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Tisha B'Av morning · Rabbi Benjy's Shiur

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What makes Tissue of unique is that we are meant to experience
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the day as if we are in mourning.
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Many people have experienced the loss of a parent, and when that
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happens it's unusual for let's say it's the the husband's
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parent in that passes away. The inlaw child might have liked
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the mother or father inlaw. It's possible.
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It does happen. It was like, not me, so much my
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jokes to show off. It can happen, but it's also
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very possible that they have no particular feeling either way.
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And they are. There is the supporting cast to
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help their spouse get through their particular emotions, but
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they themselves are not in any way, are not significantly
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broken emotionally to the point where they feel that there's a
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whole and that life's purposeless and how can they go
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on and how can they find meaning?
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And that's true of when that happens, when a worst tragedy
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happens, when a child passes away and the whole family is
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captured in that grief. It's a much more complicated
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emotional place to be. Because everyone is triggered by
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the death and everyone is collectively mourning.
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And somehow you have to make space for each other in your own
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personal grief. And the way that we experience
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grief and the way that we mourn is is very different on a
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superficial level. Sometimes in grief one person
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might be desperate to see photographs and and look at the
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person who passed away, and the other person can't bear to see
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pictures because it creates those memories and it comes
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flooding back and it's all too complicated.
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We use the model of mourning for a loved one to help us
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understand the emotional space we're meant to be in when on
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Tisch above. And it's unusual because we're
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not good at making ourselves feel uncomfortable.
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We spend most of the year making ourselves happy.
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We do everything we can to make ourselves had from the most
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superficial of upgrading the speed of our Internet or the
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quality of our phone, because that's for Shalom.
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We should wait 2 seconds to see a website if we can access it in
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half a second. And that difference in quality
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of life is too much for us to experience and so we never
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really allow ourselves to suffer.
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We can't bear silence because it makes us feel awkward.
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We can't bear and come being uncomfort.
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So we spend all our lives working hard to make sure that
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our lives are as comfortable as they possibly be.
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Not in here, but in other shows, people are quite creative when
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it comes to how they sit on tissue.
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Above no cast. For Salem, we should feel no
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someone who's physically can't sit on the floor.
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That's a separate issue. It's not even an issue.
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Sit on a chair. But the people who are
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physically able have to have their bean bags.
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They have their puffy chair, They have cushions just to make
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even tissue above. We're so scared of feeling
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uncomfortable for the for the few hours we're meant to
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experience it that we do all all we can to circumvent that
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experience. And this fascinating book by
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Susan Kane called Bittersweet. She writes on her theorem.
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We're going to start with her writings and standing her
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teachings bittersweet. There's nothing wrong.
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In fact a lot of creativity comes from pretty dark places.
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Many songwriters are quite broken people, and from the
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depth of emotion they write the most incredible pieces of of
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literature, of music, and it's actually learning today how to
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harness that feeling uncomfortable.
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The feeling that we spend most of our lives running away from
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and that we're supposed to experience today isn't something
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we're not here to torture ourselves, to hurt ourselves.
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But actually it's from the place of feeling uncomfortable that we
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can find the solution to many of our problems, that it's actually
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OK to be uncomfortable and we can actually become greater
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people if we allow permit ourselves, give ourselves
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permission to go to those dark and difficult places.
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So she writes, I'm going to quote from a random selection of
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pages from her writing just to set the scene.
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Many of us have long perceived the power of sadness to unite us
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without fully articulating it or thinking to express it in
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Euroscientific terms. Years ago, when this book was
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sort of gleam in my eye, I gave A blog interview to author
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Gretchen Rubin on what I then called the happiness of
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Melancholy. A young woman responded with her
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own blog, reflecting on her grandfather's funeral and the
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union between souls she experienced.
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My grandfather's barbershop chorus sang him a tribute, and
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for the first time in my 14 years, I witnessed tears
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cascading down my father's face. That moment with the lilting
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sounds of men's voices, the hushed audience, and my father's
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soundness is permanently etched on my heart.
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When our family first had to euthanize a pet, the love in
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that room shared by my brother, my father, and me took my breath
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away. You see, when I think of these
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events, it's not the sadness that I most remember.
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It's the union between souls. When we experience sadness, we
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share in a common suffering. It's one of the few times when
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people allow themselves to be truly vulnerable.
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It's a time when our culture allows us to be completely
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honest about how we feel and it's that word vulnerability
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that we need to connect with today that it's OK to be
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vulnerable. Tishabav gives us that space to
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feel those thoughts. Feeling deprived of the ability
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to express these insights in her daily life, the young woman
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turned to art. My affinity for serious movies
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and thought provoking novels is all an attempt to recreate the
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beauty of my life's most honest moments.
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I recognize that in order to function in society, we cannot
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all walk around with our hearts constantly overflowing.
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So I visit these moments in my mind, re experience them through
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art, and appreciate the occurrence of new utterly
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vulnerable moments when they come and you just listen to to a
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number of kindness. The authors were so vulnerable,
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asking us to cry constantly over the destruction, questioning
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what's the purpose of life, how can we continue?
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They wrote those pieces from from a deep place inside of
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themselves. In 2016, the erudite and
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prolific Swiss born writer, philosopher Alain de Botton
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wrote published an essay in the New York Times.
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He wrote Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person.
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It was the most widely read piece of the year, and it argued
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that we in our marriages would be better off if we'd renounce
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the romantic idea that, as you put it, a perfect being exists
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who can meet all our needs. Bear with me, It's fascinating.
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Does anyone here ask them in a seminar?
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Does anyone here think that they're easy to live with?
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A few hands go up. This is very dangerous, he says
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cheerfully. I don't know you, but I know
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you're not easy to live with. If you insist on believing that
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you are, you won't live with anyone.
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We've got some mics and some lovely, honest people on no
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social media. Let's hear why you're difficult
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to live with. So the hands go up again.
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I'm Moody and loud. I overanalyze everything.
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I'm messy and I have music on all the time.
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You've been warned. Everyone cries Allen.
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You could build a pile to the ceiling with all your
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difficulties, but we forget this when we're dating.
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There's a traditional trope of laughing at how badly our dates
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go. We think I'm still sort of
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perfect. So why did it go so bad?
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Who in this room wants to be loved for who they are?
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Put your hands up and the the hands rise again.
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Oh my goodness, he says. We have to work.
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We have work to do. Have you not been listening what
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I've been saying? How can you be possible?
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How can you possibly be loved for who you are?
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You are a deeply flawed human being.
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Why would anyone love you just as you are?
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You've got to grow and you've got to develop.
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But I believe that she continues that the grand unifying theory
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that explains the paradox of tragedy is deceptively simple.
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No one really, actually welcomes tragedy per se.
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What we like are sad and beautiful things, the bitter
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together with the sweet. We don't thrill to lists of sad
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words, for example, or slideshows of sad faces.
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What we love is elegeic poetry. The elegies, the kinners that
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we've just read, Seaside city shrouded in fog, Spires reaching
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through the clouds. In other words, we like art
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forms that express our longing for union and from more perfect
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and beautiful worlds. We don't mind if we go there.
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That's OK. I'm finally From her writings,
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Columbia Business School professor Modup Aquinola
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gathered a collection of students and measured their
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blood for DHEASA hormone that helps protect against depression
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by suppressing the effects of stress hormones such as
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cortisol. Then she asked the students to
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speak to an audience about their dream jobs.
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Unbeknown to her subject, she arranged for some of the talks
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to be greeted supportively with smiles and nods, and others with
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frowns and head shaking. After the talk, she asked the
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students how they were feeling. Unsurprisingly, those with
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receptive audiences were in better mood than the ones who
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thought that they'd bombed. But she also asked the students
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to make a collage which profession with which
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professional artists later rated for creativity.
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The students who faced disapproving audiences created
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better art pieces than the ones who were smiled upon and those
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who received negative audience feedback and had low levels of
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this DHEAEAS. That is, the students who were
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both emotionally vulnerable and suffered rejection from their
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audience made the best art pieces of all.
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Other studies have found that sad moods tend to sharpen our
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attention. They make us more focused and
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detail oriented. They improve our memories,
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correct our cognitive biases. For example, there's another
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study done that people are better able to recall items
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they've seen in a store on a cloudy day compared to sunny
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ones. That people in a bad mood tend
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to have better eyewitness memories or car accidents than
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those who've been thinking of happy times.
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There are many possible and explanations, of course.
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Perhaps it's a sharper attention that the for the studies
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suggest. Or maybe emotional setbacks
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instill more grit, more persistence, which some people
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apply in their creative efforts. Whatever the theory, this is her
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conclusion for now. We shouldn't make the mistake of
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viewing darkness as the soul or even primary catalyst to
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creativity. Plenty of creative or happy
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types and or neutral types, and studies also show that flashes
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of insight are more likely to happen when we're in a good
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mood. We also know that clinical
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depression, which we might think of an emotional black hole
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obliterating any light, kills creativity.
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Creative people are not creative when they're depressed.
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Instead, it may be more useful to view creativity through the
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lens of bitter sweetness, of grappling simultaneously with
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dark and light. It's not that pain equals art,
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that creativity has the power to look pain in the eye and to
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decide to turn it into something better.
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The Hasidic masters used to have a play on words between the word
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cannot and the word tikkun. It's exactly the same letters,
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the very same poetry that we read to embrace the darkness of
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tissue above. If we do that process correctly,
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we can provide the solution to our struggles and our suffering.
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That's what we really need to try and make sense of.
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Not to be scared of the bittersweet, not to be scared of
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the difficulties, but to use it. And in fact many of the kinners,
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if we just take the very first one, because it's just easy to
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go for number six in the sequence of kinners right at the
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end after telling us that the whole thing was a big shock, Rob
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Salvat explains. Shovas is the suddenness of the
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disaster that came upon the Jewish people.
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Right at the end of the first Kinner, we turn to our show and
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we say Roma. Habetna look down from on high.
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I'm her Kulano. We are still your people, so we
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can go from the darkness of the misery to the positivity.
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That's a journey that Jewish thought definitely acquiesces
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with and sees as a purposeful journey that we need to be on.
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Humans can remember joyous moments, even when we are in
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pain and vice versa. People laugh, People cry at a
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wedding and people can laugh in the ship of house.
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That's part of the human experience.
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And Tisha Bob is about allowing ourselves to feel vulnerable, to
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be open to that emotional journey, the Stoic Brit that
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pushes out that the emotionally crippled human being that we try
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and be the rest of the year. Because somehow we've associated
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being strong and being bold with some form of success in life.
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And emotion is seen expressing emotions often seen as a
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weakness in our culture. It's wrong, but we're still
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working our way through that experience.
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It's something that tissue about I think directly tries to
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challenge. And what's fascinating about
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today, if we do the day correctly, is that as Jews, we
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are not. We're not the only ones that are
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shedding tears today. We have to recognize that
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Hashem, the Madras, talks about Hashem crying as well.
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We have the teaching that that lining, the teaching, the messed
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up witticism from Yiddish that man plans and God loves, is an
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utterly cruel walked perspective on authentic Jewish living.
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It makes God into some sort of malevolent devil, some sort of
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evil James Bond antagonist who's watching 007 come into a trap
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and he's rubbing his hands together.
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And if only James Bond knew that there was a laser beam about to
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be shot at his whatever it's going to be, his chest, his
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head, then he wouldn't go there. And it makes God seem a little
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bit malevolent that you use humanity are so stupid.
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If you only went that way and not that way, you wouldn't be in
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pain. But it's really not.
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Not that that's really inappropriate thing to think
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about. And so we have the concept of
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Hashem crying over the destruction of the base Amigos
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and the destruction of the Jewish people.
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Listen to what the Madras says. Hashem says this translation.
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Whoa, what have I done? Hashem, Wales, I have destroyed
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the temple. I've cast out my children.
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What have I done? An Angel comes to God and says
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do not cry, God, let me cry your tears and reveal them to the
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world. No, says Hashem.
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I will go into my inner chamber and I will cry there.
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And he does just that. He enters the inner chamber,
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Whatever All this means, metaphors, locks the door and
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cries because he misses and wants the temple and the obvious
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question will go and build it. You're God.
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Yeah, we we cry because we didn't have the solutions to our
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problems. But Ashem is infinite.
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He thought, we can do what he wants.
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What would stop Hashem rebuilding the base?
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Amidosha if he wanted to, and therefore to stop crying?
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And it's similar question to the question that we ask.
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It's often if Ashem really cared about the Jewish people, where
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was God at? Fill in the long list of names
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of words of various places of tragedy in a history.
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Where was God then? And what's the answer from this
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particular perspective? That many perspectives?
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We shouldn't think that this one simple answer to any of these
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questions Hashem was crying. What does that mean?
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What does? How does that help us make sense
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of a tragedy? Hashem, Why couldn't he do what
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we wanted him to do? But that's the concept.
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The very idea that Hashem was crying along with us can give us
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strength. Knowing that Ashyam is as broken
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as you say, it's as possible saying to heal him on the shop
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this morning and Suki de Zimra IMO Anoki.
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But sorry, I am with you in your pain, in your your your distress
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and your discomfort. Knowing that Ashyam has our back
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and is struggling, not struggling, choosing to
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experience the pain with us ought to be a cathartic
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cleansing concept. If Jews knew just how much God
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is still crying, there would be many more people in the world
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feeling comforted. It wouldn't be people walk
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around with that pain. But I'm all alone.
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Most people imagine a powerful God, emotionless, looking at us
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from heaven of clone of his calm and Shapiro the the H corridor
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from the Warsaw ghetto who loved so much in his own life but yet
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gave support to to the hunger who were there.
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He eventually perished in the concentration camp, described
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God as having endless pain. We don't think of God as having
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endless pain. We often describe God with
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positive concepts. God is Omni, benevolent, all
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loving, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, all the words that
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we use in religious speech and academic language about
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religion. We don't think of God as having
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endless pain, or what would that do for us in our relationship,
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on us on a taking a step to the side.
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You What are we doing that if God's got endless pain for our
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suffering that we're not necessarily in control of, then
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what are we doing? Adding to God's pain?
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If we are in control, if we make choices that are bad for
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ourselves, we're adding to that pain.
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So it's difficult to understand why God's in pain.
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So by David Aaron. And what is he crying for as
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well? Why would the Angel as described
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in the Madras want to cry God's tears and reveal them to the
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world? Going to Rabbi Shapiro?
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It's like this. The Angel knew that if God's
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tears were to be revealed in this world, the whole world
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would be destroyed If we were to hear God crying, if we knew how
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pained God was over the state of this world, we would be filled
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with such shame and torture we wouldn't be able to go on living
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our inability to handle God's pain.
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Think about the last time we upset somebody who we felt was
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already fragile and we were callous.
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We weren't sympathetic how broken we feel as a human being.
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What have I just done? They're so broken.
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And I was so thoughtless, mindless.
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I wasn't caring enough. And how bad we feel on that
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level. Then just multiply by infinite
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Infinity and that's what we would be.
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We would be so, so broken we couldn't go on living.
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Our inability to handle God's pain suggests the Medrush is the
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reason God is compassionately hiding it from us.
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Now we can begin to fathom that when we experience a lack of
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intervention by Hashem. It's not that Ashem was silent.
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Not Ashem doesn't care. So that why isn't he being
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attentive to me? Why isn't he solving my
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problems? It's that he's crying alongside
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with us. If God were to allow His pain to
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become manifest in this world, we wouldn't be able to take it.
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In other words, because we're in such denial of God's pain,
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experiencing it would be to would devastate us, and that
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would we would just die on the spot.
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We are not ready or willing to acknowledge and feel Hashem's
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pain, but why can't He rebuild the base Hamid Dosh?
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God can't rebuild the base Hamid dosh unless we want it and what
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it really represents. Practically speaking, there's no
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point in the base Hamid Dosh. Unless we want to embody the
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presence of God in all our lives, who is really ready and
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learning with somebody at the moment who's got a complicated
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back story, won't reveal who he is and he has to learn Judaism
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in order to progress in his life with in a relationship that
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needs working on. We'll leave it like that and the
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opening section of the Shukhanna Rukh, the code of Jewish law.
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It's fascinating and that it puts one of the hardest things
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to do right at the beginning. If we would have a law about you
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know say a little prayer when you come out the bathroom
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thanking God that it all works I could manage that one.
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But to start off the code of Jewish law with Shavisia Shamla
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Negdi Tomid be totally aware at all times never forget that
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you're in the presence of God and in the in the language of
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from a gumsreed and the Kitschelk on our he sets the
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scene and as an educator we I know that we all know this to be
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true. Those who are teachers know that
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it's the kids behave differently when the heads in the room, when
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the teachers in the room to how they are in the playground.
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And he uses that as the metaphor for if we were aware of Hashem
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at all times, how different our behavior would be, we would
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never speak behind our hand because who you're hiding from
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like God seeing you anyway. We would never close the
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curtains, we would never shut the door and go.
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I can be normal now. I can stop pretending to the
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world because God's still watching you.
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So all of the do. Are we really ready for that
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type of experience where God is so manifest and we're living
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always with God? Because that would.
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I don't know. That's a question I'm not going
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to answer for you. We have to answer that for
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ourselves. Are we ready for it?
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Perhaps collectively as a nation, when we can answer yes.
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That will then provide the base I make just to come back.
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But there would be no point. It's like trying to give a child
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pills to swallow before they One of my kids recently had to had
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to learn to take pills. It was a nightmare.
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Look at a choke on it. Couldn't do it.
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Now Barak Hashem is. Now he can do multiple pills
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now. He's progressed, can shove his
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mouth full of pills with a drop of water and they all go down.
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But until that point, you live through that crazy experience as
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a as a kid, as a teenager, as a parent.
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It's why would you torture yourself by doing that?
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Why would God, God, not going to torture us to provide us with
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the base? Hamid does?
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If it's not going to be useful to us, if we're going to run
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away from it, we're going to hide from its grandeur.
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But we have to understand what we're missing Without it, if
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we're really understood what we are, what we were missing, we'll
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be bawling our eyes out over the fact that we are not home, that
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we're in exile at the base, how Mikdosh has not been rebuilt.
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We would be yearning for it and for God's presence among us.
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What we are missing our is not the building.
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It's the awareness that a greater Presence is absent from
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our lives, a consciousness of God, a desire for God in our
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everyday life. And that is gone.
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And you can see it's gone because we obsessed in the
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religious community, not about God.
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That's the that's the success of that song.
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Thank you, Ashem. All of a sudden, all the Jews
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are talking about God. Without that song.
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We're not talking about God talking about the thickness of
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tights the the the lace cap or the not lace cap on this title.
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How black is your jacket. How big is your brim that you
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wear out do you Shockle, at the speed of knots could you
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generate electricity by how fast you Shockle, how long it sits as
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a teenage boy they go down to your ankles and lips really from
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in certain schools do you shake like a maniac when you double
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from a nursery. Some of these kids they look
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they look my sugar. They're like crazy people.
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They're doing this. They look like crazy human
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beings. You wouldn't stand in front of a
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Prime Minister and gesticulate with such because what do we do?
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We've taken God out the picture and we're left with rituals,
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empty rituals that are just deeds.
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Deeds make us feel good because we can measure those that
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quantifiable. We can say I can do up to here,
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but I can't do that. And so we feel we feel good
24:08
about ourselves or we feel bad about ourselves and we break
24:11
those deeds. But thank you Asham and Song,
24:13
We've lost a God consciousness from the world.
24:16
God says by David Aaron can't rebuild the temple until we want
24:19
God in our lives and need a temple to express that holy
24:23
desire. The temple remains in ruins
24:25
because we do not yet want God in our lives enough to warrant
24:29
it. And This is why Hashem is
24:32
crying. To want to temple means to want
24:36
to live in a world with God consciousness, and we have to
24:38
have a desire to to to correct that absence in our lives.
24:43
And perhaps when we do, things will be different.
24:46
Before we can hear God crying, we have to improve our
24:48
listening. One of the reasons we do not
24:51
hear each other, much less God, that we are constantly thinking
24:55
about what we want to say rather than listening to what someone
24:59
else is saying to us. How many times do we know that
25:03
we've someone said, hey, how are you?
25:05
We've said fine, but we don't mean fine.
25:08
We are actually broken today. Feeling really rubbish.
25:10
Don't feel pretty, don't feel worthwhile, don't feel anything.
25:12
And you know that's good. Like you've missed absolutely
25:15
everything I'm saying to you in my word.
25:18
Good, fine, OK. These are just words that we use
25:21
in society. After we are talking to
25:23
ourselves in our heads the whole time someone else is talking to
25:28
us and we need to stop talking. Judaism, teachers, we must take
25:32
time for silence. And we're scared of the silence
25:35
because initially when we're in silence, all we hear is the
25:38
crazy stuff in our head. And then you think, oh, I'm
25:41
going crazy. When we're talking to other
25:43
people, we didn't hear I'm a sugar wee.
25:44
But when there's no one to talk to, then you realize how nuts
25:47
you are. We can hear.
25:49
So we need to practice. We need to learn.
25:52
Rabbi Nachman and the breast of Castidum talk very much about
25:54
the concept of his poitedness, of going into a forest somewhere
25:58
in nature, somewhere in solitude, just to be with
26:03
ourselves. So complicated.
26:06
And it needs I'm not. I haven't done it yet.
26:09
But it's doable. People who do it say it's very
26:11
doable. As a meditative experience.
26:14
We have to learn to do it. We can hear God's voice from the
26:17
depths of our soul only when we are quiet, when we stop talking
26:22
and start listening. If we were to listen deep inside
26:25
ourselves rather than running away from it, we would hear
26:30
Hashem's crying and we would cry too.
26:33
Not our own tears, but God's tears.
26:36
God's tears are the tears that come from deep down, from what's
26:39
really good about you. These tears are not salty.
26:44
You will know that they are God's tears when they actually
26:46
quench your thirst. As God's presence enters your
26:49
life, you feel stronger. You feel more dynamic.
26:52
You feel energized. These are tears that bring a
26:55
cleansing to the situation, not tears that break you.
27:00
Tishabad reminds you that you have to get more real with
27:02
yourself. What's in your life is worth
27:05
crying over? What is worth being paint over?
27:08
What is really missing and what do you really want?
27:12
And that wanting goes back to the to the first word of
27:15
Migalas, Ekhar, Ekhar, Yoshwar. But then how can it be?
27:18
And there's no answer. So that to the Hazal, the rabbi
27:21
is in a typically imaginative interpretation, provide a whole
27:26
range of answers that are encoded in the word acre.
27:30
They are spent as I What is the what is the what is the answer
27:34
to the Acre? He said.
27:35
To them, Israel was exiled only after they denied the unique one
27:41
of the world. That's Hashem circumcision that
27:44
was given after 20 generations, the 10 commandments and the
27:50
first five books of the terror. Where did you get that from?
27:54
The word Echo. Alaf is the one God, Yurt is the
27:59
10 commandments, the half is the 20 generations where until Bruce
28:04
Milo came to the world and then the hey are the five books of
28:09
the terror. Rabbi Lady said Israel was
28:11
exiled only after they denied the 36.
28:14
The numerical value of the word E36, Instances of spiritual
28:20
Punishment in the Terror and the 10 Commandments.
28:23
The numerical value of Ekra. Yashwar Badat.
28:27
Ekra. Robin Echhemi says the term ekra
28:31
is nothing other than the expression of lamentation.
28:35
It's what is written. The Lord God called to the man
28:38
and said, when Ashem calls out to Adam Harishon, says Ayeka,
28:43
the same letters as the word Ekra, taking us back.
28:47
Where are you? Where do you see yourself?
28:50
Where do you situate yourself on your own life journey?
28:53
It's that sense of other men have a where are you?
28:56
You're not where you're meant to be.
28:58
Tisha, Bob, we're not where we're meant to be.
29:00
This place is the sense of feeling displaced from our true,
29:04
our true selves, our true ultimate goal and destiny as a
29:08
people, says Carl Jung. So much unnecessary suffering
29:13
comes into the world because people will not accept the
29:16
legitimate suffering that comes from being human.
29:20
However, acknowledging our sadness and expressing it heals
29:25
our heart, helps turn our pain into the source of motivation.
29:30
And I discovered a pain by a Lebanese poet, a poem by a
29:33
Lebanese poet called On Pain by Khalil Gibran.
29:37
Maybe you've heard the poet, famous Lebanese poet poem says
29:42
as follows. It's very appropriate because
29:45
the open line is and a woman spoke, which is good for a
29:48
woman's share. By the way, it also occurred to
29:50
me that unlike other festive days or days which are festive,
29:55
we normally have a line that says because not Shim Sidconia's
29:58
because of the righteous women, the men folk and the rest of the
30:02
nation was saved and part of the tragedy of tissue above that we
30:05
don't have that we have no noshing.
30:08
The women in the in the Acre narrative ate their own
30:11
children, cooked their babies because they ran out of food and
30:14
source of desperation. The whole nation, men and women
30:17
were totally depraved and broken.
30:20
So the poem says as follows, And a woman spoke, saying, tell us
30:23
of pain. And he said, your pain is the
30:27
breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
30:31
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may
30:35
stand in the sun, so must you know, pain, And could you keep
30:40
your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life?
30:44
Your pain would not seem less wondrous than joy, and you would
30:48
accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always
30:52
accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
30:56
We accept that there is winter, summer, spring, autumn, and so
31:01
must our hearts also traverse a a journey between pain and
31:07
happiness. That's just the way it has to
31:09
be. And if we try to run away from
31:11
that, this isn't the poem. This is hastetic teaching.
31:14
If we try to run away from this shifting tides of life, we're
31:23
going to run away. And we're not going to go
31:24
anywhere, because it has. This is the way nature's nature
31:27
is, darkness and light, cold and hot, with happiness and pain.
31:31
It's just part of the experience.
31:34
Much of your pain is self chosen, says the poet.
31:37
It's the bitter potion by which the physicians, with the
31:40
physician within you, heals your sick self, something.
31:43
We've all been there, as many of us have been there.
31:45
As parents, I should say. I think.
31:47
I always think of the time that one of my kids needed ear drops.
31:50
The first time you put ear drops into a baby's ear, it's simple.
31:52
They don't know what's coming. You can lay them on the floor
31:55
and you make a little game and you put a drop in the air and
31:57
then they cry afterwards. But the next dose is more
32:00
complicated. They know it stings.
32:02
They know it feels uncomfortable.
32:04
There was one time when literally I was holding my kid
32:06
down like a sugar, like a maniac.
32:08
I was pressing their head against the carpet.
32:10
My wife was trying to get the drops in their ears.
32:12
If somebody would have looked and they would have called
32:13
children's services. The police like, who are these
32:16
nuts trying to torment a 2 year old?
32:19
But some of that pain, we need the pain to know that there's a
32:23
problem inside of us. But then alerts us.
32:26
The people who can't feel pain are not blessed.
32:29
They're actually cursed. It's a problem because they
32:31
can't. They don't know when they're
32:31
hurting themselves, so it's the bitter potion by which the
32:35
physician within you heals your sick self.
32:38
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence
32:42
and tranquility. For his hand, though heavy and
32:45
hard, is guided by the tender hand of the unseen, which is
32:49
Hashem. And the cup he brings, though it
32:52
burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the
32:56
Potter has moistened with his own sacred tears.
33:00
Again, the same sentiment that God is a God of love.
33:03
He's giving you this to heal you.
33:06
Gibran's poem offers little comfort or advice how to get rid
33:09
of that feeling. We are to we're urged to welcome
33:12
our pain with fresh eyes as a wondrous and remarkable force.
33:16
Pain, just like other emotions, is fleeting.
33:19
It comes and it goes, only coming to an end when our
33:22
earthly bodies come to an end. But there is one truth.
33:26
Much of the pain is self chosen. He urges us to meet our pain
33:31
with clarity and curiosity, asking ourselves what is being
33:35
revealed within us. When the pain comes, what are we
33:40
meant to learn? How do we take that?
33:41
No, we don't run away. Don't reject it, embrace it and
33:45
use it like we saw in the first in the first quote from
33:48
bittersweet. Use it to create, to be more
33:51
creative, to do something remarkable.
33:53
If we can trust that our pain is present, to direct our attention
33:57
to how we need to grow closer to our truth and purpose, it
34:00
becomes medicine. It might be a bitter medicine,
34:04
but like those eardrops, it's the medicine that we need to
34:07
take. And finally, something totally
34:10
counterintuitive to end with. When there's counterintuitive
34:14
teachings from Rabi Nachman that contains such a magnificent
34:17
ending, we'll we'll conclude with this.
34:23
The Madras says, or the Apostle says Bisa M Rosser Hashem
34:28
carried out his decree against us, and the Madras says that
34:32
Hashem removed his royal garments, says Kibova Die ain't
34:38
Habais Hamigdos Jaco Lisbal Co void of Gavaso Ysborg.
34:42
A building cannot really hold the greatness of Hashem, as we
34:47
learnt last night. Those who were here from
34:49
Malachim Alif Parakhas when Shloma Hamelach built the base
34:52
Hamidash, he said very openly. Tashem, I didn't quite get what
34:56
I've achieved here. He may have show my Him or
34:58
Schmeyer show my emloyer how Coluca the heavens, the heavens
35:02
of heavens can't contain you. Afqui har contracted his
35:18
greatness in order to dwell in the base Hamid dosh to reveal
35:23
his sovereignty. His Majesty Aval however Keshi
35:31
esra Hatsu when things went wrong and we sinned as I could
35:35
be a call Harold Gil Hashem es gavasa.
35:40
So it's backwards thinking. When we were being good, Hashem
35:43
contracted himself into the temple and Hashem within a
35:47
certain sense contracted smaller, more limited.
35:50
And when we sinned and we didn't deserve the temple, then Hashem
35:54
gave us a full manifestation of his greatness.
35:57
So it sounds back to front. When is Hashem greater?
36:01
When do we perceive him as greater?
36:03
Seriously, Ruby Nachman, The our truest understanding of God is
36:06
in exile. Then we see Hashem unrestricted
36:10
and in the base Hamidash. He was restricted Kim.
36:18
I mean, once we did, we send Omela Nakrava base Hamidos.
36:22
Then the temple was the struggle.
36:23
There's no need for it cause I'm no longer the only need we need
36:26
to the base Hamidos to for them to contract himself.
36:29
Once we were no longer worthy of that place, we didn't need it.
36:32
Kimi Akasha Cara Vita has had Simpson out.
36:47
How his His manifestation of himself is greater than a
36:50
building can contain. So what would what is?
36:54
What is the what is going on and what is the the tragedy we
36:57
assume? Normally the regular way of
36:59
thinking is that the revelation of Hashem was in the base
37:03
Hammigtosh. That's where we could perceive
37:05
the missioner says as much empirical.
37:06
But again we learnt it last night.
37:08
The column of smoke that was never extinguished on the altar
37:11
to represent the Permans, the Timidu, The continuity Hashem is
37:15
always in our life, is the assumption that we always make
37:19
where Bin Nachman says. Actually, it's the other way
37:21
round. Is the Mcdash an expression of
37:26
the presence of Hashem or the hiding of Hashem?
37:31
And we need to understand what that means.
37:34
Well I was the base Hamid Dosh destroyed as a result of Hashem
37:37
wanting to reveal His Majesty so that we would under we'd
37:42
forgotten the greatness of Hashem.
37:44
Hashem revealed that as the base Hamid Dosh was destroyed
37:54
couldn't Shula Maha Mela because we had saw in that Pasak the
37:57
base Hamid Dosh was a symbol of the presence of Hashem in our
38:02
life. But we mustn't come to the
38:04
paganistic idolatrous understanding that somehow
38:08
Hashem lived in a in a building. That would be ridiculous because
38:12
even at the time of the base Hamidos they were Jews living in
38:14
all parts of the world, definitely outside of Israel.
38:17
The Mr. talks about various agricultural law that may or may
38:20
not apply in the neighboring countries to Israel.
38:23
So clearly they were Jews living everywhere.
38:29
So what do we prefer? What is better?
38:32
Do you want to see Hashem in all of his glory?
38:35
Radiant, majestic, sovereign. We get a full idea of what God's
38:39
all about? Or do we want a more limited
38:43
understanding of Hashem? And we can answer it by thinking
38:49
about the state of Israel Sholes.
38:55
When Hashem was focused in the base Hamid dosh, we had a sense
38:59
of that's where we would go in Dublin.
39:03
Now is that better or worse than feeling that in every shawl in
39:06
the world that you go to? And if an Ashkenazi Jew goes
39:10
into any Ashkenazi shawl in the world, they'll feel immediately
39:12
at home. And if it's Afazi finds a
39:14
parallel Sophardic types for different, different communities
39:17
that they feel connected to, so we feel God is everywhere.
39:20
What would we rather God is everywhere or God is in
39:23
Jerusalem in a building. Would we rather the Jews have an
39:26
impact over all the worlds in exile like the reform movement
39:30
suggested that it's greater for there's no such concept as
39:33
exile. The idea that Jews should have
39:35
an impact when all our guy in and how can we do that by being
39:39
we can be citizens of every country of the Mosaic
39:42
persuasion. I used that phrase was when I
39:44
lived in Norway back in the year 2000.
39:46
That's how their community defined themselves that the
39:49
Moses cortrusum fund I think was the Norwegian.
39:52
It's been a long time I've said those words but they were that
39:54
they were the then the Jewish they were the Mosaic persuasion
39:58
of Norwegians opposed to the Mohammedian or the Jesus group
40:02
that you know you could be a citizen of the world but you can
40:05
be Jewish in that country. Or do we see Madina to Israel,
40:08
the state of Israel and Jewish genius being found within one
40:13
country to be of greater significance to us?
40:17
The obvious answer is we do. We do see it.
40:19
The model is Jews living in sea on Jews living in our land and.
40:25
We are a weaker nation when we're all over the place.
40:29
So what we give up by not being scattered around the nation
40:33
around the world we actually succeed in achieving when we are
40:37
contained within constricted reach into one country.
40:43
Well, they don't understand is the greatness that can come
40:45
about by creating that country that the and the parallel would
40:49
be the base time mid dash being a place where we feel connected
40:52
to us. John creating a homeland for
40:54
Jews is where our heart belongs, is where we're meant to go.
40:58
Also here with the shore Himala Difats, Phyllis Rukhani's Bima
41:06
Kipur and Vasa Knessas are Pinabo dot technit.
41:09
Do we not prefer our spiritual dovening, everyone singing
41:13
together? Do we?
41:13
Are we really ready for Yom Kippa to be a day about a guy
41:17
wearing white, two dips in and out of a Mick for all day long,
41:20
changing his clothes a bunch of times?
41:22
A guy walking a goat into a desert and throwing that goat
41:25
over a Cliff? And compared to our beautiful
41:29
collective worship and our singing and feeling together, is
41:35
it the presence of Hashem in in all of reality and every show
41:39
that we want to get, want to dub?
41:41
Isn't that better? However, what we need to
41:47
understand is that the base Hamidash was a place of a
41:51
meeting place between ourselves and Hashem.
41:54
We don't have. That's what we've lost.
41:56
We've lost that that intimate place almost like when we in
42:00
December time we I yeah, this December we took the kid two of
42:03
our kids to Israel for my nephews bar mitzvah.
42:05
I took them to the old city and I I wanted to show them places
42:08
that I've been to with my wife when we dated.
42:10
We we met in Rashalain, so we had a few different locations
42:13
down the stairs where we had a photograph taken.
42:15
Told them how the picture we got the photographer to put clouds
42:19
over the back of the cocktail to the Gold Dome wouldn't forever
42:23
spoil the wedding picture We used to have it hang hanging up
42:25
in our house. At one time a delivery driver
42:27
came in and I could see he was looking.
42:30
Looking at this picture, I wasn't going to say a word.
42:32
I wanted to go to deliver the thing that was heavy and get out
42:35
my house and not start having a question of where's the Gold
42:38
Dome. But I took them to, well,
42:40
they're gone now. They used to be pay phones where
42:43
they got the big Manura in the big Plaza were near the near the
42:46
near the the whole official on the wall that they used to be
42:48
pay phones back in the day. And I said This is why I used to
42:51
speak, to speak to to my wife and I called her on the phone
42:54
card and this we had chats. There's something very special,
42:57
very romantic, very beautiful of having those places in life
43:00
where you feel connected to another person, to to the Jewish
43:04
community, to an experience. And the base Hamidash and the
43:07
State of Israel is our place of connection to Hashem.
43:13
So yes, we want that contraction because the grain of Russian is
43:17
great, but that's blinding. That's overwhelming.
43:20
The beauty of the base Harmigdos is that we had a place to go on
43:24
earth where we we could call home, where we felt it was home,
43:28
where dues were Ole la rego that came on on these pilgrimages
43:32
from all over the place and felt connected.
43:34
The missioner says no one felt that no one was left homeless
43:38
When they came to Ushalaim on a Yom turf.
43:41
Everybody gave up space in their property to welcome the pilgrims
43:45
because we had a place that allowed us to feel connected to
43:49
each other and the best submitter.
43:51
She's understood as a my commief gush, a place to to feel
43:55
connected, a place to speak to Hashem, to hear that
43:58
conversation. Then a country without that
44:03
place, a Jewish people without that place is We're missing
44:07
something so profound about our experience with Hashem.
44:11
We've got the bitter we earned for the sweet, and the meantime
44:15
all we can do as in the cannot is merge, synthesize the bitter
44:18
with the sweet. Use the emotions of the day to
44:21
have those restorative conversations with yourselves,
44:24
with ourselves, to hear the sound in our own mind.
44:28
Restore our own relationships with ourselves, then with
44:31
others. And the same parallel that with
44:34
Hashem. And that way we can be ready to
44:37
want that relationship with Hashem, to yearn for that point
44:40
of desire. When we do that, that's what
44:43
Hashem. Hashem will then be ready to
44:45
make that dream a reality. Thank you very much.
44:51
You're all doing his bodas now. Everyone's gone into isolation,
44:54
gone into silence. You're all in that that place.