When Prayer Is Not Enough: Parashat B'Shelach

This is why when people ask, "How come Hashem doesn't just uh show himself? Maybe he'll turn everybody into a believer." He won't do it. And you know why? It didn't work. He did it once. He It didn't work. Look, he just saved them. Did all types of things. A day later they lost ama. Why? Because amuna is not something that you could just acquire based on seeing something and not say that changes you forever. It may change you, but if you don't continue working on developing and building this am by learning more and more about Hashem by noticing him in everything, noticing him in your business, noticing him in your marriage, noticing him in your personality, noticing him in in the ideas that you have, noticing him in your the health that you have or you don't have, noticing him in the food, noticing him in the birds, noticing Hashem in everything. Guess what? That jolt of energy that you got from some experience becomes forgotten. You forget how many people can really honestly admit that they remember all of the miracles that happened to them. Not just their whole life. I'm not going to ask you a ridiculous question. Just the miracles that happened to them this week. The truth is you don't even remember most of them because you don't even know most of them were miracles. The fact that we wake up is a miracle. The fact that you take a piece of meat, you eat it and you and it actually helps you. Your stomach takes this piece of meat and makes it into something useful, but yet the stomach doesn't eat you. That's a miracle. How come it destroys the meat that you ate but doesn't destroy you because you're also a piece of meat? The fact that you have these two little bubbles and you're able to see through them. When you actually see the mechanics of the eye, it's unbelievable. It's thinner than a balloon. You take a little balloon, any balloon, any any part you see. If there's a lot of balloons, there's a lot of popping happening. Why? Cuz they're fragile. How come you never seem you never see somebody walking in THE STREET, OH MY EYE POPPED? It doesn't happen. How come? How come it doesn't happen? It's thinner than a balloon. It's thinner than a balloon. How come it doesn't happen? Decides. Now when failed, they started screaming to Hashem like we scream to Hashem when bad stuff happens to us. Did Hashem answer? No. They prayed to Hashem. What else do you want us to do? They prayed to Hashem. They didn't pray to idols. They prayed to Hashem. Hashem didn't answer them. Showing us that sometimes prayer is not enough. Prayer by itself is fantastic. You have to take advantage of it. Not just for the three times a day Jew supposed to pray. Women pray once a day. Men pray three times a day. You want to pray more than once a day as a woman, go ahead. But you're obligated once a day to do and a man three times a day. But you should do more if you can. Well, you pray to Hashem. Talk to Hashem. Cry to him. He's your father in heaven. He's a He wants you to talk to him. Sometimes the prayer that you do independently is much better than the prayer that you're praying with a masset. Not to guide you guys to go start praying by yourself but meaning uh you know without a minion but I mean a prayer that's not from the book pray just your own words cry to hashem the breast liver is called and the rest of just called prayer talking to hashem it's good but the reality is sometimes not enough how do we know here look this didn't So they say, "Oh, so you know what? I'm going to tell my rabbi. I'm going to go to my rabbi." Rabbi, pray for me. I'm going to go to the caveim. I'm going to go to the lab's cave, even though they don't believe he died. I'm going to go to uh some other sadik's cave and uh yeah, I'm going to go pray over there. Why? Cuz that's where the Yeshua is. That's where the salvation is. Guess what? Sometimes it doesn't work either. Sometimes it doesn't work. You go, it doesn't work. You go, you go to Morocco, you go to to uh to or you go to there's many and many many you go pray there and uh you you're waiting for Hashem to bring you the salvation. Sometimes it doesn't work. Person sick goes there prays cries comes home stays sick looking for a zeug hoping that if he goes to this it's everything's going to work out. No he doesn't work out the zoo that he thought he had he lost. It gets worse. How come they went to the rabbi? The rabbi prayed to Hashem. So Mushenu starts crying to Hashem after he calms everybody else down. In uh Exodus 14:14, he says, "God will fight your war. Don't worry about it. You just stay quiet. You just be okay. Believe in Hashem. Gives them but himself. He says, "I want to go cry to Hashem for them." And Hashem gives him a response. That's really a response for us. Hashem says to Moshe, "Why do you cry out to me? Speak to the children of Israel and let them journey forward." So Khazal, our sages are baffled here. I don't understand. What do you mean, Hashem? Who else is he going to cry to? The Egyptians are there. The anacondas and scorpions over there. And there's an ocean that begins at 20 feet deep. Like what? Who else is he going to cry to? Mustafa Pikachu. Who where the desert? Who is he going to cry to? The idols? But then Kazal tell us no. What's the answer? Answer is says to Moshe, Moshe, this is not the time to cry to me. This is not the time to pray to me. You already prayed. You already showed that you understand that I'm God. You told me that you believe in me because you are the few that were chosen, right? But that's not enough. Now you need to show me. You told me, you prayed already in Egypt. You prayed, right? Now you need to show me. Go tell Am I want them to show me they have amuna by making a sacrifice by doing something. And the reason why is because right now is not a time for prayer. There is a prosecutor against you. The Satan came to me and he said, "Listen, Hashem, it's not fair. You are going to split the ocean for them and then the Egyptians are going to follow, but then you're going to close the ocean on the Egyptians kill the Egyptians, but the Jews are going to are going to survive. That's not fair. Why? Why are you going to let one survive and and kill the other? They're both idol worshippers. They both believe the news. They both pray to idols. They both How do we know they both? Kazal says something scary. Even though the best of us, the best of us that survived Egypt said, "We're leaving Egypt because of Hashem." They still brought their idols in their bags. The SP brought some of them still brought the idols in their back. They brought the idol just in case it doesn't work out. It's like, "No, no, Rabbi. I believe in Hashem. I believe in Hashem." Okay. So, how come you're saving so much money for retirement instead of using it to help? No. Just in case it doesn't work out, my belief in Hashem. At least I know I'm going to be okay. At least I know I'm going to have money for But you have money already. You have a house already. You don't need to buy another house. No, just in case. I need something. What else are you going to need? You have insurance. You have stuff. I mean, okay. You need to have some type of savings, but I mean, you're not buying food for Shabbat because you're saving for retirement. You think that extra dollar that you save on is going to help you. We see that there is a lot that Hashem expects from us when it comes to but ideally our efforts should be under control. Don't overdo it. [music] Amen. Amen.