If God Knows What You Need, Why Must You Ask? Rabbi Efrem Goldberg

It's convenient that we also have speech to talk to one another. But if you ask why was speech created, what's its original purpose and intent? It's to talk to Hashem. Why? Cuz only when man said, "Hey, could someone make it rain around here?" Nothing's growing. Nothing's happening. How do we fill the garden? Hashem said, "Good. Now that you asked, I'm ready to give." It doesn't take a lot of courage to have a paid sabbatical. When the paycheck is still being transferred to your bank account, it doesn't take enormous courage. But when the farmer observes shmita, and we've been privileged in our community to host farmers who observe shmita, when a farmer observes shmita, they shut it all down. There's no income. There's nothing flowing in. And they say, "Well, what am I going to eat? How am I paying the bills? How am I paying" Hashem says, "Don't worry. I got your back. I'm going to give you enough in the sixth year to cover the sixth year, the seventh year, and the eighth year." Wow, what a promise. Which parenthetically some bring as evidence that the Torah was written by Hashem, not man, because in a religion, if man wrote the Torah and made that promise, "Don't worry, in the sixth year you're growing enough for the sixth, seventh, and eighth year," how long would that religion be around? Six years. Because if in the sixth year it didn't grow enough for those three years, and you couldn't control it, then people would say, "It's a joke. It's not a real religion. Some man made it up." Only a Kadosh Baruch Hu, only the omnipotent, infinite, almighty God who can make good on that promise would actually make that promise, which he makes. So why the Torah formulated in "V'haya im when a person will say, 'Mano cha, what am I going to eat?'" Why didn't the Torah simply tell the farmer, "Observe shmita and take a deep breath, relax. In the sixth year, you're good to go. You got enough for six, seven, and eight." Why does it have to be precipitated? Why did it have to be prompted by "Mano cha, the farmer's going to say, 'What am I going to eat? What am I going to eat?'" So there's a lot of answers to that question. We've studied some of them. One of them is that we only receive the shefa bracha, the bracha only flows when we ask for it. Kodesh Baruch Hu has chef upstairs. Hashem has so much brocha for us, but he doesn't transfer, he doesn't give us, we studied this as well. We each have a trust fund in heaven. But Kodesh Baruch Hu doesn't give us access to the heavenly trust fund filled with blessing, and the bless the blessing is not necessarily material and physical. It's not necessarily measured in dollars. The trust fund could be good health and nachas and children. Could be all kinds of things. But Hashem says you can't access it without asking. I want a relationship with you. So, you don't get it without the relationship. You need to ask. That's why when Hashem created the world, he created a world with an eco cycle where it was supposed to rain. There's precipitation, there's evaporation. I've just used all the fancy words I know for the ecosystem. I just exhausted my knowledge of that area, but there's some system where it's supposed to rain, but Hashem didn't press go. He didn't press start on it until when? Day six. Why? Who came on day six? Man. And what did man do on day six? He davened. Cuz God gave man the power of speech, what differentiated man. Va'yifach b'apav, God breathed life into us, and Onkelos translates as ruach memallela, he gave us the power of speech. What differentiated man from animal is the power of speech. And why do we need to speak? When Hashem created the world and deposited man in it, to whom were we speaking? There's no one around. Who are we talking to? The answer is there was someone around, and the origin of speech, the original purpose of it was to talk to whom? The whole purpose, the whole origin. It's convenient that we also have speech to talk to one another. But if you ask why was speech created, what's its original purpose and intent? It's to talk to Hashem, to talk to the Ribbono shel Olam. That's why. That's why we have the power of speech. That's why we were given speech. Speech differentiated us from men. So, even though Hashem created the heaven and earth, and he created fields and fruits and vegetables and trees, and he created water and evaporation and precipitation and rain, he didn't press start or go. He didn't begin to make it rain until when? Day six, the creation of man. Why? Cuz only when man said, "Hey, could someone make it rain around here? Nothing's growing. Nothing's happening. How do we fill the garden? Hashem said, "Good. Now that you asked, I'm ready to give." I need you to ask not because Hashem has some ego, but he craves and he wants the relationship. Miss Ahavat Chinam Hashem has Shefa Bracha. He's got all kinds of unimaginable, beyond our comprehension, blessing waiting for us. And he's waiting for us to pour out our hearts to him in order to transfer it to us. And how it gets transferred? Sometimes we can see clearly, and other times it feels like he's not transferring it. Where is it? But he knows what he's doing and how he does it, and he's waiting for us. He's waiting for us.