Rabbi Maor Bendel - The Secret to a Meaningful Life

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to tonight's special shear. Of course, every single week Mendel gives us a tremendous insights not only about the parsha or the upcoming holiday but of course such meaningful lessons for life and of course we have I think the or Torah the shul for the coast thing as well as together with the road. >> [snorts] >> And every week we try to see what what what lessons can we learn from from that week's parsha, the Torah portion for our life. And and we know this week's parsha is parsha Skysa. But just just from those words it seems like those words don't even make so much sense. Like Chayei Sarah, she passed away in this week's parsha. How does that make sense? Maybe maybe when she was born maybe make that the name of the parsha. But the person passes away, so so we know that that that that that Judaism what what does it say? It says well we talk about the the time period of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. What what is it what is it what do we refer to? A famous saying of a famous saying. It says that a person should do teshuvah, should do repentance so that he should live. What does that mean? A person if they if they if they go and and they're they're they're they're not doing the right thing, they're doing averah, they're doing sins and and what? They're not living? What? You should do repentance so you should live? So we know that that life is is what is when you have a purpose and meaning in your in your in your living according to the path of Hashem. Of course then we know that that's that's considered a life. And then with tonight's topic of meaningful life and Rabbi Bender always gives us the You you want to be on the right path? You have a coach or a road marathon. We just had the marathon this past Sunday and the whole New York City was all closed down because of the marathon. You have to have a right coach to set you on the right path and Rabbi Bender does that for us. So thank God for him. >> Shalom aleichem. Everyone who came out to move on. Much love the way from Brooklyn. I want to talk about something very interesting tonight and I think it's something that's gay, something that touches on something that every single one of us faces in our life in different moments of our life. To do that, we have to really understand as we're reaching the end of the of the portion of the Torah which speaks more about talks about this holy holy person you know you know And now we're transitioning into the period of talk. First things first I have to understand who was what he went through and what happened in his life. So the brings down brings down over there there was 10 or not. also brings down that I don't know 10 tests. But if you look into the story, you realize that didn't only have 10 tests. I don't know had much more than 10. If you think about it. Let's talk about his life. Before he was born there was a king at the time his name was Nimrod. He decreed he saw in the stars there was going to be a baby that was born and so on and so forth. He decreed that the baby is going to be put to death. And they actually had people going around to go and watch women who are pregnant to see when they're going to give birth so they can take the baby and kill them. I don't know how many they killed about 70,000 babies. I don't know who his mother was smart she hid him away. So you can imagine he's born into a world where there is no God, nobody believes in God. And as soon as he's born, somebody already wants to kill him. He's taken away, he's put in a cave, he comes out I don't know when he came out exactly. But the point of the matter is he starts his life as a baby and right away as he starts his life somebody wants to kill him. As soon as he gets out he comes back home, he's a little bit older now, they're not looking for him they don't know that he's necessarily around. And he starts shaking the pot, why? He says look I look out into the world. I have you heard I said them beautiful Shabbat. I was at Salanter. He one time went to Paris. Do you guys know Paris? Shown the Lise huh? You have Paris you go over there, France. Okay with Paris you went to. He went to Paris, he was sitting down over there in the square and he went to get a cup of coffee. Now, how much does it cost to get a cup of coffee I don't know over here in a random bagel store. Huh? You can get a cold brew for a cold coffee with ice ice coffee for how much? $2.75? I was at the Atlanta was sitting in a restaurant he ordered a coffee, obviously no milk, just the coffee. Maybe not even sugar, just coffee. And they charged him 15 francs. That's a It's a lot of money. So, he says to himself, how much does coffee How much does coffee really cost nowadays? How much does coffee really cost? Do the math. You order from Costco Taste the Choice, you get those two big tubs for $18, you divide it by two you have nine. How many cups you have for it? 400 serving. How much is one serving? A few cents. And they're charging me 15 francs. Charging me so much money for one cup of coffee? Why? And then he started thinking about it. He said to himself, you know what? It makes sense. You know why it makes sense? I'm not just paying for the coffee. I'm paying for the ambiance. I'm paying for the street. I'm paying for the waiter. I'm paying for the restaurant. I'm paying for the view. I'm paying for everything around me. And therefore, when a person in his life makes a bracha, when he makes a blessing in something, his Shulchan Aruch writes that a blessing, its job is in order to connect us to Hashem, to make us closer to Hashem, to understand that what we're eating now, that what we're drinking now, is a creation of God. And when we think about the food that we're eating and we look around the world and we say, "Wait a minute. How much I owe Hashem. Look at the ambiance he gave me." If I go to a restaurant and I have to pay $15 for a cup of coffee, how much more so I have to be thankful to Hashem for what what he gave me? Our Avinu looks out into the world and he says, "Look at the ambiance that Hashem gave us. Look at the ambiance the world created. Look how complex the world is. Look how everything works in a beautiful synergy. Look how every part of a human being is is is a miracle within itself." Our Sages teach that a person can look at his basar, can look at his his body and just from his body can see God. You know how many things you have in your eye, in your hand? The Chazon Ish writes in the Emunah U'Bitachon, we don't even understand the deep and complexities of how the body works. If one chromosome is off, if one is two extra, chas v'shalom, one thing, can you imagine how one thing can negatively affect a person's body? Avraham Avinu goes out to the world and he says, "If the world is so perfect and everything is so great, right? It cannot be." Now, you have to understand, his father at this time, what did he have? The Midrash tells us, everyone knows this famous story, he used to sell idols. His father was a guy who would sell idols for a living. People go to the store, they have the idol over there standing nice and with muscles and a small one and a big one and everyone knows the story. Avraham Avinu says to himself, "It cannot be these things are real. It cannot be these things have any power." Everybody knows the famous Midrash that one day his father left him in the store and a woman came in to go give a nice fruit platter, uh, to the idols. She says, "I want to give it." He says, "Okay, place it down over there in front of the big one." And then she leaves. Avraham Avinu takes a hammer, he breaks all the idols, and he leaves in the hands of the big one like a hammer, like this thing that he used to break everything else. His father comes in and he sees all of the idols are broken, all of his business is completely collapsed. There's a fruit platter over there and uh the big one is standing over there with a hammer in his hand. He doesn't know what happened. He says, "They got into a look, a woman came with a fruit platter, they got into a fight, you know, and this one started going after this one, this one started hitting this one." His father says, "What are you talking about? They're just idols, they don't do anything." Avraham Avinu tells him, "Exactly, so why do you guys worship them? They don't do nothing. How can you worship a statue? And you know who who who's the one who ratted him out? Who's the one who ratted Avraham Avinu out? People know this? Who? His own father. His own father said, "This is my son. He wants so much to go against the king." He was close with Nimrod. He was very close with him, with the king. He said, "This is my son." He's going to rat him out. Who ratted him out? His own father. What did they decide his punishment going to be? Huh? How how do you know? He comes to him and tells him, "Look, we worship the fire. So, bow down to the fire. Yeah? He says, "I was bowed down to the fire, the problem is there is something stronger than fire. What is that? Water." What puts out fire? Water. He okay, so bet on to the water. He says, "You're right. I would I would bet on to the water, but I have a problem. >> [clears throat] >> Now what takes control of the water? Water evaporates and it goes into the clouds. So the clouds are more powerful than the water. So he tells him, "So bet on to the clouds." So he tells him, "I would, but the problem is that the wind is more powerful than the clouds." So he tells him, "Uh uh Okay, so bet on to the to the wind." He says, "I would, but there's something more powerful than the wind." And what's that? A human body. Cuz even a strong wind cannot move me. So okay, so bet on to me. I'm a king." He says, "I would, but the problem is fire can burn you." And again, the cycle continues. And every argument he came to say, "You know what? I had enough with this guy." He throws him into a fire. Throws him into a furnace. Huh? What's he doing in the furnace? Ashbi. Laying laying laying sitting over there. He's having the best time of his life in the fire. He's in a furnace. Not just a regular furnace. It wasn't just like a small bonfire. A huge unbelievable powerful fire. And Abinu was inside. unharmed unscathed This is how he started his life. And what I just told you right now, by the way, according to Pirkei De Rabbi Eliezer, are only two tests. Everything I just told you up until now was only two tests. His father writes him out, he gets thrown in a furnace, they want to kill him when he's born. He didn't even start the other eight. And then, he starts his life. You can imagine now you get thrown into a fire. Can you imagine now I get thrown into a fire? I come out of the fire unscathed, everyone's going to think I'm a god, right? Everyone comes to Abinu, "Wow, you're a god. Look at you. You're great." He says, "No, it's not me. It's all god." And he ends up living over there until he's 75 years old and he gets money and he has a lot of students. Him and his wife. He's married. They don't have children, but they have a lot of students. They have business. And Hashem tells him at 75 years old Lech lecha me'artzecha u'moladetecha. Now get up and leave. Leave your business. Leave everything you created over here. You have a successful business. Let's say right now you have a business making $2 million a year. I tell you get up and leave. You said, "Rabbi, do you trust me?" He said, "Yeah, I trust you. Get up and leave and I'm going to bless you and I'm going to make you rich and you're going to be great." And you get up and you leave, you open up a new business and it's a bust. You don't make a dollar. What are you going to say about the rabbi? What kind of funny baloney rabbi is this, huh? Kind of funny baloney tells me go, I left my business, I have $2 million coming every single year. I was doing good with Amazon. He tells me to go now. I get up, I leave. I said, "I'm going to get up and leave." And where do you go? Earth Israel. He gets there, there's a famine, no money. Okay, you know what? I'm with you, Hashem. I'm with you. I'm keeping on going. He goes down to Egypt. What happens in Egypt? They steal his wife. Huh? When is this chapter going to end, huh? When is this story going to end? We didn't even touch on any of the rest of it. He goes, they steal his wife. Okay, they took my wife now. He frees his wife, he gets out. As soon as he gets out, he hears your nephew was taken by who? Who was he taken by? The four kings that went against the war with the five kings and the four kings won the five kings. Rashi tells you to show you how strong the four kings were. Avraham Avinu goes out to war with 300 plus students. Not according to the shot, according to the end, he went out with one student, Eliezer. He goes out to war. He has miracles happen to him. He throws dust and turns them into daggers. What does it say? Long story short, he ends up winning the war, saving his nephew. He finishes with that. Okay, great. Now I'm done with that. As soon as he leaves there, Hashem tells him, "I promise you the land of Earth Israel. This is going to be your land." He questions God and God tells him, "By the way, your children are going to be slaves for 100 years." That's called Ben Habatarim. In between the stripes, Hashem tells him, "You're going to have children that are going to be slaves for 100 years." Okay, my test didn't end over here, no problem. Now it's done? No. How old are you, Avraham, today? I'm 99 years old. Great. Now it's time for you to do Brit Milah. Brit Milah? 99? Whoa. Come on. HASHEM, COOL IT. UNTIL WHEN? Until when? Okay, you know what? I'll do a Brit Milah. I'll do a Brit Milah. I have my son, Yitzchak. You tell me, you promised me that from my son Yitzchak, I'm going to have a my continuation. All my lineage, all the promises that you gave me of this land and all the blessing that you're going to give me that I'm going to be numerous like the stars and like the sand. All this you gave me? You promised me through this son. And then the son turns 37 and God tells him, "Take your son and go slaughter him on the altar." I mean, he wakes up early in the morning, takes his 37-year-old son, who doesn't have any children, and goes to slaughter him early in the morning. Early in the morning. Him and Yitzchak, they go. Great. Most opinions hold that this is the 10th test. Over now? Ah, chill. Everything's good. No. Comes the Rambam, comes the Bartinura, comes the Rabbi Natan, comes the everything from the Rishonim and they have different calculations of how to calculate it. Long story short, some of them add that he had to marry Hagar, he had to throw away Ishmael. But I think Rabbeinu Yonah has the most the most clear one. He comes back from the Akedah, he comes back from slaughtering his son kiyvachol, for sacrificing his son 37 years old. This immense test, it's supposed to be the end. I already went through all these 10 tests. I'm a I'm now at this point I should be 137 years old. He comes back. Who passed away? Sarah Imeinu, his wife. Why did she pass away? Cuz she heard that he was slaughtering his son. Almost. No, it says he heard According to the Zohar, according to the Zohar, he didn't know that he had to go up to Shamayim 3 years. Not a calculation, yeah. Long story short, Avraham Avinu What what what When is it going to end? At what point does Avraham Avinu say, "Okay, you know what? Now it's time for me to relax. Now it's time for me to enjoy life." And I think this is the message. I think this is the unbelievable lesson that we learn from all this. That we come out to the world, the Mishnah in Pirkei Avot tells us something unbelievable. The Mishnah says, "Hashem tested Avraham Avinu 10 different tests." Now, we were already that there's a machloket how do we calculate the 10. But we see that it's a little bit more than 10. Hashem tested him 10 tests and Avraham Avraham Avinu would stand withstood them all. Stood them all. Amad b'chulam. To teach you to show you how favored, how beloved chavivut, the belo- how our beloved Avraham Avinu is. This sounds to you like a person who's loved by God? This whole story I told you over here sound like a person says, "Wow, this guy, God loves him." This guy, if I had to put my money if I had to gamble, I would put a bet on who has seven loves the most, I would think it's this guy, Avraham. Anyone would put their money on this bet? Comes Rashi on the place and he says like this. Forget that if he also writes the reward for it. But he says that yes. What does it mean that Avraham Avinu withstood them all? Says Rashi on the spot Avraham Avinu never one time questioned God. Can you imagine that? Through all of this life, through all of he's going through, never one time in his heart did he have a question on Hashem. Never one time in his heart did he have a question to ask on God. That makes sense to you? Can you imagine going through all of this and not one time asking God? Do you know how many phone calls I get a day of things that are not even on the same scale, on the same caliber, not even a fingernail of what Avraham Avinu had to go through in his life? And you call me, "Rabbi, I can't do it. I'm struggling. It's this and that." Avraham Avinu never one time asked the question on God. Took his wife, again he took his wife. Go down, his wife died, Akedah. No rest. And you know what it says over here? After the Akedah the angel tells Avraham Avinu Atah yada'ti. What that means? Now I know. What do you mean now I know? Says Rashi now I know what to answer the Satan when he asks me "Why I love you so much?" When the Malach Hamavet, when the angel of death, when the Satan, when the devil comes and asks me, "Why do you love this nation so much?" You know what I tell them? I love Avinu. There's a person in the world who can go through all of these trials and tribulations in their business and their wife and in their family and never one time ask the question of me. We spoke about last week of Chaim of Volozhin. Tell us these are not just stories. He's teaching us about the power that we have inside of us. You hear these things about Avinu. It's not that Hashem is telling you some random story about a great person. It's not like chave, we're going to go make a PSA 10 card of Avinu and then you can go sell it online for $10,000. No. Hashem is telling you just know everything he went through, everything he went through in his life is to teach you that you can go through the same thing and not have any questions on God. You can go through the same thing in your life and not one time you're going to have a question on Hashem. But you have to get there. You know, I was talking to somebody today. He talked to me about Emunah and Bitachon, faith in God. There's different levels of faith in God. There's the Beit Halevi, Chovot Halevavot, Beit Halevi, and there's the ultimate of all of it. Most people don't know this sefer. There's a sefer ultimate of all of it on Bitachon. It's a very, very high level. Very, very high level. And all this is to tell you that what? And when it comes to faith in God, there are always different levels. You cannot wake up one morning and think that you're going to be able to go and overcome everything in one second. No. You cannot overpower everything in the world in one second. All of us go through hard times. A guy came to me this week, he tells me, "Look, I want to ask you a question. You gave a class left in my class on Shabbat." He came to me with questions yesterday. He said to me, "I want to ask you a question. You talk about faith in God. You talk about this and that." He says, "I believe in God 100%. I know that everything is for my best. But what can I do that it hurts?" I told him that it's allowed. You're allowed to hurt. You're allowed to have pain. But you're not allowed to question God because of it. Just that it hurts you doesn't mean that you don't believe in God. People think that if you have faith in Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that means you never have pain. People think that if you have faith in Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that you never suffer. And people also have a very, very, unfortunately, perception of reality that faith in God means that whatever I want that I'm going to give me. People think that trust in God is mean if I pray hard enough and I believe hard enough is going to give me whatever I want. That's not what faith in God means. Faith in God means that there's somebody above me who knows more than me. That's why I don't ask. Like when you go at the end of the year to your accountant, yeah? And he's sitting over there in the computer. And he's doing all the typing, yeah? He's got to Okay, I want to go to this ball 15 different screens over there from this screen back to this screen back to this screen back to this screen. Do you ask him, "Wait a minute, why did you put over there in 6038 this number?" Do you ask him any questions? You ask him or you're hoping maybe hook it up. >> [laughter] >> Huh? You're hoping that he's going to find some type of loopholes over there from this page to this page to this page to this page. You're trying to figure out what's connecting to what. >> [laughter] >> Listen, I don't want to see it gives you a Let me ask you guys a question. You guys ever went to the accountant he hands you a folder like this to walk away with. When you leave over there, no? He gives you a printout of all When the last time you OPENED IT? HUH? WHEN THE LAST TIME YOU OPENED THIS FOLDER? ALL YOU WANT TO know is what it says over here. How much money am I getting back? How much money do I owe? That's all I care about. Everything else you didn't ask. Why don't you ask your accountant, "What are you doing over here? Why did you put this number over here?" Why don't you ask him? Why don't you harass him? Cuz you have faith that he knows more than you about the topic. Same thing with God. You see pages flipping. You see over here You don't see all the connections in your mind. But at the end of the day, all you see is what you owe and what you get. That's how you base how good your accountant is, right? If he gets me to owe the least or gets me back the most amount of money, that's a good accountant. That's not God. God is not I base God's relationship with God like my accountant. Yeah? If I have a good return, then I have a good accountant. If I don't have a good return, I don't have a good accountant. God is the best accountant in the world. And when he's accounting our life, he knows exactly what to put on every slot. He knows exactly what to put on every place because he knows exactly what's going to give you the best return whether you see it or not. You know why? Cuz God can see that if I'm going to put over here a number that's maybe going to make you pay a little bit less money today, but in 4 years you're going to get a phone call. Hey, how you doing, buddy? You know who this is? Huh? It's the IRS. We're calling about the 2019 What was the 2019 actually? I'm actually on 2027. What do you want from me? No, no, no, no, no, no. >> [laughter] >> You remember that loan you took? That SBA loan? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now we're looking into it. You think I remember what happened in 2019? Yeah, now you're going to come for the say and audit and You know what? Hashem knows exactly what's going to happen in 4 years from now, 5 years from now, 7 years from now, 8 years from now, 100 years from now. And therefore, we have to understand that if God is the one who's in control of our reality, he knows better than us where everything goes in every box. And real faith in God means no matter what I go through in life, no matter what pain I have, no matter what I have to do in my life, I know that God is the one who's ultimately at the day accounting for me. He's the one making the calculations and he's the one who knows what's best for me at the end of the day. That's really what I mean by bitachon. Real emunah and bitachon doesn't mean that my life is going to look the way that I want it to look. Quite the contrary. Real emunah and bitachon means my life is going to look the way God wants it to look and I need to start understanding how to be happy with that. I need to start understanding that this is what the God wants from me. This is what God decided for me. This is where he put me. This is what he wants from me. And you guys know what? It's for my best. I think in life we all want a feeling of calm, a feeling of tranquility. Everyone's working for that day, no? I'm work Why are you working then? When I'm going to turn 50, 60, I'm going to retire. I'm going to go travel. I'm going to go with my wife. We're going to go to Bora Bora. We're going to go book, you know? We're going to go traveling the world. Everyone is waiting for the day where everything is going to be easy. Everyone is waiting for a day when everything is going to be smooth. Right? Today I'm struggling because tomorrow I want to be able to rest and all my kids to have an this and that and this and that and I put my money in Roth IRA and I open this account, that account. All these things is because eventually and everybody knows the famous mashal of the wealthy businessman went to vacation on some island, yeah? Finally gets to go on a vacation and he books himself a nice beautiful trip on an island. He gets over there, he's sitting on the beach. He went to one of those beach chairs with a pina colada and the freshly cut watermelon. That kind with the umbrella, you know, the umbrella they put you in the coconut. Ah. And he's sitting over there and he's drinking, he's enjoying. And all of a sudden he sees like this little guy from the island jump into a small boat and start going out. 1 hour later the guy comes back with three fish and goes out. Day after day he sees this guy going 1 hour, three fish, coming back. So after three, four days this guy was a serious businessman in Manhattan and he wants to understand what's going on over here. He walks up to the guy and says, "Look, I have to understand. Every day I see you come over here. Every day I see you go. You get three fish. You go out. You come back. 1 hour. You're not wasting your time?" He says, "Look, I see you have a good You know where to get the good fish over here. I see you coming back with big fish. You're going by yourself on a small tiny boat. I'm a businessman, yeah? Yeah, I'm a businessman. Let me try and help you out over here." The guy says, "Look, I'm I'm happy. I have what I need." "What do you mean you have what you need?" He says, "One fish I bring to my family we sit down and we eat. One of them I trade it for fruits and vegetables and the other one I I trade it for drinks. And I sit down with my family every night and we eat this fish and we eat and we have food. And that's how we do every single day. We trade. I trade, I barter and I have food for my family every single day." Great. Nice. But you want to invent your life. So let me tell you what you're going to do. I'm going to bring you a bigger boat. Oh. Hey, yo. I'm going to bring you a bigger boat. And what we're going to do, I'm going to bring you a bigger boat. We're going to take this boat. We're going to give you more workers. We're going to bring you more people to come. You're going to go every day. If it takes you three If you get three fish in 1 hour, you're one person. That means you multiply by four, that's 12, right? 12 people in an hour. We send you out. We work 8 hours a day. We multiply like this. You get 100 fish. I'm going to send it to my guy in China. We're going to pre-package it. We're going to make you a deal with Costco and Kirkland. You're you're to be all over the place. You're going to be a multi-millionaire. And the guy says, "Okay, and then what? And then what?" And then in 10, 15, 20 years down the line, you're going to be rich. And then what? And then you can come back to this island and sit down and enjoy your family, eat food, enjoy whatever you want. So, the guy tells him, "So, you're telling me I have to invest 10 years of suffering, hard work, to go to an island, build factories, workers, just to get back to where I am today?" >> [laughter] >> Huh? What what >> [laughter] >> Huh? You know what happened? You know what happened? You know? You know what happened? Daylight Savings. This is what we call energy saving. >> [laughter] >> So, we call energy saving. Huh? Who's paying the electric bill? My car broke. It's okay. We'll we'll take what we can get. >> We're preparing for Hanukkah here. >> Hanukkah? Huh? Eight days of miracles. I'm going to laugh. Now, you guys are going to go fall asleep in the back. >> [laughter] >> You're all going to fall asleep now in the back, huh? Well, this guy is my demo tunnel. >> [laughter] >> Long story short, like this. Huh? Like this. You have to understand in our lives that whatever we do, God is in control. And we work, and we run around, and we want this peace and tranquility. But reality is, this peace and tranquility you can have today. You don't have to work 15, 20 years to end up in an island to find peace and tranquility. You can find the happiness in your life already now. So, why are you running around? Why are you working? Why are you going crazy? Oh, I want a big house. I want a bigger car. I want a bigger All these things you're doing cuz one day I want to have peace and calm, right? But one day you'll realize that the peace and calm is not what life is. That peace and calm is not where you build your life. The majority of your life you spend working. And the peace and calm is only a portion of the life. Also, when it comes to working with God, we work. We came here to work. We didn't come over here to do nothing all day. And I'll go home. People think that if life is too comfortable for them, they need to be worried. Cuz Torah says, "Mishael is on the way to have." The guy pays the people he hates in their face. What does that mean? He pays all the reward in this world. If a person feels he has too much going on and too much goodness in his life and everything is running smoothly, he needs to be worried. He needs to be worried. Because Hashem only gives you only only in this life only money money money money and yet cuz why? One day you're going to come after 120. You're going to have some good deeds that you did. You know, one time you helped your mom, one time you spoke to your grandma nice. Yeah? You're going to go up to Shamayim after 120. And what's going to happen? Okay, where's my Gan Eden? Where's my afterlife? And they're going to tell you what? You didn't have a yacht. You didn't have a boat. Uh, you didn't do summers in in Marbella, Spain. You didn't go here, you didn't go there. You had You had a nice life. No? Now go down to Gehenna and suffer there for time. You know what I'm saying? Ain't no kind of Ain't he has nothing. What does he have over here? And even that is not the best. Because all the money in the world doesn't equal happiness. And we know this already. We all seen it first hand. So, you have to understand we came over here into the world that we have bitachon doesn't mean everything is going to work out the way I want it to. Real emunah and bitachon means yes, I'm in this world and God is challenging me to see how strong I am. And the stronger the challenge, the stronger Hashem is testing me, the stronger my ability is. You don't test a person unless you know they have the ability. Hashem doesn't ever put you on a test you can't handle. Everyone who tells you I can't, it's too strong for me, I can't overcome it, God is testing me, it's too strong, I can't do it, I can't do it, 100% it's not true. Hashem never put you in a test you cannot handle. Everything you went through in your life, everything Hashem put you through, Hashem will He gave Again, my wife once told me something beautiful. If Hashem put you through it, Hashem will guide you through it. And what I mean is you already have the power inside of you to overcome every challenge that was ever given to you in your life. But you have to find that power. You can't give up on yourself. You know what people today they lack they lack conviction and willpower. People in life lack conviction to continue, to push, and willpower to never to not give up. Nothing ever worthwhile in life started with you doing it and it always went smooth. People who have a successful business will tell you whenever you start a business it's always smooth. There's ups, there's downs, there's difficulties, especially in the beginning. You building a new business, it's not easy. What do you think building your life is going to be easy? You think building your life is going to be easy? It's not meant to be necessarily easy. But the beauty of Avraham Avinu is is that once a person realizes that everything is for my best, then you smile every day through the challenges. You never ask God a one question. How many of you never asked God a one moment of questions? Cuz you realize everything at the end of the day is for my best. This is exactly what the Gemara says. The Gemara says about Avraham Avinu. It says like this, Hashem, in this week's parashah, he had three guests, right? He was begging for guests to come. He had three guests. And what did he give them? He gave them bread, cheese, curd, meat, shadow, water. He gave them a bunch of things. So what? What's the story about? Who cares? Avraham Avinu, the third day to his milah, the most painful day after the brit milah is the third day, at 99 years old, he's begging for guests. Hashem sent him three angels. He doesn't know they're angels. He thinks they're Arabs. The Malachim is the three random Arab people. Please come in. Please, please come take some bread. And he runs. He does everything he possibly imagine to go and serve these people. Says the Gemara, you should know everything he did, I want you to get I'm just going to I'm going to paint this in a different image. Ready? If Avraham Avinu didn't host those three guests, okay? I'll say this again. If Avraham Avinu didn't host those three guests, if Avraham Avinu didn't do what he did with those three guests, he thought were random three Arabs, most likely the Jewish nation wouldn't be here today. And I have a proof. Says the Gemara, for every action that he did, Hashem gave his children 10 times over. What does that mean? When we left Egypt, we were in the desert, we didn't have food, Hashem gave us manna. Why? Because he gave them cheese and curd. Hashem gave us an anei kavod cuz he gave them shade. He gave them He went He presented them mayim. All these things that he did, Hashem paid us in reward. For everything Avraham did, Hashem gave his children, a hundreds of years later, all the things they needed to survive. So, what do we learn from over there? Two things. One, that no matter what you do in your life, there is never any no reason. You invited a person to someone to your house for Shabbat to come sit down and eat. We didn't have a place to eat. You did a with your friend. You think, "Okay, big deal." You don't know the impact that can have, the ripple effect it can have, not only for you, for your children, children, children, for generations to come. You don't know what your small action can do in the world. And guess what? There is never a in the world that's not un-payed back. You know that? There's no such a thing as a you do in the world. People think it's something crazy. Someone comes to you for help. You help them. They don't tell you thank you, right? Most of the time they barely tell you They didn't give you a thank you, but it's not really really thank you, you know? Uh they you know, they don't appreciate it. They don't thank you. They don't care. They don't this. They don't that. You do everything for them. You host them. You help them. You bring them. You help them with everything in the whole entire world. And they don't ever get to a sliver of appreciation how much you were giving to them. I'm telling you. Pay attention to your life. The people you invest in, the biggest in the world that you're going to have, the biggest letdowns you're going to have in your life, are the people you invest the most in because they don't know the sacrifice that you put into them. Why is that? Because they don't see it through your eyes, right? They don't understand what you had to give up to be there for them in that moment. When a friend calls you and tells you, "Can you come to my house at 2:00 p.m. tomorrow? I need help moving a couch." And you cancel your work day and cancel this meeting and put your wife off today and take your kids and go. They don't know He doesn't know. You come to his house to help him with a couch. He tells you, "Thank you Thank you for helping me with the couch." He doesn't know that when you came home you got over the head from your wife. "Why don't you pick up the kids? Why do I have to go leave work? Why do I have to do that?" He doesn't know that you lost a business deal. He doesn't know any of it. So, in your mind, how much is it worth that you went to help him move the couch? Unbelievable. Right? How much is it worth in his eyes? He came to help me with the couch. Thank you. And guess what? You're going to call him to help. And he'll tell you, "Ah, I'm busy today." "Sorry. Maybe next week. I'll come next week. Uh today I'm tired. My back hurts, my leg hurts. You went out of your way, you got into a fight with your wife, you did everything you possibly could to be there for the person. You called them back and they tell you, "No, no, no, I can't. My back hurts today. Uh I'm not feeling well. I have a little bit of a headache. I'm I'm under the weather." So, you say to yourself, "When you needed me, I was there for you. No questions asked." And then guess what? You're upset. Ask about. People think, and I'm telling you this nicely, people think you do things for other people because you want that person to give you something back in life, and that's 100% wrong. Cuz they're not the ones who give you anything back. You know who is? Hashem. Any hesed, any charitable activity you do in your life for another person, Hashem will guarantee pay you back. Any goodness you do to another person, Hashem will be the one to pay you back. That's what Hashem says. If you have a you have a mitzvah from the Torah, you have a mitzvah if your friend comes to ask you for a personal loan and you have the money and he's trustworthy, you have a mitzvah from the Torah to give him the money. You understand? If a person comes knocking on your door, he says, "You please, my all, I'm asking for a personal loan for 5,000, whatever it is, 7,000." And you have the money and you're a trustworthy person, you have a mitzvah from the Torah to give him the money. Oh, I gave him the money. How do I know he's going to pay me back? Huh? How do you know he's going to pay you back? You don't. That's what Hashem says. Don't worry about him paying you back. I'm his cosigner. Don't worry about him paying you back. He's not Whatever is going to happen with him, I'm going to pay you back. And you never met a cosigner in the world, okay? Like the Kodesh Baruch Hu. You never in your life met a cosigner in the world like the Kodesh Baruch Hu. And I'm telling you, and I get these phone calls all the time, don't call me. I get these phone calls all the time. And what comes when we give, and I can tell you from the times you give, how many times you get back from those people? Not so often. But, how much how much time the Kodesh Baruch Hu gives back? Every single time. Every single time Hashem gives you back. The problem is that we don't see always how Hashem gives us back. We don't see how we give that $5,000 loan and this guy still owes me money for years, but that year my business did a little bit better. I don't correlate the two pieces in my mind. I don't see my business did better this year because I gave this guy $5,000. I say my business did better this year because I did more marketing, I brought this guy, I did this. We contribute these things to ourselves, but we don't realize the $5,000 you gave to the guy is the only reason you're successful today. We don't know what the chesed that we do, the ripple effect it has in our life. There was a story of two girls, two wives, I'm talking about two ladies, who lived in Yerushalayim in the early 2000s. In the early 2000s, when I used to live in Yerushalayim, unfortunately, there was something called the Intifada. Which basically means that the the the the Muslims, the Ishmaelites, would go around trying to do as many explosions and kill and unfortunately do whatever they could to many Jews as possible. And during that time there were two girls, around the same age, who lived right next door to each other. One of her One name was Naomi, one name was Leah. Naomi and Leah, next-door neighbors. They had kids together, they grew up together, they lived almost exactly the same life. One day, they both got pregnant around the same time. Now, this is already their sixth child. Naomi and Leah both get pregnant. Naomi, obviously, has a hard life, six kids, husband working. She gives birth a little bit earlier than Leah. But Leah didn't have a regular pregnancy. Actually, during her pregnancy they found a growth in her head, and baruch Hashem it was benign, but you cannot do the surgery to remove the growth until after the pregnancy. So, her neighbor knew that on the day of the birth that she wouldn't be able to come home with her baby because as soon as she finished with this hospital, she had to be moved to another one to go to the surgery to get rid of this growth. So, she knew the amount of pain that was going to go on, she was giving her birth herself. But she knew that it was going to be very difficult for her and her family to be able to cope with it. She told herself, "You know what? I'm going to take care of it myself. I'm going to talk to all the people in the community, and I'm going to set up meal trains. I'm going to set up people who are going to pick up her daughter from school, pick up her kids from here, and take them and shower them. Everyone's going to have a job, and we're going to continue like this until she comes home and she's fully recovered." Every one of them takes upon himself a day and a different task for 30 days. Listen to this. 30 days, this woman Naomi sets up that all of her friends will take on a day of their life to help this woman. Now, you can imagine it's tiring. Everyone has their own life. It's very difficult, and the schedule is very, very tight. There's no room for people to say, "Oh, switch me today." No. Whoever took upon himself responsibility has to do it because someone else can't do it. Now, Naomi, obviously, was getting very tired. She just gave birth, postpartum, very difficult. Taking care of another person's children, plus her own children. Obviously, it's taking a toll on her, taking a toll on her. Until she eventually felt her light dwindling. And she felt like she had no more happiness. She gets to the point, sometimes it happens to women after pregnancy, they can get to a point where they feel emotionally disconnected. And she felt emotionally disconnected. She felt no happiness from anything. Even the things used to get her excited before didn't get her excited. She just felt like a robot. Just going through the motions of life, but she didn't have real happiness. And her husband tells her, "Please, go do the things you used to like to do. You used to go like shopping, go go do shopping, do something, get out of the house, just go and do something for yourself." And she says, "I can't. I have to do this and this and this and this and this." He tells her, "Look, I promise you, I'll take care of everything. Just do me a favor. Go one day, one day. Go to Machaneh Yehuda. Go to over here, to the shuk. Take some money, go shopping, go buy some clothing." And for the first time in a month's time, she felt within herself a little bit of excitement in her heart. Okay, I'm finally going to be able to go. She drops her kids off. She gets to leaving. She takes the money. She goes to the thing. And she sits down in a cafe in Jerusalem, and she orders a coffee. And she orders some food. And she looks at the clock, and she realizes, "Oh, no. What day is it today? Oh, it's I have to go pick up Leah's daughter. Oh, but I'm finally sitting down. I finally have a moment for myself. She calls up her, "I can't I can't I can't." She says, "Okay, what am I going to do? I don't have a choice." She leaves the coffee, she leaves everything, she gets up and she leaves the restaurant. She gets on a bus. 5 minutes after she gets on the bus, she's driving direction towards Leah's house, boom! Explosion. Where? In the restaurant she was sitting in. Exactly in the restaurant she would have been there extra 5 minutes, there would have been no life. >> [snorts] >> What saved her? What saved her life? That she went to help a friend. No such thing in the world as hesed that's not paid back. No such thing in the world that Hashem you do hesed, you help another person that Hashem will not pay you back hundredfold. Everybody knows the story and I'll finish with this last story. There were two American girls that went to Jerusalem. Okay? Everybody knows when Americans go to Jerusalem, shalom. They come, they want to enjoy. They decided they're going to go out on a trip to Jerusalem. They go to Jerusalem and they said, "Okay, we want to go eat breakfast." Huh? So, when you want to eat breakfast, where you going to go? Which restaurant are you going to go to? Huh? They start looking around and they see a restaurant with a long line. You know if there's a long line, that means ay ay ay ah, it's a good place. You see over there nice menu, sourdough, avocado. And over there poached eggs, not poached eggs. Sunny side, not sunny side. Dark side, up side, left side, up side. Again, today eggs are like a kosher food here, there, everywhere, up, down. She said, "Okay, we're going to go to this restaurant." There's a long line. So, the waiter sees these two American girls sitting in the line. It's about an hour wait. She says, "Look." Israeli girl comes to them, "Look, I see you American, I see you not here for me here, you know?" Not English really. I see you not really for me here. They're telling them in Hebrew. In English, broken English, broken Hebrew. That's they should go and this waitress is going to hold their place. You're going to go. You all don't have a lot of time over here. Go look around, go to the shuk, go buy some clothing, come back in exactly an hour. And I'll hold your place. Usually we don't have this policy because I see you guys that I don't want you to always waste your time over here. You don't have a lot of time. Go to the store. Ready for this? The girls just thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. They leave. They start walking around the store. And what do they hear? Boom, explosion. Where? Exactly in the restaurant. In that restaurant that they were sitting in, almost 10 15 minutes after they left, explosion. Terrorists came off and unfortunately a lot of people died and they said to themselves, "We don't believe it. This waitress saved our life. We have to find her." Listen to this. We have to find this waitress. I hope she's okay. Not okay. They start looking around. They go over there. They can't find her. They start asking, asking, asking, asking. They can't find her. They're looking every hospital. Eventually they find one. They They They say, "Oh yeah, we have a woman with that name over here. Come." They go to the hospital. They go in. They see her. She was damaged but she's alive. Few things this and this and that. They come to her and tell her, "Look, we're so thankful. Thank you so much for what you did for us. Please, we live in New York. Anytime you come to New York, you come, you give us a phone call, we take care of you. Whatever you need, you stay by us, our apartment. We live in Manhattan. We Whatever you want, I know us." She gives them the card. Three months later they get a phone call. They never thought they would get it again. From who? This woman. "Hello, is this so-and-so?" Yes. "Unfortunately, my situation got worse and worse. I need to go to fly to America to have a special surgery done. But I don't speak any English. I don't have anyone to go with me. Can you please take a day whatever, come with me and come with me for the flight and take me so that way I have someone who's with me?" The girls say, "Of course. What's the question? No questions about it. You saved our life. Well, we're going to be there for you. We're both going to take a day from work. We're going to come to the hospital." They both take a day off They meet this woman in the hospital, they take her and as they're waiting in the waiting room they see a bombard of people coming in, chaos, craziness going on. And they say, "What happened? What happened? What happened?" First responders tell her, "You never heard anything here?" What what we didn't hear? 9/11. They blew up the Twin Towers. The two girls, their face turned white. Which places they work in? Which building? Twin Towers. Not only did this woman save their life once, she saved their life twice. She told me to be a star. Can't imagine he said, "What we do for another person, the charity we do for other people, but who always pays it back? Always." And therefore, we have to learn to look at our life and say, "You know what, Hashem? I'm not questioning you. Every step along the way, everything that comes, every person who needs my help, everything in the world, I'm going to help." Cuz I don't know the ripple effect it's going to have for me, for my family. And I know that you're the one who's in control of everything. And to understand we can be like Avinu and smile smile in the face of adversity and challenges and say, "You know what? This is why I was created. I question people who created me in the world where I have the opportunity to grow and be better every single day. Every single day." So, just know and imprint it to yourself that Hashem is the one who's in control and everything that happens in our life is for a reason. Sometimes we see it and sometimes we don't. But really doesn't mean that everything is going to be smooth and easy. Really means even through the challenges and the hard times and the helping and not getting back and not the thank yous, Hashem is with me in all of it. And Hashem is going to pay me back. Hashem is going to give me a ton of 20. So, we should take this lesson to ourselves and bring it into ourselves, do more kindness and more kindness, have more faith and that may all bring us closer to Hashem. Amen.