Rabbi Leo Dee- Building Emunah Through Tefillah

I want to talk about um Tila and Emuna um and I I'll explain why. I think I'll just tell you the story the reason um at the Shiva uh about two and a half years ago uh people asked me uh was I more helped by people who are close friends who came or by strangers and the truth is both but there were certain strangers who came to the Shiva who really uh inspired me and really helped at the time. One of them was a guy called Yaniv. And um Yaniv had tragically lost his wife and two kids uh in a car crash a year before Ashiva. And he came in very sort of uh uh stiffly into the room and I spoke to him for probably two minutes maximum and in that two minutes he had a massive impact on on me. Um he told me very briefly what that what happened to his family and that was basically it. Um and he just had this simat on his face. I thought how could somebody who's been through what he's been through still have this uh sim and um I said I need to take your um telephone number. And that was the end of the interaction. Um and I said I'll be I'll be in touch. Anyway, I wasn't in touch. It was about two three months later. I'm sitting at home uh for dinner uh by myself uh 5:00. I'm going to speak at Shalavim Yeshiva at 8:00 and um suddenly he comes into my mind and I send him a WhatsApp. I said, "Yep, where? Tell me where you live." So he gets back to me um he gets back to me and he says, "Noon brackets next to Mushiva." I said, "Uh Yaniv, what are you do? You know, what are you doing at 7:00?" He said, "I'm free." I said, "I'm on my way." So, that was how we got to meet really. I went to his home and um I sat with him and I said, "Yep, what is it about you that has given you the strength to cope with what you've been you've had to cope?" And um he said, "Nothing, some whatever just how it is, whatever." Anyway, I I my first job as a 17-year-old coming out of school, I had a had a um a job as an a recruitment consultant in London, which is sort of a strange thing to do when you're 17. I was sitting in front of sort of 30 40 year olds interviewing them for for jobs in this consultancy, whatever. So, I never, you know, I never give up with people when they tell me that. So, I started say, "Okay, where were you born? Uh where'd you go to school?" And we went through his whole CV, his resume and um it turned out um that he was a teacher of Emuna. Uh that he had learned that he was passionate about Muna that he was teaching amuna. And I then went on to meet other people who also um had suffered tragedies. Um many of whom had been very passionate about Muna beforehand and who were coping with the tragedy. And I realized that this was something, you know, this was something that was obvious to people that, you know, Muna is a great tool for healing. Uh, I'll plug my book with seven facets of healings for sale over there afterwards for anyone who wants it. Um, and um, but Mino is a great tool for healing. Um, and um, I thought to myself at that point, I thought, wouldn't it be useful if every high school in Israel had a compulsory one hour a week at least of Emina? Um, and so then I went on a mission. Um, I had lots of missions after the tragedy. This is one of them. And I spoke to many of my friends who are men or menot um of panot and ushibot in in Israel. They live in a frat um there's no shortage. And I said to them I said to one one of my friends I said you know I think we every school should have one hour of amuna you know and this should be across the country and I'm prepared to go and speak to whoever it needs to be spoken to make sure this happens. He said it will never work. So I said what do you mean it will never work? He said it will never work. He said because two reasons. He said, "Number one, it's not part of the bug root. That means that nobody would take it seriously at all playing football basically during the M&A lesson." He said, "Number two, there's no text that everybody would agree is M1, right? Every teacher has a different idea what M&A is. There many different books and nobody." So, you could never do it. So, I realized he was right. So, then I'm thinking a few days later, I'm doubting. I'm thinking to myself, "Wow." I said, "This text is basically amuna, right? The we say is basically a text of amuna." And actually um I don't do it one hour a week. Um I do it an hour a day because I have 20 minute half an hour of shak and 15 minutes of 15 minutes of mar. [clears throat] I'm saying this thing one everybody every Jew is meant to be reading this stuff and and think about this one hour a day. This is our daily dose three times daily dose of amuna. All that lacks is the fact that for me nobody's really made that connection. I mean I think we all understand this and we're not interil but I don't think people made the connections but this was really what um uh what drove me to um to write the book which please go will be published in next year but um what I wanted to talk about this morning is an aspect of amuna in spec specifically in the estray uh and we're going to focus on four um raot of the estray and I this shia comes with a warning because there Shim panima Torah. Uh there are 70 ways to look at the Torah. Everyone is different. Um I think that the best ex description of what that means is the Hindu or Indian uh idea that three people who uh three blind men who are feeling an elephant. One's feeling the leg, one's feeling the trunk, one's feeling the tail. And one says this is this this object feels like a tree trunk. The other one says this object feels like a long pipe. and the other one says this feels like a sort of very thin stick and um and who's right? And the truth is of course they're all right because they're all looking at from a different perspective. So so I'm going to say things which contradict what you've been taught in um and I don't apologize um and I guarantee that they actually are the same as what you've been taught but just looking at it from a different perspective. So that that's okay. So the first question is what is amuna? Um, so that's a big question. Maybe we could ask the question just Yeah. What is emun? >> Faith. Okay. So I I like that faith is is a good translation. Although um a atheist friend of mine uh from school when I was growing up used to describe faith. He said faith is believing in something you know not to be true. Which um is a very good description of the word faith. It's it's believing in something that you know isn't true. So I so that that's what you know which sort of slightly makes me nervous about describing it as faith amuna although that seems to be roughly what it translates to although I've given three different possibilities on on source number three >> after saying confidence >> yeah confidence so we call it is is certainty right so we have a certain certainty there's also an element of faith um but there's something else about amuna what's something else about amuna something else about amuna I learned from rab riskin Um, in 2005 I was studying uh in Yeshiva Hamta under Rabbi Riskin. I had a Kutk who was called Shmulli Yanklitz. Um, many of you might have heard of him because he's turned out to be this amazing human rights rabbi in America. He's very very famous, writes lots of books about human rights and Torah, whatever. Um so we had a kuta together and uh gushkif was about to h was happening in a few weeks time and we turned to each other and said it's not right there are 10,000 people are going to be homeless in six weeks time and nobody has raised any money to help them for the day after and it was true nobody had raised a penny for the people of gushif the day after the reason was that the right wing was saying it's not going to happen and the leftwing said we don't care and so nobody was out there raising money so we drafted a which said to to every member of Afrat and we posted and and we asked Rabbi Riskin to sign it. He kindly signed it and we posted in every post box in ARAT. So, we're raising money for the people of Gushif. We raised $70,000, but one of the things that happened was um it was before the internet, but there was like a sort of uh I can't remember what they called it before the internet, like a sort of chat group or something. And um some more right-wing, let's say, people in Afrat um uh you posted, "Rabbi Riskin, how dare you? How dare you? the rabbis in Gujkatifa telling the people that this is not going to happen and you were there ruining their amuna because you're raising money for them for the day after. So Rabbi and so I felt terrible because I thought what I put Rabbi Risk in this difficult situation and he didn't need this. Why does he need it? And he responded in two ways which really inspired me. He said number one he said uh Israel so you know Jews do not rely on miracles. So, you know, yes, please God, it won't happen. But if it does happen, we've got to have a plan B. Um, and number two, he said, emuna is not believing what you want to happen will happen. Euna is believing that whatever does happen happens for the best. Um, and that was like such an incredible inspiration to me. So, I think that's another aspect. So, there are three aspects to emun. There is faith, there is knowledge, and there is being able to deal with everything um in between. Um and I learned this actually um from um a an evening for uh second marriages I think called perbet perk bet in Israel. So as I was uh starting the the dating and uh the dating situation, I was invited to go to this group that exists in Israel, mostly Israelis, Hebrew speakers, um He Hebrew speakers. Um and it's called Pericbed, and they're basically lots of divorcees, widows, widowers, etc. Um and they have a weekly meeting uh in someone's uh someone else hosts it each week uh with a speaker. And I the first time I went I I really thought it was interest the speaker was talking about um you the the sort of issues you're going to face in a second marriage. So I turned up at 7:30 thinking this is interesting you know I want to hear the speaker. I was the only person there for the first hour. Um and then the speaker turned up at 9:00 and I didn't realize of course this was really a social and it was a way to meet each other and I and I had no idea and so I was like I was a complete nebah. So the next time I came at you know4 to 9 um and that was much better. Um but one of the events that they held was a woman who had blended her family with her husband's family and um she had three kids, he had three kids and she came with him and she was presenting for an hour about how you you merge two families. And this was very interesting obviously to all of these people um and also to me at the time. And um she was an actress and he was somehow involved in the theatrical business. They'd met each other whatever um and they got together um got married and the next day after the wedding they moved into one house with their three with with the six kids together. And she tells the following story. She says her um six-year-old son was building um a uh a castle of cards um and on the on the on the living room table. He comes running into her in the kitchen says, "Mommy, mommy, come have a look at my castle of cards." As she walks in to see it, the 8-year-old son of the husband is just doing that and it collapses. And the six-year-old's in tears, runs up to his room. The eight-year-old, she can't scream at him really because he's just, you know, she's just now the new stepmother. Um, and she's thinking to herself, "Oh my god, what have I done?" And she can't express that because she knows that if she shows any doubt uh to her kids, then they'll, you know, they'll sort of not make any effort and that will be the end of it. And she's in this complete quandry. What do I do? And this was very interesting because she said, I have to show you. She was a she was an actress. So she said she learned this in acting school. Um, and she said, "This is what I did." She said first of all she said I know it's possible to integrate families because other people I've seen and I know friends group told me they've done it successfully. Fine. So that was number one. She said then I took three steps forward like that. She said I now um imagined what would success look like of integrating my family with his family. So maybe it's you know they're sitting around the shabas table pleasantly together. Maybe it's they call each other brother and sister. Maybe it's going on a family holiday and it being a pleasant experience. whatever I have this vision in my head so that's why I'm keeping my head she says then I take three steps back and I realize I'm not there yet okay my reality is I'm not there but now I can deal with every challenge that I I'm facing because I know where I want to get to I know it's possible and basically you know between those two bookends is reality which I now know I can I can work with and when she said that I thought to myself that is the definition of emuna right I know it's possible possible. That's and and again I know everyone has different explanations means I'm using the words loosely. I I know it's possible um I have a vision of what perfection looks like and in the middle I can I can deal with every challenge on the way because I know that it's possible and I know that I have a vision. I know some so between there and there I can I can get there. Then I realized that this sorry this um actually describes um a lot of a lot of the Torah. I mean a lot of everything. In fact, you'll see this pattern reoccurring. The Torah itself is a book that starts with Brashid, right? We know that God exists because we're here, right? There was a creator, right? We don't know who the creator is, but we know we're created. Okay? Only scientists who, you know, in top universities uh might doubt this because they don't really understand anything. um as we've seen in Harvard and Columbia and other places but but any intelligent person would know that you know it's impossible that we are not created um so therefore we know that we're created so we know there's a creator okay um and then um we know that um you know we we have a destiny which is Israel it's Mashiah whatever it is this is the the Torah and basically if you look at the middle book part of the of the Tanakh it's all about the struggles that we have to get there but given that we know that you know we're here for a reason we know that we have you know we can fulfill that journey uh everything else we can deal with on the way um Yseph you know in the par is another beautiful idea very similar idea right take three steps into the future he has a dream right he has a dream god gives him a dream about what he's going to be he's going to be uh both financially uh uh the the leader of the family he's also the spiritual leader of the family that's his vision right um but he he knows that he he's given been given that as a gift from God he knows that for sure right um And with that vision, that's really both the vision and the and the certainty of one because God gave him a dream. And then he can deal with every struggle along the way in order to to live his life. Um but if we see this pattern occurring over and over again, Mina for example um just as a simple example uh is ash ashray followed by followed by um alenu. Um ashray is how beautiful the world is. Hashem created its beautiful psalms etc. That's knowledge of hashem. Um Alenu is uh we're getting towards a world which is going to be perfect in in the way that Hashem wants it to be perfect. That's the vision and in the middle all the struggles that we have in the Amida in terms of all the steps that am Israel has to fulfill in order in order to get there. So we see this pattern recurring and recurring and I'm sure hopefully now now we've discussed it you'll you'll see that as well um every everywhere you look. Um okay so we understand a little bit about the structure of M1. Um um I wanted to talk about um tila. Okay. What is tila? Um so um okay well this this is the first source. Okay so again we're redefining all these terms. Um what what is tila? What does it mean pal? Anyone? It's a weird word. Um okay. So, so the so one famous the what I used to latch on to Rav Hersh said leit pal is to stand in self judgment. Apparently the word pal means to judge and hit pale is to judge oneself and that's and that's but but actually when I thought about it it's it's odd because there's a much better word for judge judging in Hebrews the shaet right the hishafet is something it would be a much better way so it's not and if it wanted to be it could be it's pal. So what what does parallel mean even? Right? So in order to understand parallel like any other word in in uh in Torah, you have to look um at the first time it comes in the Torah. That's always a good a good uh way of doing things. The first place the word pal comes in the Torah is actually um I think it's is it in it's in this week's para actually. So when um uh Israel when Jacob first sees Ysef after he comes to Matrium he says I never imagined that I would see your face. I never imagined that I'd ever see your face and not only that now I'm seeing even your kids. Um okay so pal to means I never imagined. Um so pal has something to do with magic but but actually there rav rav hers gives a very nice understanding of the word pal says the root palal is connected to balal meaning to mix like flour in um in liquid right we say this morning in if you say the tamid the corban tamid in the morning that means mixed with oil the flour is mixed with oil. So palo means incorporate a thought so deeply that it becomes one a part of one's being. It means to absorb. Right? I never absorbed uh it never I I never thought of abs you know absorbing that you might ever come absorbing into my mind that you um would that I would ever see you again. If that's true, what does it mean to hit pal? To absorb what? In other words, if bal is to mix and pal maybe is to absorb an idea, incorporate an idea. Um, then what is parallel? To do that to oneself. How would you translate that? >> To integrate what? >> Incorporate. >> Incorporate what? >> What vision hashem has of you as yourself? >> Y. So it's to incorporate yourself into yourself. Okay, that is what is other words you are a spark of right as it says in >> becoming sorry >> becoming a >> no not becoming become no becoming yourself is about incorporating yourself into yourself. Okay, incorporating your true self into yourself because we're not, you know, going back to the actor uh example, we we all are acting a role. Okay. Um I'm a father to my kids. I'm a rabbi to, you know, some people who remember me as a rabbi from England. Um I'm um you husband to my wife. Um I'm a friend to my friends. I'm I'm always playing a role. But none of that's the real me, right? The real me is me, right? These are just faces that we have when with with different people that we interact with and we have a different sort of persona with each person. None of them are true. None of them are genuine. We try to be as genuine as possible. But our real persona is something much deeper than that. It's it's a spark of Hashem. So is to bring that spark into ourselves. Okay? Is to mix that ourselves into ourselves effectively. Okay? So with that that in mind, I want to do one last thing. Talk about chuva. What is chuva? Uh and then we're going to go on to the four blessings um okay so we're going to talk about those and hopefully try and understand what they're doing in artila chuva um I was um as as I this in my ear it's very difficult to speak and I'm going to wire here but okay um I was um a banker basically for 10 years and then one day I quit my job and became u I went to Israel for four years trying to be a rabbi Um and um that that's a whole story in itself. Um I have to say the first reason uh that I learned um actually after the tragedy was um that it was really Lucy who was one who had encouraged that. Uh we invited a number of her friends for her what would have been a 48th birthday 3 months after the tragedy and asked them around the room what did she mean to you? And um they said she was the one who saw the light in our souls and encouraged us to bring it out. Um, and then when they said that, I realized that's what she'd done to me. That she'd encouraged me. She'd seen that I was more cap I was capable of doing more than just making money. And she'd encouraged me to go and study something uh in order to do something better. Um, and um and so so that was the real reason that that that I quit and and and and then I realized, of course, that it was logical because most husbands don't quit a well- paid job to become a unpaid student for four years and a low paid rabbi for many years after that. uh unless the wife you know is encouraging you to do so and she did so that's the full reason but at the time I was struggling with the decision I had a number of different things that led me to this uh decision um and I I was in four years in Kell in uh in um in um Hamifa near Afrat and um the first year I regretted my decision every day the second year every other day the third year every two days and by the fourth year I was pretty much sort of I I was happy with the decision I'd made. But this this is life, right? This we don't always um you know but in 2004 2005 I think um but a year after I had um I was sitting in this the first second year I was sitting in Kell um Rabbi Mark Angel published a book called Losing the Rap Race and Winning at Life and I managed to get a copy of it and this book um really was something that helped me to really sort of uh to to uh get get calm about my decision. Um in the book he has this uh concept this this idea which is a beautiful idea. The idea is that every one of us has two voices in in our heads. A voice of our soul and the voice of others. The voice of our soul is broadcasting to us every minute of every day who we are. That's the voice of Hashem that's broadcasting to us our real self. Um and the voice of others is telling us um you know that's the voice of friends, parents, kids, siblings, um social media, rabbis, teach teachers who we should be um and um says Rabbi Angel at the end of the book he says the people who are successful in life are the people who manage to not listen too much to the voice of others and end up listening to the voice of their soul. This was interesting because about five years ago, so well after he'd written the book, they did some research of thousands of people on their deathbed and they asked them one question. said, "What is your greatest regret?" And the biggest answer category that came up was, "We regret that we live the life other people expected of us and not the life that we were meant to live." Um, so apparently he was right. And um anyway, this this is why is this interesting and what's this got to to tshoua? Because tshoua is return, right? Right? And I always used to think to myself, h returning to the Torah or returning to Hashem or returning to this or to my childhood or I had many different explanations what return is. And when I heard this, I realized tshoua is, you know, in life, we tend to um when we're born, we little kids listen to the voice of their soul. They do exactly what they want and they're authentically themselves. Um when they get to teenagers, they start trying to conform. So they basically just doing what everybody else expects. And then hopefully they get through that and they come out to be adults and then they incorporate more of their genuine self into their life. Um but the truth is that for all of us we have a constant pressure to veer from our voice of our soul to the voice of others. And I think the reason is one of the main reasons is if I fail and I'm doing what everybody else is doing, then people say, "Kaval, you know, you did your best, whatever." Okay. But if I fail, I'm doing something completely bizarre and completely different to everybody else, then they're going to say to me, well, serves you right because, you know, we told you not to do that and why why were you doing that in the first place? So, we're all scared of that sort of response and therefore we all edge towards the voice of others. Um, and we we tend to go away from the voice of our soul. What is tshoua? Something we have to do every minute of every day. It's returning from the voice of others to the voice of ourselves. Returning to our authentic selves and away from what other people are expecting of us. And this is a constant uh investment of of of our time. Um how do we know um what is the authentic voice of my soul? So um I've talked about this before maybe to some of you in this group but but um I think there are two things that Hashem two gifts Hashem gives us. Number one, um he gives us a feeling if we are doing what we should be doing, I listen to the voice of our soul. That that um feeling is called sima. Um how do I know this? Because Rabbi Hirs um explains that every word in Hebrew for long-term sustainable happiness is connected to growth. Um sak he says has is from the root which is to grow. Uh sass is from the root sits because the sin and the are interchangeable and roots according to Rabbi uh Rab Rabbi Hersh uh which means sprouting. Um Ashray apparently also means happy but also means a step like Madre God. Um uh Gila which is joy, long-term joy also means gil which is age which is expression of growth. Um so every word basically in Hebrew that deals with long-term sustainable happiness is about growth. Why is that? Because if I am following the path of my soul and I'm doing what is right for me and I'm growing along that axis then I will be happy. Um I will um if I'm studying Torah regularly I have a regular kut or I will feel happy as I'm growing in my knowledge. If I um um am uh in my career, I'm growing my career, getting promoted, I'm doing interesting things the whole time, I will feel uh a feeling of sin. Um if um my family, please God, grows, I get married, I have kids, I see them have brit orb, I celebrate. Why? Because that that's growth in my family that well along the access and that is um that that's what I'm I'm doing what I'm meant to be doing. So, Hashem gives us a gift of sim when we're doing what we're meant to be doing. And and the other tool that he gives us is when we're not doing what we're meant to be doing, we have a feeling of kv pain. Um, and pain is a blessing. Um, so I always say that not necessarily what brings the pain is a blessing, although we'll probably see that that's also blessing, but only in but once we once we have pain, pain is always a blessing because the pain is telling us how to um react. That's I I write my book on on seven facets of healing about a lot about this. But for example, if great-g grandandmother, God forbid, has um a pain in her head and she goes to the doctor and he finds she's got some sort of uh growth, uh he can treat it and please God, she's got another 20 years. Um if great-g grandandmother um did not have the pain but have the same problem, uh god forbid, we know that the uh prognosis would not be so good. So the pain is always a blessing. um just we have to know what to do with it. So these are the things that bring us to chuver in a sense because if we if we're doing things that we notice are making us happy giving us sim in life then we we generally want to do more of it. If we are doing things that are giving us pain then we generally should learn to do less of it right I mean we're not we're not perfect so often it works that way around but um but that's the idea. Okay which brings us on to um the estray. Okay, the first thing I want to say and this you'll have to wait until the book comes out in uh in six months time. But um the money is is is is 18 in fact 19 um prayers um actually meditations because it's about incorporating myself into myself. And by the way I know it's a meditation not a prayer not a blessing because I'm not meant to say it aloud right? I'm only meant to say it to myself. We learn that from right it's a meditation. It's by definition a meditation. Uh and it's all about me speaking to myself right that's that's what it is. I'm not okay. Maybe I'm speaking to God, but that then we have to have a more sophisticated idea of who God is. Because if I was speaking to God, maybe I would speak aloud. If I, you know, was speaking to the Aino Malcu God, you know, the external God, but but apparently I'm speaking to something internally because I'm I'm not saying it aloud. Okay. So, so we've got 19 meditations and they're all about amuna and there's four different types of amuna in the estray which you may or may not have picked up on, but we probably sense that there's something interesting going on here. Um the first first three are okay very quickly avot you know I and it's the structure all of them by the way have this three-part structure I know that there's hashem because my fathers my grandfathers my great-grandfathers told me and Abraham Yakov saw hashem so you know I know there's hashem okay umakadosh um you are holy we should be holy that's the you know the object of understanding hashem to the extent we understand his holiness we should be holy like him um and because of that we can deal with every challenge in between what's the biggest challenge that we face as humans is um is death right so in other words so if if you look in the sec the the second it's dealing with you know et all this stuff basically all all the problems it's it's all the the problems that we have as human beings so we can deal with everything because we know that Hashem created us for a purpose we know that uh we have a purpose and and we can deal with everything in the middle. So that's about Em and Hashem. The next four um are about amuna in myself. Okay. And I want that's what I want to talk about today. Um and then then the another group which is amuna in am is the final one is amuna in the purpose of Israel in the world. Okay. And you can see the structure. You could sp spend time having a look at it yourself. But I want to focus therefore on these the second group the four um meditations which we say every day which are actually about having amuna in myself. Okay. Why is it important to have myself? Because actually nothing is going to change in life. Uh first of all I have to have I think we understand that. But nothing's going to change unless I have myself and I'm able to build myself and that is this this group of blessings. So what's going on? You favor man knowledge and teach mankind understanding grant us understanding and intellect from you versus are you Hashem grant of knowledge. Okay, it's about data um is having the is knowledge knowing something. Okay, this is a three-stage, right? We have to know something. We have to have vision about the future and then uh everything in the middle we can cope with. Okay, so what do we have to know? So we have to have dat what is dt. Um so again I'm going to you know challenge everyone has a different view of what is cosmic being a dat but I want to give you a different model. I think this is basically from the um the balatana but it's in my sort of words and he doesn't talk about amoeba's sort of source number eight. If you imagine um that um amoeba amoeba is like one cell organism. Okay, if you ever seen a picture, this is sort of picture of how it eats its food, but it sort of moves around in liquid probably. There's bits of food blobs around and it sort of incorporates the foods are outside the amoeba, then it moves over the the food. Um, it incorporates it. So, it's encircles it and then it dissolves the food and it grows. Okay, that's how it how an amieba one cellled organism works. Um, so in that model, wisdom is like the food particle. Okay, it's something external. Hma is something externally. It's a piece of knowledge which you read in a book or somebody tells you or you watch somebody else doing it and you learn from them. But it's something or you look at the world and you and you're inspired by the world. You can be inspired by anything but something outside of you. That is called um bina is the moment that you take it in and you start playing with it. Okay? You start experimenting with it. Um it's it's a it's deduction. you know I know this therefore I can use it for this I can use it for that you know it's using the the hma in in in in different ways but what is that dat is when I incorporate it so thoroughly that it becomes part of me okay that is that is a sort of the hit pel in a sense it's the incorporating of that knowledge into into me in such an intimate way it becomes part of my life okay so that that's and so we're first of all we we're asking Hashem for dat meaning that um this grants us knowledge. In other words, um we know we know stuff. We know who we need to be, right? First of all, Hashem has given us a knowledge of who we are. Just the last source here um is um number 10. In pregnancy, the fetus is taught the whole Torah, but on birth, an angel comes to taps on its mouth if it gets the whole Torah or its belly button, whatever. That's a source from the Gomorrah. Um what does it mean to be taught the whole Torah? means you we know that today there's no there's just and that and they say God navi it's greater than ni so today you know someone who knows a whole to has a view of life and of of eternity which is unmatched so we we're each of those those people we understand who we are how we fit into the world we understand how we understand everything when we're in the womb then we come out and we forget everything our job is to reinccorporate that into ourselves to to remind ourselves to to remember who that is. So we have a knowledge of who we are. Um and then some sometimes we we see things that remind us we see someone doing an act of we think wow um maybe that should be more part of me. uh we see um we listen we hear some Torah sometimes we're inspired by something that that inspires us to to be somewhere maybe we just see nature and we think how wonderful Hashem is and remind us that we have to we have a responsibility a role in this world whatever it is but but until we then incorporate into into that it's not really part of us so the first stage in ourselves is basically observing learning seeing being inspired and and incorporating into ourselves that's that's knowledge of ourselves right because of what we've seen externally and and now we've incorporated into ourselves. Um so cause us to return our father to your Torah. Draw us near our king to your service. Brings us back to you in your whole heart to return. Blessed are you Hashem desiring chuva. Okayva whose bouva who wants chuva. Okay. And I think that actually we're praying for a desire for for chuva. It it's it's we who want chuva, right? In other words, if we when we understand that chuva is is is coming back to ourselves in order that we could be have more sim and in order to get rid of the the the pain in our lives, right? Because actually the pain is caused by the fact we're not doing what we're meant to be doing. So that we we want Okay. So the these in a sense these first two are are are proofs to ourselves of who we are. Number one dot we have to we we observe in the world who we uh other people and we get we see mid dot of other people and we're inspired to be better. Um and then we have built into us this feeling this knowledge that we we can be better that we can return that we can do something better that we can change. These two are really the first stage of you know knowledge whatever you call it are the first stage of of uh of amun ourselves. Um okay and then um the next one So forgive us father for we've sinned. Pardon us for we have transgressed for your pardoning and forgiving. Bless you Hashem gracious one who forgives abundantly. What what is the biggest barrier to um chuva to change right? We we've seen we we've seen other people doing great things. We're inspired by them. We know that it's going to make us happier if we if we do chuva. We know that a lot of the problems we have in our lives are caused by the fact that we we're not do doing things perhaps as as best we could or the way that we should be doing it. So we should just change. Okay, we should just change. Wh why don't why don't we change? >> What's the biggest barrier to to to change? >> Self-confidence. Okay. Self-conidence. Okay. What else? >> Fear. Fear. Very good. Okay. Fear. Very good. >> I would say in modern day times honestly I would say is the concept that Hashem loves me anyway. So >> okay just [laughter] comp Okay. Hashem loves me anyway. So just complacency. Yeah. >> Lack of um it's hard to leave your comfort zone and it's hard to change bad habits. >> Okay. How to change mine. Okay. So all all of the above. You're all completely right. I think that the biggest uh issue that ties these all together is if I change what I'm doing today for what I was doing yesterday, I have to admit that I was wrong in the past, right? So that's fear and a change and it's this and that. It's all these if I change who I am, right? And I become better. Let's say I have to admit that I wasn't doing it in the past. It's very difficult for us to admit that we were wrong, right? Human beings, particularly men, um but even with some women as well. Yeah. I think everybody can admit that we could always be better. We're imperfect beings, >> right? >> And we can always grow. So why is that so hard, >> right? Why is it >> that we could be better? >> Yeah. >> And especially when you meet someone that you see >> as an example is doing in that area something on a higher level than you. >> It can be very inspiring. It's just >> so in in theory in theory we should be able to um Okay. So what the biggest fear we have is actually having to admit to ourselves that we're wrong. So who do we have to forgive [clears throat] at this point if we have to forgive ourselves. So the is about forgiving ourselves. Okay. And the final things okay we have to redeem. Who do we redeem? Uh Rashi says this is not about global redemption and which comes later in the amid in the section of the our role in the world. This is in the in the personal section. This is about gula of ourselves. Every person has to have a gula. What does it mean gula? I was just listening to Rabbi Y on the way here and he he he often says this um the difference between gula and guula is an al if right between exile and redemption is the al if that's hashem. In other words, the moment there's no difference between being in exile and being in gula except that suddenly you incorporate hashem and suddenly you're in gula. So in other words um we can become this we can become this part of hashem we can we can become our divine self um and that is so here we have four prayers okay we've got the first two are saying we have confidence we know that we can be better we have dat we've seen it being done before we've read about it we've studed about it we've seen other people doing it we've incorporated into ourselves uh the second one is uh um is about chuva we have the desire to do chuva we know We have the desire chuva because we know that it will make us happier. We know that it will take away a lot of our pain. So that that is knowledge. Okay. We also have at the end gula. We know that we can become this better person. This gola with an alphin this this person with a bit of hashem. We can become our divine self. Um and that is the guula. Um and in the middle we can deal with every every challenge uh in in the process because we just have to learn how to forgive ourselves for the mistakes we've made. So there's the process of ch of of of struggle is in the middle thereu and here we have a section of the of of the which is about amuna and to put amuna in ourselves our ability to do chuva ability to forgive ourselves our ability to become the best that we can be. Um and that really was the message I wanted to give you this morning. >> Thank you. Okay. Anyone want to get any of the books? They're over there. I can leave in about five or 10 minutes cuz I'm going to B she um in Yeah. Okay. Why does it very good question? Why does it say that Hashem forgives us? I mean, so so a simple level, if Hashem forgives us, then we should be able to forgive ourselves. So in other words, you know, if Hashem is prepared to forgive us what we've done, then even more so we should once we know that Hashem is forgiving us, then what right do we have not to forgive ourselves? Um that's on the simple level. Um the the deeper level is that we're part of Hashem. So when we're talking about Hashem, we're often talking about, you know, our aspect of Hashemness which forgives herself. So that's okay. But that's a longer topic and yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Ah, okay. So, there's a very good point. Why do you forgive yourself about something you didn't know? Very good. Um, >> it's very interesting. Chuva, I'll take it at a slightly different place. Um, I think Rav um breastl says about chuva. He says there are two ways of doing chuva. When chuva, we we usually think about we beat ourselves up about things that we um that uh we did badly. But he says actually there's another type of chua. This is what I would say before Rashipur which is think about what you did well right we should think about what we do well in life and we do more of it and so chuva to that in other words chuva doesn't have to be always stopping doing bad things but chuva can actually be doing more of the stuff that that actually is us um it's because it's returning from what other people expect of us to to what we should be doing maybe we're already doing something right maybe we're very good at or different types of thing that the shanim whatever and we do this but maybe we should be doing more of it. Maybe we could spend less time worrying about what other people think about us and and ticking their boxes and actually ticking our box uh more so we have to um yeah I guess we have to admit that we weren't doing as much as we could have been doing so in those circumstances but but for many people we we're doing the wrong thing and we know we're doing the wrong thing. We don't most people we're pretty smart and we we have enough inputs you know because we've got to maybe the we just haven't got to the dart this and this is a very interesting uh human problem right we know stuff but we don't do it right people people know that smoking kills but they still do it right so until you incorporate that I was just speaking to had for khan and mozzabat some cousins from natania and he um um safari and he said he was smoking uh three packets a day until his son was born. He said then one day he looked at his son and he was smoking and he said I'm not going to smoke anymore. He said and his wife said there's no way you're going to do that. He said he never touched a cigarette after that again. So you know sometimes it takes those moments to move it from beina to that you know but but for all of us we have to to to not just know something we have to incorporate into our lives. Can you just expand how the gowali Israel is more interpersonal versus the sake of >> Yeah. Um so so Rashi points it out says this is if you look at all the brahas in the first part of this the amid they're all personal right not about am the second group right uh we're talking about coming building Jerusalem Msiah building a temple these are Israel okay so the rashi says well that's the case we already talk about goula in terms of building a temple and bringing mashia so that goula is already dealt with in the second part of the amida must be that the first part of the amida this goula is talking about personal or goula is becoming our ultimate selves, our true selves. That's thank you.