Rabbi Akiva Rutenberg - Don't Just Count the Days, Make the Days Count

[Music] good evening everyone tonight's topic is counting of the Omer and making every day count we are right now a little more than two weeks into spirit Omer these days between Pesach and sheilas we are also in a very very unique time during this whole corona situation as so much of the world as we know it has been turned upside down and in a way these days between Pesach and sugars are perplexing and complicated days as they are as it is on the one hand it's an exciting time as we go from pace after service and we build up from leaving material to the point of receiving the Torah and at the same time we also talk about the morning of Rabi Akiva students and in essence there's different things going on during during this time and this year as we as a Jewish nation and Jewish people and the entire human race go through this difficult moment this difficult time in history it's there's so many different emotions that come up and I'd like to just talk about one or two ideas that are personally meaningful to me and I think you'll find so as well the Jewish people went as our rabbis tell us from the lowest level of tamo to the highest level of kedusha in a matter of 49 days all of Jewish history is recounted from mat entire URI das odorous the lowering of the generations is from the point of Martin turn how is it possible that they went from the lowest level of impurity to the highest level of kedusha in just a matter of 49 days and I believe that the secret the answer to how this was possible lies at the very base of who we are as a human being who are we what are we as a human being so we know that a man a human being is called Adam what is the root adam has the same root as the word Adama the root for Earth what does man and Earth have in common so one of the explanations is that we come from the earth we'll go back to the earth and there's truth to that but in a way there's a deeper concept which is that Earth by definition is potential a piece of earth you put a seed into it a tree can grow out of it you can build a building on a piece of Earth everything else in the in the world that we see is what it is a cow is a cow a mountain is a mountain you can try to adjust it and change it but it always is what it is on the other hand the human being the nature the definition of a human being is potential we know that the Hebrew language defines what something is and if the Torah tells us that we are Adam we are man we are beings of potential then that's the very essence of who we are as a human being the matress tells us that when when the the first the the mala theme the angels saw the first man they thought they were seeing Hashem himself and I believe the explanation is because of this potential that the human being has that mala him do not have it's interesting in beret shoes were told that Hashem says I created man B'Tselem elokim in my image and what do we know about Hashem at this point of Boreas we don't know that he's Kara home the founder a cop arrested for ms that he's compassion and kind you don't know anything about asha the only thing we know about Hashem when he creates man is that Hashem is a creator and if he is a creator and he created us in His image then we are creators but what does it mean that we can create so on one level it means that we have an ability to make a difference we have ability to do a mitzvah we have ability to change the world we have an ability to be creators with him so to speak he gave us that power to be his partners in creating creation but another way of looking at this is we have an ability to change ourselves we have an ability to grow and become the best version of ourselves and in many ways this is our purpose in life and when we go from pace off to service I believe this is the experience that we have to go on this is the mission that we're going on we're going if you think about every day between pesach achievers is like climbing a step towards the ultimate goal of math and turn but each one of these steps each step is a step in our personal growth and the step in our growth going from its trying to the receiving of the term we're told that the word mitzraim the root of the word comes to the word mates are which is contraction something that holds us back and has out teach us that just like there wasn't me trying that the Jewish people were locked in each one of us has a material inside of ourselves each one of us has something that holds us back that tells us no you can't do that you cannot become free you you're stuck in who you were yesterday and we all have a power inside of us that tells us no no you can't you can't you can't and ultimately our our mission in life is to go from there to ma tante or to the ultimate freedom the ultimate freedom where we realize that our potential is almost infinite how do we do this how do we go through this transition so I'd like to just share just share a few few ideas the first myths were given to the Jewish people domicile was the Mitzvah verse coldest we just celebrated for Scottish yesterday and hazael Arava is wonder why was this the first Mitzvah given to the Jewish people on one level it's because you need a rush kodesh in order to have the lunar calendar in order to have the month the Jewish calendar and Scottish Nisan was considered the first month in our in our calendar because of that but the morale and others explained that there's a deeper idea as well and that is that Rosh Hodesh symbolizes renewal it symbolizes an ability to change to become something different than I was yesterday and the Jewish people I miss all going out of the triumph through math and Torah needed the concept of erskyll - in order to become truly free in order to become who they needed to be and it's interesting we read in the Pesach Seder with the Gemara tells us you're all miracle - that you would think that we should actually celebrate the pace of state Irish Scottish 15 days before they left at Ryan how would it make sense to celebrate Pesach Seder on Rosh Chodesh and the only explanation would be is because they need they needed this concept of us Kaddish in order to become free and once they had that concept they were able to become free in the bracha we say in in that we say in Kadosh Levana we say that after the bracha we say if this would be the only mitzvah it would be enough strange to say that when do we say that if this was the only mitzvah it would be enough and I believe the explanation is because the concept of Rosh Hodesh is so essential to who we are there will be enough we also know that the Greeks tried to stop the Jews from doing 3 mitzvahs one of them was a kid aha - the idea of Rosh Chodesh and it could be they also realize the the achievers the importance the the the newness that happens on Rosh Chodesh and the Greeks were against any kind of growth of spiritual growth of believing that something could be greater than what it looks like on the surface on one level we have to realize that we have so much potential inside of ourselves and this is true not just on a spiritual level but the way I shot made us this is true even on a physical level we know that many researchers of the brain have told us that a normal person only uses maybe 10 to 20 percent of their mental abilities we don't even have a clue of what we can accomplish I was I was I was looking at something recently where somebody made a argument that any person can accomplish to learn almost any skill in 20 hours if they believe that they could do it and the greatest thing that stops us is that we don't believe that we have the ability to do it we limit ourselves my father's Rebbe or Sean ma fry folks used to say that Popeye was the enemy of the Jews now the juices of we'll have a lot of enemies why do we need Popeye to be our enemy and he said because what a pop I used to say I am what I am I'm Popeye the sailorman that statement I am what I am this is who I am I'm not sure if Popeye really understood the depth of what he was saying but that idea I am what I am this is my limitation reshawna off rifle also used to try as much as possible for his students not to give IQ tests to their kids because he said when you give an IQ test and sometimes there's a need for it but when you give an IQ test very often what are you doing you putting a person in a box say this is your this is your IQ score and that's it and it's so interesting when Freud said this in the 70s and now there's so much research that have come out that have shown that there's actually seven different types of intelligence and IQ only it's only checks and it's only able to look at one of them there's amazing research that has come out and if someone's interested in reading a book about this is a very good book called mindset by Carol Dweck and she talks in this book a Carol Dweck she mentions in this book that there's there's there's research that was done where people went into public schools in very very low neighborhoods of socioeconomic neighborhoods that were that that the overwhelming majority of the school was failing and they went in with a mindset a growth mindset that they believe that the students can do anything and just a few years they had second graders reading Shakespeare they had they had scores that were unbelievable on the math test and everything else just purely because they believed in the students and they encouraged them to believe in themselves so we know that this is so true on a physical level that our abilities are so much more than we then we believe so much more than we often believe and and so often in life we limit ourselves and we say this is not who I am I don't have this ability somebody else has that I don't have that but this is even more true and a spiritual realm in the world of spiritual or spirituality and the neshamah in the spiritual world our abilities are beyond beyond our comprehension because of the sea otter the shmaaya the divine intervention that we have and so many so many ways we have an ability to do things that are really really unbelievable and if we believe in ourselves and we believe that our shaman can give us those strengths and abilities and we have that growth mindset we can accomplish tremendous tremendous things and I believe as we go from pace after service this is a message that we need to be thinking about how can I grow how can I become a better person a growth-oriented person and if I have that mindset a growth-oriented mindset literally every challenge that we face becomes an opportunity for growth an opportunity to be stronger through the challenge and I often speak to my students at Emeth I have the opportunity to be one of the directors of Emmet outreach campus and community cure of organization in Queens and we have literally thousands of students who are all different levels of their spiritual growth and Emmet our vision our belief is that every student has to be guided in their own path but the common denominator of the amazing staff that we work with here at Emmet and the approach that we take is believing in people believing in each and every Jew believing in their potential and when you have that belief in a person it makes them encourages them to to believe in themselves one of the ideas that I often speak to my students about is I'll ask them the following question what's more important your actions or your beliefs and it's sort of a trick one it's a trick question because they're both important and if we do actions that are not based on our beliefs it's not really it's like it's we're acting like a monkey but in reality your actions define who you are the way you live your life changes who you are and if we have a growth mindset we realize that if I do acts of class that I will become a kinder person if I follow them into us I'll become a better person and if we have this approach then we can look at the sphere seroma we can look at each day and we know every day of the sphere stoma is for a different sphere as a different message a different connection that we're supposed to bring it to ourselves and if we have this mindset we can become the person that we want to be because ultimately if we want to grow as a person and I think we all do want to grow we have to have a mindset that we can become a different person than we are today and the way we can become that is by doing mitzvahs by having an open mind and allowing ourselves to to grow into the person that we believe we can be and I believe that this is what the worth the Torah the Torah is teaching us during this time and I hope that we will take this inspiration of this time between Pesach and service to grow into the true person that we all believed inside that we can be and hopefully we'll be able to take from these challenges that we're facing today and use the challenge as a springboard for our growth in every way thank you [Music]