EMETTalk - Rabbi Mordechai Kraft - Making Courageous Decisions

Okay. I'm live, go. Okay. Okay, making courageous choices is the topic that I chose. And the reason I was trying to feel why did I make Why did I choose this topic? Is because it's something about courage which touches me in a very, very deep way. I'm very inspired by courage. I'm very inspired, for example, when I read about the Klausenberger Rebbe during the Holocaust and how he wouldn't even eat any bread till he found some water to wash his hands. Or the fact that the Klausenberger Rebbe The fact that he allowed himself to maintain a beard even while he was in the camps, always pretending there was a toothache or something like that or on work forces. Some of these ideas inspired me very, very deeply. Louder. Some of these ideas inspired me very, very deeply. I was trying to find in myself a little bit why I'm so inspired by courage. I'm also so inspired when I watch movies and I see all of a sudden somebody does something courageous and willing to be there for the last battle, the last fight, and be able to give his life for somebody else. I'm very inspired by Rabbi Akiva. The fact Rabbi Akiva is able to say at the end of his life that I Without Torah, there's no life, and I'm willing to give my life even if it means, you know, means suffering, sacrifice for the teaching of Torah. I'm inspired by those in the Soviet Union, by Mendel Futas who fought, who was able to go into the the darkness of the Soviet Union and was able to teach Torah at the risk of going to prison, which he did go to prison because he started an underground network of Torah study. Some of these ideas touch the core of who I am, and I was trying to analyze why I want to speak about it. And I think it's because it touches something in me which is really very deep. I had an experience one time when I was in Israel a long time ago, and I happened to be on a hike somewhere in the Judean Desert. It was through an organization called the Society for Protection of Nature. And I remember we were on a hike into the desert, and while we were on that hike, we reached a certain point where we had been hiking now for about 4 or 5 hours, and we stopped for a water break. And everyone in the group turned to the leader of this group and said, "We don't have any water left." And we were told the person said, "Why do you have any water? Didn't you read the fine print? This was from a Tivat Lechet. Tivat Lechet means serious hikers. You're supposed to bring enough water for the whole experience." Cuz we didn't see that. We thought there'd be water somewhere along the way. We ran out of water. We had a group of about 35 people. We had no water in the hot sun in the Judean Desert. And I remember we we sat under a certain shady rocky area where we'd be protected from the sun. And the Madrich, one of the Madrichim, one of the leaders of the group, ran to ran sorry, ran ahead a couple hours in order to bring back the army with jerrycans of water. And during those couple hours, we had to sit and we had to wait. This is 1985, I believe. There were no cell phones yet. There were no walkie-talkies. So, we were really stuck. I remember there was one canteen of water between the 30 of us, 35 of us. Like like a bit of a maybe it was maybe half a gallon, something like that. The rule was that the water would be passed around. When the water came to you, you were allowed to take one gulp and pass it. I remember watching as the water went to different people and they drank and they passed, they drank and they passed. As the water reached one individual, the thirst that overwhelmed the body and it caused him to be in a place where he couldn't actually bring the water away from his lips. Once the water touched his lips, he couldn't pull it away because the body was being re-nourished once again. And we had to have to drag, they had to grab the water from him and they had to pull it away. And my turn was coming up and I was concerned what was going to happen to me. How would I respond to that? Would I have the strength? Would I have the ability to say my body is not going to be pleased, but I have to do what's best for the group? And I remember the water came to me and I took one big swig of water like that I was allowed to and I passed it. And I remember thinking about that at the end of the day and I understood something. I said, "My body was in pain. My my mind was hurting. My I had I the sunstroke was affecting the way I was I had a headache for the next 2 days. But I remember how did I feel at that moment? I said I remember feeling so proud of myself. I had done something which was so real and so good and so right. I had risked so to speak my own satisfaction for someone else for the rest of the group. And there was a pleasure in that which I said must be something above the physical because it wasn't a physical sensation I was experiencing cuz my body was in pain. But what was the sensation? I believe the sensation was that when one does an action which one sacrifices for another or one lives for an ideal above oneself, one is activating the soul. Courage, the strength of courage, and the joy of courage, and the power of courage is the soul takes control of the body so to speak and we go above ourselves and we see who we really are. So therefore I emphasized everyone make courageous decisions. It's going to be the best way for you to discover who you really are and you'll be so proud of yourself such joy in it because the real you is going to come forth. Okay. Beautiful. All right, thank you so much Rabbi Kraft.