MindFlex- Knockin' on Heaven's Door, with Harry Rothenberg, Esq.

i thought i would speak about um about prayers because they are not only very long but very important this week and over young kipper and throughout the holiday season so i wanted to answer the most common questions that are asked about a topic so with respect to feeling with respect to prayer when do we pray where do we pray how do we pray what do we pray and why do we pray and some of you may feel come on i know that you know i pray whatever time it says on the schedule and i pray in the in the synagogue and i pray using a sitter and i and i a prayer book and i pray whatever the prayers are there and why because you know it's my chance to speak to god and all of those answers are correct but i wanted to tell a few stories to try to tease out some additional answers to those questions with respect to when where and how and what and why let's talk about when and where i have a friend from chicago and he has a friend so he told me the story about his friend that friend began his jewish journey started studying with a rabbi and for some reason the laws of koshers the kosher laws really had resonance for him um different people when they start their journey different things speak to them sometimes it's charity sometimes it's uh shabbat um sometimes it's speaking nicely of others can be all sorts of different things but the kosher laws spoke to this guy i'm not sure why maybe um it was because he heard a particularly compelling explanation so i'll give you an example if somebody says to you if you keep kosher why do you keep kosher the answer is simple i keep kosher because god said so but if you're on an airplane if you if you if we ever get back on airplanes and they bring you your kosher meal if they ever have kosher meals again and you start tearing through all of the tin foil on the plastic and someone says do you want to keep kosher and you turn to them and you say because god said so it's not necessarily the most satisfying answer for a beginner for a novice for somebody who wants more explanation so even though that is the answer i once heard one that was very compelling and had a lot of resonance as to what may be underneath that command that went as follows and maybe during one of the classes the fellow had heard an explanation like this from his rabbi the typically when we are hungry what do we want to eat whatever is closest to us that's edible when do we want to eat it what kind of a question is that right now i'm hungry so god says one second you're hungry let's first make sure that it's a kosher animal okay what are you gonna eat pig no you can't eat that okay how about a cow yes a cow's kosher great god can i eat it now not so fast gotta wait a minute you have to slaughter it a certain way how you have to get a ritual slaughterer he needs a certain type of knife he has to make a certain type of cut okay god i got the joker he had the knife he did the cut now could i eat it not yet why not because you have to check the lung you have to make sure there was no defect in that lung such that the animal would have died anyway within a year if it would have it's considered a trefa that's where the word tree comes from for non-kosher and if so you can't eat that animal okay god i did that we checked the lung the lung was grade a no problem no defects now can i eat it not so fast what now you have to take the blood out you got to remove the blood because of the prohibition against eating blood okay god i salted it i took the blood out can i eat it now or aren't you going to cook it of course i'm going to cook it is it okay to cook it now where are you going to cook it god i mean is this a trick question i'm going to cook it in my oven or on my barbecue is it a kosher oven is it a kosher barbecue sometimes people will say well i i i won't eat kosher out but i'll eat fish in a non-kosher restaurant thinking that well if the bonus is not shellfish if it's flounder or if it's trout if it's tuna it's kosher so what's the problem the problem is if you are trying to be careful about the kosher laws then you take a perfectly kosher fish and you put in a non-kosher oven you have now turned that kosher fish into a non-kosher fish it's got to be a kosher oven okay god i cautioned my oven it's all kosher can i eat it now what are you gonna put on it i don't know it's a good-looking burger i'm gonna throw some cheese on and i'm gonna make a cheeseburger you can't put cheese on it why not can of milk and meat together god i'm really starting to lose my patience now i found the kosher animal i made sure slaughtered properly we checked the lung we took the blood out we cooked in the kosher oven i did not put the cheese on top now can i eat it yes but make a blessing first so each one of those times you restrained yourself you were hungry and you wanted to eat now what was in front of you but you restrained and restrained and restrained and restrained now think about kosher lifestyle somebody says something to you is terribly insulting and you want to take their head off but you say you know what i'm going to wait i'm going to count to 60. i'm going to wait till tomorrow morning when i'm no longer as angry as i am now with my blood boiling i'm going to consider all the different reasons why they may have done that i'm going to be down the club's host i'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt the same way i would want to that's interesting applying those same type of kosher laws instead of just running and eating whatever's available right now you restrain yourself and you can restrain yourself in other areas of life so back to our story maybe that guy heard that kind of an explanation said you know what i'm keeping kosher tell us this rabbi rabbi it's now thursday starting next monday i'm going to keep kosher on he says i'm so proud of you great sunday night is it it's his last hurrah he goes out to super dog dawg a well-known non-kosher restaurant in the chicago area and he orders the works two hot dogs with all the trimmings and fries etc and he cleans his plate licks his fingers clean and he's about to leave his last is the last supper and he sees the owner walk by says i gotta say goodbye so he goes over to the owner he says hey just want to introduce myself i've been coming here for years yeah i recognize you he says you know i'm not going to be coming in anymore so i i just want to say goodbye you the owner says why aren't you coming in you're moving so he freezes he didn't think it through what's he going to say it's tree it's not kosher this one would solve the owner so he just he fumbles he mumbles he says um finances he understands his finances wait right here young man goes back into his office comes back and he hands this young guy a laminated all you can eat at super dog card this guy says thank you goes down to the parking lot immediately calls his rabbits rabbi what's going on he says i i i'm not super dog you're where okay it's a non-kosher restaurant i said i'm gonna start keeping kosher tomorrow he says oh okay okay i'm not criticizing you just trying to understand what's going on you seem very uh agitated he says i am i went for my last non-coaching meal i said goodbye to the owner and he said why are you leaving i didn't want to say kosher so i said finances and he gave me an all you can eat at superdog card rabbi why is god doing this to me and the rabbi said right on the spot he said you're asking the wrong question so let me explain something to you i grew up eating kosher so if i pass by super dog to get some credit in heaven but not that much like there's no magnet pulling me there if i pass by some lobster shack or some other seafood place where they're serving you know mcdonald's it's just it doesn't pull me because i don't know what i'm missing maybe it's delicious i wouldn't know so for me i eat kosher it's not that big a deal this is but for you can you imagine starting monday when you start keeping kosher which i know you're still gonna do you'll be able to say to god god i'm hungry now and my favorite restaurant in the world is super dog and i could go in there take out this card from my wallet and eat anything on the menu for free but i'm not going to because you said i have to keep kosher do you have rabbi said to him do you have any idea how powerful your prayers will be so what you should be asking is why is god doing this for me not why is god doing this to me and so that's the answer when do we pray and where do we pray of course we pray at the time when there are services and we pray in synagogue if our synagogues have opened again hopefully they will soon if they haven't when we get rid of this um grueling difficult pandemic but in addition to that one of the best times and places to pray is right wherever you are we will just conquer that urge that little voice satan your yates are your evil inclination the devil himself with that with that pitchfork in the tail whatever he looks like and he's telling you don't do it and you know you should do it or do it do it do it do it and you know you shouldn't do it and you don't give in to that right then and there god hashem my father in heaven you know how difficult that was for me i'm asking you ask for something big ask for something important don't waste it on something that's not important ask for something that's important or at least that you believe is important so that's one and that's where in addition to the obvious places like in your in your synagogue how do you pray what do you pray another story so a number of years ago was rosh hashanah and i went to pray in a synagogue i never prayed there before for rosh hashanah i've been there before for regular services shabbos services but not rosh hashanah and as the services move along they get to the big moment and it's the chauffeur blind so i'm sitting towards the front of the shoulder so i i turn over my shoulder so i go to look like you know to see who's going to be blowing the shelf and i see an elderly man sort of gingerly making his way down the uh down the aisle and he's heading towards the bema towards the podium for which they blow the chauffeur and i say to myself that he's got to be well into his 80s there's no way he's going the chauffeur he must be the guy that's just going to say which thing to blow he's going to stand next to the show for blower he's going to say kia and then some young strapping guy is going to you know blast a big blast and sure enough he gets up on the podium he picks up the chauffeur and he starts blowing it and he sounds did come out i'm sure i fulfilled my obligation but it was disappointing like it just it wasn't a big burly chauffeur blowing the way that i'm that i'm used to and you know we know that chauffeur blowing is it's kind of a big deal in rosh hashanah you know if you run into somebody else you went to pray and services in a different place and you say hey you say to him you know how was the how was your show for blowing this it was amazing we had this new guy he was so loud there were people in the house next to the to the synagogue they were complaining he was so loud and you say oh yeah we had a new guy he was so loud he caused a car accident you know outside the the synagogue he could compete over who had the better blasts so i was disappointed what am i gonna do the next year or two years later whenever it was soon thereafter i was back in that same shoal from rosh hashanah and it comes time for chauffeur blowing and i look over my shoulder and he's walking down the aisle again i just i can't believe it this time even more slowly more gingerly you can barely make it up the stairs it was the chauffeur again you know not so loud so right before he started blowing i feel terrible i must have rolled my eyes like oh boy and another guy in an old timer a fellow had been initial for a long time he turned to me and he whispered he said he's a concentration camp survivor so i said oh like that's it it's like i i get it what am i gonna do i'm gonna compete with that what am i gonna say to that right he's a survivor so obviously i know in my mind's eye what must be going on the rabbi had probably been speaking them for the last few years you know each year before rosh hashanah listen just thinking you know i mean you should live and be well until 120. you know i'm thinking we have some younger members seems to be a little difficult for you to to walk down the aisle to make it on the stage well maybe you want to let one of the younger guys know i was in the camps you can't take it away from me the rob was like you know what you're right can't take it away okay so i'm not happy about it at least now i totally understand if i was the rabbi would i be able to take it away from a survivor of the camps nothing you could do fine fast forward years later um 15 or so years later i'm living in passaic where i currently live and a well-known rabbi comes the week before rosh hashanah to give a speech and he says every year we get to rosh hashanah we all make the same mistake we all think that god judges the child for blowing based on how loud and powerful they are and i think to myself how else can you judge the show for blowing i mean i know maimonides the rambam the rambam says that the chauffeur is supposed to wake you up out of your spiritual slumber how can you get awakened if it's not a big strong blast he says do you think god's up in heaven saying wow that was unbelievable oh he crushed that one did you hear how loud that guy was well we could hear it up here in the clouds do you think that's what god says to the angels he said the chauffeur is a prayer it's a wordless prayer it comes from the essence of the person blowing it god wants to know who is the guy blowing the chauffeur what are his merits what has he done what has he brought to the table so to speak and i sat there i remember i wanted to get up go to the back of the show where this where the speech was was going on and i want to start banging my head against the wall i was saying to myself i can't believe it all those years ago the chauffeur blowings that i thought were the weakest lamest most suboptimal that i had ever heard were by far the most powerful that i ever heard and i'm never gonna get a chance to hear that again the fella was in the camps i imagine this idiotic conversation the conversation must have been the exact opposite this fellow is probably saying to the rabbi rabbi i can barely walk down the aisle i can barely make it up the steps i can barely blow and the rabbi was saying to him you were in the camps and your faith never wavered as long as you can still make it up that aisle and make it up those stairs and put that chauffeur to your lips and make sounds come out you are blowing the chauffeur and you're going to lift our entire congregation straight up the sherman with you that's probably what was going on so how do we pray what do we pray we pray in our own words this is an opportunity in addition and believe me the sages did an unbelievable job covering everything covering the things that we know we need to ask for covering the things we wouldn't realize we need to ask for they did a spectacular job but only you know deep down inside what's incredibly important or maybe even painful appointed to you and you can add that in your own words and sometimes we have such problems going on we don't even know where to begin we literally are at wit's end we can say god i don't even know what to ask for i don't even know how to ask that's a tefila that's a prayer recognizing that he knows god you know what you know what's best for me i may think i do but that's arrogant you know what's best so that's how we pray that's what we pray in our own words for what's important to us and now why so a number of years ago i went to a fascinating parliament on behalf of an organization that assists couples who are struggling with uh fertility problems they can't have children and through whatever they need whether it's it's medicine or sometimes surgery whatever they need it's helped thousands of couples have children and i was very taken with this and i wrote a nice check the next year we got a letter in the mail where we're coming to to uh your town again to do another parlor meeting and my wife while going through the different requests for charities she said you know why don't you i remember you gave a nice check to this one last year why don't you just write the check um you know she was looking at the invitation and then you don't need to go it's one less thing on your calendar i said you're right great you wrote a nice check mailed it in so i start getting the emails week before two weeks before i keep deleting them the day of the event i accidentally i meant to delete i and i see barbecue and wine tasting on behalf of and i say wait a minute i didn't know it was a barbecue and wine tasting i gotta stop in there now remember i've already written my check i've already heard the stories about what this organization does so i want to get in eat as much barbecue drink as much red wine as i can within reason stumble back home and as i'm finishing i i got i got my going back and forth back and forth i got my fourth cup i'm about to finish my seder when all of a sudden i hear just over my shoulder my friend who's hosting it going like this testing testing on the microphone like i don't believe it i'm sitting right in front of the mic i'm trapped here so all right once i'm trapped i said you know what you might as well listen to the speeches so another guy gets up different than the one the year before he says i can tell you the story of me and my wife how we didn't have children for five years we found this organization and they helped us out and now we have two beautiful children there are a thousand people who can tell you that story i'll tell you a different story says listen to this said that there was a couple and through the efforts of this organization they realized that the issue was an issue with the husbands and so they started him on a regimen of medication and the doctor had told the president the organization that there will be there will come a time and i'm going to let you know when we need to do a surgery you'll have to get you know no problem so the doctor the week before the surgery calls the president of the organization says okay this coming saturday morning i need an or at 7am can get me one and the president of the organization says i'm not sure it says what do you mean you told me you could get one he says it's saturday and you know the the patient your patient is observing you i'm not sure if we're allowed to do it on saturday doctors what do you mean i've been working with them for a year i told you it was going to be a certain time the president says i know but i didn't realize it's going to be that narrow a time window let's do it sunday morning he said no it will not work if we delay it 24 hours he says okay you know what let me call the rabbi to whom we pose our questions in jewish law and i'll see what he says calls the rabbi and the rabbi says if it was to save life then of course you violate the sabbath nothing to talk about you always violate the sabbath you have to save life but to create life you can't very complicated area in jewish law topic for another talk so the president calls the doctor back he says i spoke to the rabbi and the rabbi said we can't do it so we're gonna do it sunday morning doctor says no we're not yes we are no we're not yes we are no we're not doctors listen i'm gonna say three reasons why we're not gonna do it number one you're not gonna get a no war on a sunday morning you're just not number two you're a charity and i'm not taking charitable dollars for something that won't work and number three i hate to say it sounds mercenary i am not going to risk my reputation to do a surgery that i know is not going to work president listens patiently he says okay let's address all three of your concerns number one my connections have connections you will have an or this coming sunday morning number two you're worried about the charitable dollars i collected them all i have carte blanche how to spend them and we're going to spend them on this fellow on this surgery sunday morning and number three you're worried about your reputation if it doesn't work you're not gonna tell anybody i'm not gonna tell anybody the patient's definitely not gonna tell anybody no one will know but if it works you can publish in some peer-reviewed journal you'll boost your reputation you have nothing to lose doctor says okay you win he'll do it he does it on a sunday morning finishes the procedure calls the president he says i still think you're crazy but it worked i just i just can't believe it like just tell me why did you think that it had any chance of working when i the expert told you it can't work medically so the president of the organization says to him because i know you're patient better than you do and the doctor laughs and he says trust me on this i know my patient better than anyone does he says no i disagree i know your patient better than you says what do you mean let me tell you a story this is about 25 years ago when we first started the organization we did our first parliament to raise funds a young man came up to me introduced himself he said hi i just want to know i have a friend he and his wife have been married a few years very close friends of mine and my wife and um they don't have children and each one are they on your list are you helping them and the president of the organization he was obviously a younger man then said i can't tell you the confidentiality rules i can't let you know that you said you know you're worried about them what have you done for them he says what do you mean we pray every day says did you make a contribution to the organization that will help if not them somebody else you know let me get back to you the next day this young fellow calls the president in the office of the organization and he reintroduces himself i met you last night i told you that about my friend maybe you could help them and you asked me for a donation i said he said i spoke to my wife we talked about it last night at length we've been saving up and we have fourteen thousand dollars in the bank for a down payment for a house and we decided we're writing a check for fourteen thousand dollars on the condition that would be used for our friends to help them have a baby the president of the organization said i cannot take that money said no i'm giving it to you he said i can't take it this is when i said make a donation i meant 180 360 500 a thousand i'm not taking your life savings he said yes you are it's only money we'll we'll keep working it'll it'll just delay but we'll be able to get a house it'll just take us another few years we're writing you the check i'm not taking no for an answer on that condition wrote the check okay so the president says doc this is what you didn't know about your patient your patient married the daughter of the guy who wrote that check so i just said to myself you have a fellow who does not have a problem in his home he had a couple kids at the time two three kids however many he had but his friend had a problem in his house with fertility so he wrote a check representing his life savings to help his friends and now fast forward 25 years this guy has that problem in his house i said to myself we never know with any kind of certainty how god works but if anybody's got a chance of that surgery working when medically it shouldn't that's the guy so why we pray because you don't know you have no idea what merits you may have for something you did recently or a long time ago or your parents did or your grandparents or some great great grandparent you don't know what others you have the merits of your forefathers you pray because things that maybe are impossible or shouldn't be possible they are if you pray and your merit gets added to those prayers now let's talk about the different answers that you can get when you pray so one answer is obvious it's the hoped for one it's yes like in the stories we just talked about the answer is yes the guy was praying let it work even though on a sunday it shouldn't work he had merits and it worked you get a yes it's incredible you prayed to god he gave you exactly what you asked for please make sure to thank him as sincerely and as intensely as you asked right you asked and he asked and asked and he asked him you got it make sure to say thank you the other answer of course it's a possibility is no you prayed and you prayed and you prayed and the answer was no so let's stop and drill down about this so number one god still loves you it's your father in heaven you're still his kid you're still his son you're still his daughter a parent cannot always say no to a child i want my 17th lollipop no you're not getting a 17th lollipop you're the parent you know better you know that something that even though your child may want it it's not best for them so sometimes you have to say no and god knows what's best for us and so sometimes he has to say no i was asked once i did a version of this talk in a high school and a uh young man came up to me on our 10th 11th grader after he said can i speak to you privately i said sure he said i'm on the school soccer team and we had a huge match and i don't usually pray but before the match for a few weeks i prayed and we lost why did that happen i said let me ask you something let's just imagine that you had one okay and your soccer career you know peter's out soon thereafter but let's imagine that after losing you say to yourself i don't think i trained enough i gotta train more than i train the last time maybe that's why we didn't win because even though i took it seriously i didn't take it seriously enough and who knows someday you're playing on some world cup team and they interview and they say what do you credit your success i mean you have this legendary workout regimen and you say because the first time i had a big match i felt that it didn't work hard enough and i said that'll never happen again wouldn't you go back and say i'm so glad that god didn't let me win that first one you just don't know there is a a song there's a singer very well known singer um garth brooks sees a song called unanswered prayers and it nails this point so i'll i'll quote it for you that's okay some of the lyrics and won't go through the whole thing here's what he says he sings just the other night at a hometown football game my wife and i ran into my old high school flame so he's with his wife running into his old girlfriend from high school she was the one that i'd wanted for all times and each night i'd spend praying that god would make her mine and then he goes on to say i guess the lord knows what he's doing after all as she walked away and i looked at my wife and then and there i thanked the good lord for the gifts in my life remember when you're talking to the man upstairs that just because he doesn't answer doesn't mean he don't care some of god's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers it is very narrow for us to think that because it was a a no i can't believe it i prayed so hard and i prayed so sincerely and i prayed so intensely guess what you may look back years later and realize oh am i glad that was it no next with respect to a no maybe he wants one more prayer now you'll say come on i mean i've been praying for this thing for for three years three times or more a day and it's been no why should i keep praying why is it going to make a difference the thousandth time i asked versus the 999th and the answer perhaps is that if you've changed your behavior for the better then the thousandth time that you're asking guess what it's a new person asking hey how are you are we mad you know you're you're a great guy you're that guy who's asking yesterday not quite as good but since you took on fill in the blanks some more study some more prayer some more charity be more careful about certain of the commandments it's a different person asking it it's interesting there is a prayer that we say once a year that we actually say many many many times a year but we said at one particular moment and it just it seems nonsensical so here's the prayer in the shamona esrae in the in the private in the anita the private prayer that we say three times of the day one of the prayers is for parnassa it is a prayer for financial property and what we ask god is to bless this year now that makes sense especially now right we just started the new year of course we're gonna say god please we're right at the beginning it's only a few days in bless this year you know we also say that prayer we said that prayer last week friday afternoon minutes before rosh hashanah now think about that the new year is about to begin why didn't the rabbis put it in gray and say on the eve of rosh hashanah change the language too please brett please bless the coming year maybe it's not the morning prayer at least the afternoon prayer why are you praying please bless this year you got five minutes left in the air and the answer is that five minutes is plenty of time for god plenty of time especially if you're a new person praying you could say you know what that was an unbelievably sincere prayer better than all the ones before and you're a different person praying i got this i'm putting something in motion right now even with a few minutes left in the air it's going to redown to your benefit and now here's a little tip a little life hack but an important one for how do you turn a no into yes you pray for other people the rabbis say that the best way to get your prayers answered is by praying for others so i had a very interesting experience back in 2016 it just worked out that my oldest three children one after the other after the other were all in what we call the parsha they had all started dating looking for a marriage partner so prior to that it wasn't something that was high up on my prayers but once we were in the parsha looking for a a mate for for not one not two but three of my children of course i was praying all the time three times a day it ended up thank god that within five and a half months we made three weddings so those prayers were answered and answered and answered and thank you god for each one of those so i realized wait a minute now that i'm beginning to add this section to my prayers which i probably should previously i know can't be selfish why am i only praying for myself i have friends similarly situated who also have children who are looking for for matches i'm going to pray for them also and so i did so i had a list and i kept that list and so and even though after my first son found his mate i kept all the others on the list even after my second son kept the others on the list and then my daughter found hers kept the others on the list even though my next daughter was not going to start dating for another couple of years and i said to myself whoa whoa one second don't you dare stop praying for that issue for those other people you know what that's going to look like if i stop all of a sudden no i don't need to pray yeah i'm good hey i needed three i got three you know what it was nice while it lasted i was praying for those other people but yeah whatever i'm sure they'll find somebody you know how outrageous that is oh so all that time the only reason you were praying for others is because you wanted to be answered so i was so careful to keep it up i continue to keep it up that you've got to keep others in mind you want your prayers answered you've got to keep others in mind both for the same issue you have you're looking for something someone else's and for issues that aren't in your home like that other guy who was praying and donating charity to help his friend who was not able to have children next possibility is god may say just wait be patient he can say yes he could say no we have to think that throw when it's a no like we talked about or we can say just we what do you mean i want it now just wait just be patient so here is a stunning example of this if god had asked me to be his editor didn't happen not going to happen but if he had just an idol exercise we could all think about this and he had given me a certain chapter in genesis a certain chapter in voracious containing one of the most iconic famous stories in history it's not just a story it's not a legend it happened it forms one of the backbones of our faith the akita the binding of isaac god appears to abraham to avraham he says i want you to sacrifice your son whom you love your younger son yitzhak isaac and avraham asks no questions he takes him up and he and he binds him it's absolutely unbelievable if it were me if it were my father and i love my father dearly and we are very close when my father showed up one day and say son i spoke to god and he wants me to sacrifice you and he's holding a knife i'm like dad put that we can talk sister daddy put the knife dad we can get you help put the knife down instead isaac the measure says he said to his father dead remember he's 37 his father's 137 dad bind me tight i'm worried if you don't tie me up i might flinch and i'll render myself unfit for a sacrifice father and son following god's command of course at the last moment the angel says abraham and stops him god says now i see that you were willing to sacrifice your son and he he put that into our intestines that we're willing to sacrifice anything for god we've shown that through all of our years and years the millennia of persecution so god had given me that chapter i would have immediately noticed at the end of this incredible story that father and son walked down the mountain together wait wait a minute it doesn't end um god um i think there might be a mistake you have a few more passages here yeah yeah as part of the chapter um god uh i don't think i need to even read them i really think they need to be in the next chapter no no no i think it i think it flows fine ah god you're asking me to be the editor so i guess you want the opinion of a human being i'm just pointing out do a lot of editing a lawyer um i really think anything that you write here is going to be anticlimactic it's got to end there the father the son it's iconic they walk down the mountain together end the chapter whatever you want to say next chapter and instead nope it goes on and here it is here we go okay and then avraham was told the news that his brother nakhla had a son whose name was whatever and another son his name was this another son his name was that another son his name was that another son and it names all 12 of his brothers sons oh and by the way one of those sons had a daughter and her name was rebecca riftgas and now we know the reason it's there the sages explained is to tell us that you see right after the akita got arranged that he made sure that the the shira the the basher the eventual match for yitzhak was found that's fine next chapter so one of the commentators says you know why it's here because this arguably was a bigger test to avraham than the binding of his son now you'll say come on what could possibly be a bigger test than being told to sacrifice your son and he answers that test beyond imagining but it's a one-off he has to summon obvious to steal himself to take his son up on the mountain the next test was what his brother nacho is an idolater and every year year and a half two years he's getting the news over and over and over again your brother the idolater had a son oh great mazel tov hey another nephew abe you know mazel tov what's up there's that three mazel tov for mazda milestone six models of oh knockers coming over with his seven boys eight nine ten eleven 12 and during all these years avraham and sarah don't have a child and they are praying and praying and praying and davening and praying they're pouring their hearts out rivers of tears and snow and his brother over and over and over again just you know must be something in the water over there you'd think that maybe one night in a moment of weakness avraham would have gone over his brother's tent the idolater okay awakened him whispering power eat say you yeah um can i borrow one of those idols the monotheist the iconoclast ah will you cut it out for crying out loud you have 12 sons i don't have one with with sarah just to hedge my beds can i can i get one of the geckos i'll do a quick bow and you know maybe it'll work okay not once does his faith waver during all those years of his brother bowed down the idols having son of just son after son and he's got gods he's got nothing his faith never wavers what happens it's no the answer is no eventually at the age of 100 he finally has a son two generations later what happens avraham has a grandson his name is yaakov jacob and jacob has how many sons 12 the exact same number that his brother had oh more interesting his brother if you look carefully at the passages had eight sons with his wife and four sons with his concubine do those numbers sound familiar yaakov has eight sons with his main wives rajo and leia and four sons with the maidservants bilhah and ziopa the answer was never no the answer was yes you're gonna get exactly what your brother got in two generations not yet just be patient it's coming hang in there we play the long game as juice another example of this moses motion goes off on the mountain he comes down not just with the tablets but with the torah the torah is shock full of agricultural laws that can only be accomplished in one place in the holy land in israel all sorts of laws about when you can plant and leaving the corners of your field for the poor and leaving the forgotten gleanings and the sabbatical year all these different laws only in israel all the poor guy wants to do is go into the land so that he can perform these mitzvahs these commandments and teach these commandments who knows them better than him yes he is incredibly faithful servant joshua yoshua but he desperately wants to win and he's praying and praying and praying and praying and saving 515 different prayers until finally god says not another word no go mo you are not going in to the promised land and so his credit he listens and he stops praying now can you imagine how powerful the tears and prayers were of moses of moshe himself we're told that god collapsed all tears all sincere prayers and tears up in heaven he collects them he's got an infinite space up there on his heavenly hard drive so i couldn't help but think that in when the nations of the world after the holocaust were voting yeah should we let the jews have that little slice of land that they want in israel and they need enough votes for that to go through i wonder if god didn't say to the angels guys do me a favor rafe mike gabe um hurry go to the back into my library of tears i want you to go into the very last row to the very last shelf to the very top all the way to the right and take down that vial of tears um god your your um your lordship you know which vial that is yes i'm god i know which one it is i know that it's the vial containing moshe's tears and it's time for me to open it because all he wanted was to go in and i'm letting them in now so i'm opening up that violet tears because the answer was not no it was just be patient who knows but moshe's tears didn't assist us along in getting back to the promised land after being away for so long the last answer that we may have is god may say to us you asked for this you know what it's an interesting request i was thinking though i got something even better god well what could be better than what i'm asking for well you know i'm god and i i you know i think big so i'm i got something even better planned so what's an example i had a friend who made an investment put a hundred thousand dollars into an investment and in the investment documents it showed that if everything goes well you might get four times your money could say you know you can expect like two times your money but if everything really goes well four times and if it really really goes well you can get like a 7x seven times your money if everything goes well anybody will tell you that if you're looking at a deal you don't even look at that one like the the windfall number because it's just gonna it's gonna seduce you it's gonna don't look at it okay look at the lower numbers don't look at the higher number so he said to me i'm just not sure what do i pray for like who's the numbers in the document do i pray for to double my money to make four times on it to make seven times on it you know pigs get slaughtered i don't want to be a hog on the other hand it's there and i could give a lot of charity if i make that like i'm just not sure i didn't ask him what did you end up praying for he didn't volunteer i'm not a you know i tried very hard not to be again they're starting to ask him he didn't tell me but he did tell me at the end of the deal a couple years later remember i told you about that deal with 2x the 4x7 access you have vaguely remember he says would you believe that i made 20 times my money i made 20x the company invested in was a choir and it was acquired by another company says in my wildest imaginings thank god i have a um i have a big family and so the they were blessed with that and my wife was expecting the most recent time when we had a child and so the the first couple times when we had children i went to every doctor appointment but this was much later already she was already you know past the age of 40 she was going to the doctor appointments herself and she came home and from an appointment early in the morning and i just came come home from from prayers and and study and i'm sitting eating my uh my bowl of cereal for breakfast and she hands me a little strip that shows the couple pictures on the ultrasound she says you know take a look um and i said okay she said take a look i'm thinking like okay i mean i i know this is not movie stills you know from the movie alien i know what it is it's an ultrasound it's two pictures of the baby just take a look i'm thinking like what in the world am i supposed to take a look at just like take a look so i picked them up and i'm looking at them i don't know two pictures of the baby i don't know all of a sudden i see at the very bottom of the top picture it says baby a b a so i scan that immediately to the bottom of the second picture that says baby b and i look up and i say no she says yeah twins now let me explain something i am a an injury lawyer i represent people who get injured in catastrophic accidents and i see everything i see the worst things imaginable and i know what can go wrong in a hospital at birth god forbid so if my family or extended family or friends relatives are expecting people say oh you're hoping for a boy i'm like how could you ask that hoping for a healthy baby that's in my prayers we already had a big family i was praying for a healthy baby not my wildest imaginings that i think and by the way guy you know it would be fun if you could throw in an extra if you don't mind you know uh and sometimes he says i know what you're praying for and i've got something even better in mind and now i want to to close with this um we all have to be tough we gotta be tough there are people who count on us and in all sorts of different areas whether we are children or siblings or husbands or wives or mothers or fathers or brothers sisters whatever we are they're people that that we get assigned responsibilities or chores and the older we get and the more responsible we are the more important those chores are and when people need something from us all they want to hear is i got this you sure i got this they don't want to see indecision they don't want to see where we like i i don't know if i could handle it but but i'm counting you you know i just i just don't know when you're speaking to god it's your one opportunity you don't have anywhere else even i dare say even with your spouse there are certain secret areas where you're just that the tiny areas depending on your relationship with your spouse that even that you're just not comfortable bringing up vulnerabilities insecurities maybe some but not all this is an opportunity everything is on the table you can talk about everything your deepest darkest fears and wishes and hopes you're speaking to god your father in heaven and he's listening to you pour it out to me let me know come here let me know what's on your mind what's bothering you i can help and you pour it out to him and you say god i here's what i'm asking for i think this is the right thing for me but i realize it may not be if it's not don't give it to me and and and if you don't give it to me maybe you're not giving it to me because it's a consequence maybe i'm supposed to learn something from it maybe eventually i'll look back or of course i'll look back eventually and understand that i trust you i did my part i put in my effort and now god i am putting it all onto you because i know you love me more than anyone you love me more than my spouse more than my kids more than my siblings more than my parents nobody loves me more than you and i'm sharing this with you that i've shared with no one and i trust you and i know you got this and if you're doing that after unburdening yourself and after telling him sincerely i trust you you can put your head on the pillow and know i have done everything that i can and whatever happens next will be for the best because it's coming from god who loves me more than anyone and who knows what's best for me thanks for listening and i hope that all of us have the opportunity to pray hard to pray sincerely to repent to give charity and that on this holiest of days that's coming up soon we all get not just inscribed hopefully we're already on rosh hashanah but sealed in the book of life that we get another year of life for us and our loved ones and we get a year hopefully with the pandemic in our rear view mirror that we get out of this difficulty and whatever is going to happen we know we'll be for the best and thanks for listening