathers they didn't have forefathers so where did they get it in Truth we say on PES we say something very interesting originally our forefathers originally served the idols they were P they did Pagan worship and then they learned to believe in God abrah ainu his father had an idol store imagine you've got a family business we make Idols the ter that was the name of his father the Terra Idol Factory and people used to come in and say I need an idol what do you need an idol for well I I uh I'm not doing too well in uh finances I need some money oh you want money boy do I have the idol for you if you want you could have stale came out yesterday or if you ate like 10 15 minutes we got one coming out of the oven in 105 minutes fresh for you perfect the best Idol so aru worked in the store and then he learned true Faith to believe in God so where did Abu get it where did Abraham learn to have faith and the answer to this question is actually spoken about in the medish the rambam speaks about it and in truth we're going to learn that there are many different sources for Abraham for Abraham's faith for y and Jakob obviously it was inherited it was something that was inherent inside them afteru he did inter indeed plant it within them but each one of the forefathers in a certain sense had a closer realization or a closer connection with God in a certain sense a certain deeper Revelation in his connection with God in different ways so right now let's discuss Abraham ainu Abraham ainu Abraham our forefather was the original the original if it doesn't say Abraham ainu it's not the real thing he was the original Jew he was the original believer and he was the forefather the one who brought down this amuna and put it in our DNA where did he get it from he got it from nature he got it from looking at the brilliant wisdom that he saw in God running the world the rambam myman says that if a person wants to come closer to God wants to learn to love and fear God and believe in God then he should go out into nature look at the brilliant wisdom that God has by putting everything in place the the Stars the galaxies the Sun the the moon the Earth revolving around this and the rain and the seasons looking at the brilliant world that God created how everything runs in Tangent how everything is connected with everything else how every being how every creature lives one off of this and something lives off of it and it all works out perfectly in tandem together this is how you're going to learn to believe when you see this you cannot deny it when you see it so clearly that there's someone who conducts who rules who guides the world this is something that's undeniable it's an interesting thing when when you walk into a art museum actually one should not walk into an art museum but if you see a picture on a wall your first response is wow who drew that if you eat a cake in somebody's house your first response is wow who made this in uh there's a certain city in uh North America I'm not going to say specifically what that there's a Jewish kosher bakery there called homemade that's the name of the bakery homemade there was a young man who came home for the Friday night meal the shabas meal and he tasted the kala he tasted the bread at the table and he said to his wife who made this and she said homemade what she meant to say was that she made it what he thought she said was that she bought it in the bakery called homemade so he says who made this she says homade he's like don't ever buy from there again it's terrible it's gross I can't stand it anyways you can imagine that uh they need a little bit of therapy afterwards but when you eat something you say who made this when you see something beautiful a picture or a nice article or beautiful music you wow who wrote this but when you see the world when you see the Brilliance in the world there's there's infinite Beauty there's unbelievable phenomena that's going on why isn't the first thing we say who made this who who arranged that the Grand Canyon would be so beautiful who arranged rainbows after rain who made the wind blow who who made Brees bring pollen to flowers who made this animal eat this who taught humans to be able to chew to be able to suckle right when they come out of their mother's stomach they already know how to feed who teaches that to us where does it come from this is the beginning of amuna to look at the world to look at nature to look at the systems the ecosystems the pyramid the and to say where is is this from me who created these this is what Abu did at 3 years old some say at 40 years old he said where did all this come from and that was the beginning of his journey in amuna so may we also learn that this should be the pedestal the stepping stone for our faith for our [Music] journey