EmetTalk - Rabbi Akiva Rutenberg - Be Your Future Self Now

so without further Ado please help us welcome our our CEO Rabbi AKA rudenberg okay so I I started off um Friday Night by giving a concept called M the Godless expanded Consciousness we talked about the idea that something that I've become more aware of and I'm learning about the idea of expanding our Consciousness the idea of allowing ourselves to reach bigger and higher than we ever thought possible and I talked about how being by the ocean is an opportunity for that I talked about the idea of Shabbat being a time of expanded Consciousness and I mentioned that within an expanded Consciousness it allows us to make space for other people it allows us to become bigger people and many of the struggles that people present to me at EMT in different settings revolve around I would say one main point and this is the point that I hear again and again and again Rabbi this is not the person I want to be but I'm not ready to be that person yet I don't want to be an angry person but I have so much stress I want to be a patient person but it's so hard I don't want to be a person that comes home at 11:30 at night but my business is just getting started I I have to get this going and then next year when they speak to me like and the second business is also just getting started and and and the first business is now struggling and now like and there's always this feeling of I'm not this is not who I am and there's something that I learned from from my father um about tshua about the process of toua because the concept of tsha in some ways doesn't really um doesn't really make sense we go through rashash yum kipur we feel this inspiration on rashash and yum kipur but then what we go back into our regular life so what's the point and something that that I heard from my father over the years was the point of rashash and Y is to picture yourself your future self picture the person you want to be because if you picture that person firstly Hashem gives you an opportunity to sort of Judge you with with those intentions but maybe equally important when you picture yourself that way you can now become that future self now teaches us the actions we take make us who we are when we act kindly we become a Kinder person when we talk more calmly we become a calmer person how do we become our future self now and I want to challenge everybody to do the following experiment I bet nobody's too tired here everyone tired you good you good okay okay I want you to do the following experiment with me okay in order to do this you're going to need to close your eyes okay but please don't fall asleep okay and I'm going to ask you to close your eyes I'm going to close my eyes to not making anyone uncomfortable and I'm going to ask you to picture yourself in somewhere around 20 years from now if you're a young newly wet couple it could be 30 years from now if you're already married 10 15 years it could be 15 years from now and I want you to picture that your kids have moved out of the house and they have their families of their own and you're coming to visit your kids for Shabbat everyone's with me take a deep breath breathe in and I want you to knock on the door and as you enter the house I want you to smell the foods it's a Shabbat and I want you to smell the foods and I want you to picture the scene in front of [Music] you and I want you to picture your son or your son-in-law or your daughter how are they talking to their kids how busy are they what's the feeling in the home are they calm are they talking nicely to each other are they so busy with their jobs and their work that they're not paying proper attention to each other and picture that scene and I ask you and you can picture other similar scenes and I ask you what do you want to see in your child that would make you the most proud is it the size of their kitchen is it the size of their house is it the BMW the Mercedes the whoever car in their driveway or is it the way they're talking to their spouse the way they're talking to their kids what would make you the most proud if you saw them glued to their phone if you saw them glued to their phone or if they were connecting with their family and I challenge each and every one of you and myself to make your fut yourself now [Applause] oh