G-d Has a Major Crush on You

welcome to Shalom and welcome to practical spirituality here in the old city of Jerusalem at Asia Torah overlooking the Temple Mount today we're going to talk about why bad things happen to good people so we're going to start with a little story of a great rebi who lived in uh a town in Europe and this particular rebi was amazing at like at nullifying decrees so whenever there was a decree against the Jews in that region that rebi they would go to the rebi they would say there's a decree and he would start his prayers and he would go into his meditation and do all his cabalistic things and wind his way up to heaven and get to the throne of glory and then nullify the decree and so it was really good to live in his era because people just didn't get away the the the Ping power didn't get away with much with their decrees when when that rebi was alive and did I make a br I don't think I made a no you didn't okay you guys ready [Music] just kidding I recently was in Washington forest in uh in I I asked the guys sharing the cabin I said hey would you guys answer my BR and they're like yeah go ahead B was like a minute long when I opened my eyes before I said at they were all gone like like how long you want us to stand around okay now the um but everyone should do one BR like that a day one BR a day just like that okay one BR day inhale exhale the whole word okay a few minutes for a br one BR day now the um anyway what happened was the rebi was about to pass away and the everyone was scared to death so they go to the Reb's deathbed and they're like what what's going to happen to us you know you you nullify all decrees and and if you go there's no one left and the rebi looks at them and he says a sadik that means a holy man is much more powerful in his death than in his life and he passes away and within a year there was a decree against the Jews and all the Jews are like oh it's going to be great except guess what the decree actually was fulfilled and the Jews Like ate it bad like they really got hurt bad and they didn't know what to do another decree same thing another decree same thing they finally went to the next best Reby of the generation and they went to him and they said listen we need some we need you to nullify the decrees and he says listen I'm not on that level but I am on the level to go have a talk with him so I'll go have a talk with him which is a cabalistic thing you got to know names of God and how to do the Mikvah appropriately like there's all these things you have to know about mkah to do this and then you come out and you use the names of God and and then you I think you write the question you put it under the pillow you go to sleep it's called a dream Quest and it's a highly cabalistic thing that dream Quest so he does the dream Quest and he gets up to the re and he says to the rebi what's the deal you know you told the community that you'd be more powerful in your death than in your life and the rebi says well now that I'm up here now I understand what's really going on and so I realized that those decrees aren't bad why do bad things happen to good people well I think it's going to be a subject of our of our perspective it's a big subject of our perspective how many times have we had bad things happen to us only to realize later that it now I understand why I went through that it's happening all the time in fact uh I'll even ask you all to raise your hand raise your hand if you ever had something bad happen to you and you found out years later why like you finally understood why or maybe you understood how it built you it created greater character in you like raise your hand if you ever went through something that you at the time you wish keep your hands up at the time you wished and we can flip it just for fun keep up at the time you wish that it would have gone away in fact you might keep your hands up what's going on it is Yoga guys give your hands up hands up uh oh these girls are like turning red I guess you are supposed to be somewhere else sorry they're ditching some Seminary anyway okay no one's no one's watching this you know except for everybody and and the anyway keep your hands up if keep your hands up if you wouldn't trade what you went through but meaning if you traded what you went through you'd have to also trade what you got keep your hands up if you wouldn't do that meaning meaning I'm not willing to trade what I I got you see the same hands okay you put your hands [Music] down so as usual everyone's hands are up which is really something amazing because think about it I'm G to ask you raise your hand I'm not going to put the camera on you this time apologize in advance um I mean after the fact the um sometimes it's better ask forgiveness and permission sometimes one example like that that is jacuzzi stumbling a pra a hot tub better to ask forgiveness than permission okay and you know I I've noticed ever since I'm kdic I've stopped poaching hot tubs just because it just looks terrible you know that they come home from their like the movie or whatever and they're and there you are in their hot tubs Stark naked you know and they're like who the hell are you and and you you know which was fine in the hippie days we like we're a bunch of hippies mountain biking and you know or surfing and we just poach your hot tub and you know no harm no foul we'll leave if you want you know and but ever since I've been kdic it's like it just it just is too awkward they're they're like uh there's a rabbi in our hot tub Stark naked you know what are we supposed to do you I mean that should be on that should be on like that should be a hack on YouTube of like how to fix this situation you know how do you fix that one I fix everything I fix everything with YouTube by the way we we were just dealing with a flat tire the other day and the and the tire seized we took off all the lug nuts you know you know how many Jews it takes to fix a flat tire by the way it takes about five to go like this until a gentile pulls up and changes the tire yeah which is basically how it works and there's a famous folklore that someone once changed Trump's Tire like 40 years ago and the guy like paid off his mortgage you know and the guy was wearing a keep on his head and they really freaked out Trump another folklore story but I heard this one's actually true is that a guy was uh a guy was wearing a Kea didn't know how to change his tire and someone pulled up and like fixed his tire for him and he said to him you know good shabas it was a Friday good shabas I looked at him like what's that he forgot he was wearing a Kea what's that he says good chabas good chabas you know Shabbat you know Judaism and he's like yeah he like you're not Jewish like no what are you wearing a keepa for and my mother gave this to me she said every time I'm in trouble put this on anyway um we've all been we've all been through some rough times but here's the funny thing or not the funny thing is that you're going through a rough time right now meaning not all of you but nine out of 10 nine out of 10 raise your hand we'll see it again I'm not going to put the camera raise your hand if you're going through something that you wish you were on the other side of you know like let's say for example the kids the kid's principal called and like you need to deal with a kid he's okay it's just like there's something you got to deal with and you just don't want to be on this side of that you want to be on the other side of that you know what I mean like raise your hand of anything in your life right now you'd like to be on the other side of raise your hand okay so you see all of us are there and keep your hand up if you if you're like you even do stuff about it like you're actually trying to do stuff about it raise your keep your hand up if you're hiring lawyers you know just kidding just kidding a lawyer but we will go to a shrink we'll go to a shrink you know just to deal with it I mean that's just extra money for dealing with stuff you know you got to talk it out with somebody paid friend you know come here no I think therapists have got two major jobs one is obviously people with with mental illness and the other is you pay the you got to pay to download that level of stuff you know you can't just dump that on anybody you know you got to pay for that you that's why it cost so much I mean who wants to hear that stuff I mean I'm sure if you choose some random person will hear it for free but like to get someone who's really going to sit there all day and hear that kind of stuff that's going to cost a few hundred bucks an hour no wonder they lowered their time to 50 minutes in the last 10 years now it's 50 minutes you know 50 minutes because they're like they don't want to like hurl themselves off the building afterwards you know after like five of these sessions you know it's like it's like maybe we bring it down to 50 50 minutes we'll be less suicidal after the day you know hearing all these miserable stories pity the fool with that job now you guys have some sense of humor today my goodness so I told you about mountain biking everyone should just go out and buy a mountain bike by the way I'm selling my I'm selling my best rig like literally the fanciest bike 25,000 shekele bike I'm selling it for like it's supposed to be for eight but I'm getting desperate so I might sell it as low as 75 or even seven but that wouldn't be very nice to pay me seven is it autograph it is the yeah I'll autograph the bike for sure for sure but I got to get rid of this bike immediately immediately because I have to buy something else so let me know if you anyone wants an exotic Mount like it's just fun to Tool around with it even if you have a little extra money like tooling around with a bike like that because you can just fly off stairs you can do something wrong the bike will fix it for you you know like you make a bad move it just somehow autoc correct so um yeah so we're all going through stuff nine out of 10 people are going through something yeah we're all going through something and we are we are we would love to be on the other side of it but Meanwhile we're being built if you were on the other side of it you wouldn't get built because none of us would give up the stuff we went through if we if we would have to give up what built inside of us how we were built by it none of us would give that up yet all of us are trying to get out what we're going through now what are you mugan are you crazy if you're going through something right now go through it just go through it you know I'm saying like don't wallow in and I mean if you got some steps you can take to get out of it great but nothing heroic just go through it if you're going through something it's for a reason go through it yeah well just go through it it's like just do it but just go through it yeah because in it's nasty it's nasty to go through stuff it hurts it's painful and that's really that's really in a way if you think about it that's really our love affair with God because I mean right now we're reading the story this month is about the story of mcgilla and it's like there were nasty parts of that story you know being in the middle of a genocide that ain't fun there were tough things going on in there really tough things our propheus Esther is is is taken by the king by force you know and just added to his Herm and and uh I mean just a disaster a disaster the whole thing's a disaster the porm story absolute disaster but we notice through the story that it all turns out good just like our own lives we're always going through some kind of disaster some disasters are worse than others obviously but those are the ones that built you the most and then you celebrate afterwards because who you became is someone amazing someone resilient someone who like they say when someone breaks their arm or something they always say to the doctor could it break again and the doctor says yeah but not there cuz when bones fuse it's stronger than before when bones fuse they're very strong and so your arm could break not there and the same thing with you you could break again and you will break again we all break but you're not going to break there because there you're strong and so we're all inside our purm story and just like in the purm story you don't see the name of God the only book in the Torah with God's name not in it and what kind of book in the Torah doesn't have God's name and yet you look around your life here it's all with God hidden inside it you don't see God's name and everything you don't see it you just see what's going on around you and what's going on around you you often resist because you think it's bad you think it's negative you think it was a mistake think God didn't have the right address when he sent you that he must there must be some kind of mistake and the answer is just like God precisely keeps you sustained physically right now with Incredible precision and just like God orchestrates everything around you including your trip to Israel like how'd you get here and it was all precise pure accuracy of orchestration happened even your choice to come here had so much in the background that you would if you really think about it you were drawn here like all of you think you chose to come to Israel whether you're supposed to be here for a year whether you're supposed to be here for a week a month whatever your decision was you think you made a choice you didn't make a choice I mean God did hand you the microphone at the end of like ton of things that he orchestrated behind the scenes and then in the end he handed you the microphone and like they were like will you go and you were like yes and then they take with the microphone and you're like nothing like Free Will which of course you know God's just like come on you know like like you you were so set up it was ridiculous like you know I'd have bet a billion dollars you were going to say yes after what I did you know all that set up so so all of this is being orchestrated and certainly the tough stuff we're going through which is how we really get built that stuff for sure the bad the bad stuff is orchestrated it's precise it was sent our way with precision and accuracy God doesn't make mistakes he sends everything up the right alleys so some sick why we so someone's sick why do we doing there's various reasons why we doing when someone's sick but one of them is to be compassionate and another reason is is you have to know a little cabala but the the way the kab the way things work is there's something called or yashar that's the straight light that's like God creating the world okay then there's something called or that's our prayer and our Mitzvah where we return the light and then there's a third light where the or yosar the straight light hits the orer the returning light and it Blends and creates a third light that comes down called an or tun rectified light and so it could be the orar said this dude's going to be sick and then we pray and we send like please heal him and then that mixes with the he's going to be sick and it's a little bit of a tugar but it's more of a pusher war and it's pretty hard to play tug war with God by the way no matter how many people you got on your side of the Rope it's God you know he's holding it with his pinky you know and sometimes he's trying to SLE people out of this place because think about it your whole life here you know how jealous God is of you God is you know how jealous God is of you he's first of all look around your life he's madly in love with you God's got the biggest crush on you it's sick yeah God's got this crazy crush on you and and you see he's like just literally like placing the stones before your feet as you walked down the path of life you know he's got this crazy crush on you because you'd think he'd be busy A whole universe out there and who knows if there aren't others you know maybe there's other universes like and he's busy with you so he's got this crush on you and he's crazy about you except what he spends his whole time jealous because you think about him almost never and imagine you had a second counter throughout the day you know anyone got an iPhone here to like count the seconds like there's 60 seconds a minute so how many seconds are there an hour andone got their phone out like how many seconds are there an hour and how many seconds are there in 24 hours yeah do that do that math for us but imagine you had a counter next to your bed at the end of the day that showed how many seconds of the 24-hour period were dedicated to thinking about the fact that you've got this infinite all powerful being who just can't seem to think about anything but you like he's crazy about you you understand so so don't worry let him do it let him do it you can you can do it okay let's not have a big discussion about this this is not very difficult math here okay okay listen up so you hear the answer the answer is is that is that we do have an impact what everything is set for your portion why you it all for money for things again the the question regarding prayer I don't want to digress too much but the but it's all or or whenever we're praying it's always that that us seeing the situation like for example we see the Exile we see the you look out this window you know and you just see you know you See The Temple Mount you see like the destruction you know it's like just as the Romans left it plus a gold Dome yeah it's like exactly how the Romans left it couple trees maybe gold Dome I don't know but the the how can you not pray how can you not try to tip some scales in the favor of of our destiny of Third Temple you know how can you not pray for that you know that you would have to be calloused to not pray and we got a commandment also one of the 613 Commandments is to pray is to pray when when you're in tough spot you pray or someone else in a tough spot we're commanded to pray it's you're fulfilling one of the 613 Commandments When you pray and so it's not just prayer it's it's a Mitzvah to do so and but it also shows a a comp compassion shows you have a heart of Flesh you know there's Jews out there that they don't know what's flying 85% of Jews didn't even know it was shabas last week 85% we're all sitting at our shabas tables you know shabat Shalom hey shabat Shalom hey and and meanwhile there's Jews out there they don't even know what shabas and they they they have no clue that we're supposed to actually like rejuvenate every week and like drop everything and just be which by the way let me go back to God being jealous so God spend all this time being jealous of you because you your mind's on everything but God and this is why meditation is so important in Judaism you have to meditate because if you don't get your mind focused meditation just means to focus one thing at a time until you become mentally disciplined if you don't meditate if you don't discipline yourself mentally you're you're you're you're never going to really succeed at being God's beloved and he spends all his time jealous of your distracted monkey brain and when the Torah says when the Torah says when the Torah says that God is a jealous God you know Oprah Winfrey you know that she she publicly on International television publicly denounces her affiliation with Christianity saying when I saw the words the God is a jealous God I said to myself what kind of God is that I'm out yeah and she just gave up God all because of the jealous God when the Torah says God is a jealous God is one of the most beautiful lines in the whole entire Torah I mean there's no be more beautiful line what it's basically saying I mean have you ever been jealous of someone if you're jealous of some it's because you love them so much that you can't stand sharing them and the torist says that God doesn't want to have to share us he doesn't like sharing neither our minds which we already spoke about nor our hearts in what we want because we're all like Spider-Man we're always shooting web everywhere you know I want that I'll take one of those and I'll take one of those and one of those and and and then we're on Amazon and we're just clicking away at what we want from what we want Amazon to deliver Amazon Prime is going to come by tomorrow you know and and we just got but after a while you're just caught in a giant web of of desires and gods out there in the cold just going like you know hi there you know where's uh what it where's Elmo where's uh where's wal where's Waldo you know we should start calling God Waldo I think maybe we should rename God Waldo you know for where's Waldo I meet a lot of people who like they're not sure there's a God you know like how do I know there's a God it's Waldo you Where is Waldo yeah that we're going to start saying Where is Waldo instead of shmay Israel yeah imagine me in sh tonight you know where's Waldo anyway but but God is is a the fact that God's a jealous God is is is just an indication of how much he loves us and by the way why is God so serious about chabas it's a little weird to have such serious penalties for breaking shabas I understand like if you killed somebody maybe that should be the death penalty or or you know kidnapping maybe that should be the denal death penalty rape maybe that should be the death penalty I mean I can understand death penalties you know especially in Judaism because Judaism you never meet out the actual penalty none of those penalties are it's not impossible to even execute anybody you know they say if one Court executed someone in 70 years it was a that was called a bloody Court you know for 70 years and if you look in our tour the death penalty is very liberal you know we're very liberal about the death penalty and yet and like if you get into Jewish law you realize you can't ever kill anybody so what in the world do we have a death penalty for and and how can you get the death penalty for not singing shabbat shalom you know shat Shalom hey shat Shalom hey where my Hast shat Shalom shat Shalom you know can you imagine killing somebody for not singing that song Tru I'll kill somebody if they do sing that song so they um I think cor's coming early yeah it's it's definitely coming early so so how can you not how can you kill someone for that and so the point is is obviously no one's ever getting killed for breaking shopas but but the the point is is that God's just telling you that you just spent the last week with your crackberry and your thumbs moving a th000 miles per hour on that thing you're you're trying to assert yourself on everything in the world like some dog walking by a lamp post marking off territory you haven't thought about me and you haven't thought about me in like who knows when so I'm just asking you to slide in the home plate Friday afternoon and stop pretending you actually did anything cuz you didn't cuz it's all an illusion anyway it's this is all one giant Truman Show we're in we're in The Matrix here you know like as if you're making any choices you think I'm teaching this class God's teaching this class okay it's it is Groundhog's Day yeah anyway God is teaching this class and what one second sorry and so God asks us to keep shabas but he plays hard ball he really wants it because he's not willing to have you ignore him for more than six days that's why it says in the Torah six days a week you shall ignore me and on shabas so rest from ignoring me now um here's the amazing thing about bad things happening to good people is that is that the whole planet has you know over 7 billion people and all those 7 billion people are going through something that they wish they were on the other side of and all 7 billion people are are right now in this like what's he singing I hav Aila you open the do so we can hear hav Aila a little better did it everybody whoa slow it down you don't spend enough time in studio I see there's a met okay that's enough of that someone like turn off the main power of our building please okay um is it on me right now okay so the uh hav Aila my goodness can you imagine the guy who wrote that he must have been on glue hav Aila I think it was on weed actually it was it was originally have a nargila was originally have a nargila V and we'll be happy have a Nara maybe was a Mexican it was have a tequila okay now yeah this is why I make Kish on Tequilas because it says tequila KES now um now listen up seriously I I never thought why bad things happen to good people would be our funniest class of the you know of the Year here but um just wasn't like the title that was supposed to be the funny class you know but I'm glad if I've lightened anyone's load who clicked on this particular uh bait you know so I hope I lightened your day a little bit anyway but you got seven plus billion people going through something and here here's the crazy thing if you ask all 10 billion of them did I just say it's 10 billion if you ask all seven billion of them 10 years later why they went through what they went through I mean based on IQ obviously but the majority of them would have a reason why they didn't explain it and they wouldn't even give it up they wouldn't give up what they went through if it would mean giving up who they became as a result of going through it now I mean atheism atheism like that someone could actually think that there's no God in a world with 7 billion intelligent people all going through something who 10 years later can explain why that happened why they're how they are actually inside a giant personal transformation seminar called life and God's the what do you call the leader of a seminar God's the seminar leader and I'll tell you as someone who runs seminars I got a Hebrew one starting tonight for men as someone who leads seminars you have to break people down a little bit you got to break them down a bit to get them to start to listen to start to become a little coachable you got to break them down I'm a seminar leader and I break people and I'm looking always for that one guy who's going to try to break me I love that guy had one recently in Muny what a moment what a moment we had with that guy he was going for a break break the rabbi you know what his trick was um can you tell me when lunch break is by the way we're in there for 11 hours straight can you tell me when lunch break is and I'm like no and he's like you know Rabbi we've already been in here for quite some time and and you know there's there's someone coming to pick me up for lunch so I'd like to be able to like let them know what time lunch is and I'm like I heard you the first time you asked I'm not telling you when lunch starts cuz I don't even know when lunch starts so I guess it starts when I say it's lunchtime and this guy's in his 70s and he started the whole seminar when we all sat around the circle and we started the whole seminar when we started the whole seminar he said he said that his wife's going to walk if he doesn't get a breakthrough meaning there was a lot at stake here and of course the whole room well he's he kept going by the way the whole room knows exactly why she's walking cuz he kept pressing me he was not going to let me be in control but think about it ladies and gentlemen if you really think about it it's really our need to control that has us so upset when we're going through God's seminar when we're going through those tough times the worst part about it is that stuff we're going through we don't want yet we can do nothing about it really we're just going to have to go through it you see the only way out in life in God seminar is through and all those people who are always going out they're running out they're medicating with grass or their or sports or or or Facebook or or uh Instagram or some other news feed or whatever everyone who tries to go out never leaves you see the only way out is through everyone try that together the only way out is through 1 2 2 three everybody the only way out is through and you go in there with everything you got you go in with your life you go in you don't resist you don't run because if you run it's going to stay there and it's going to get worse when you don't care for an in a cut gets infected and it can get worse and worse God forbid when our life's infected and we try to run from it it just gets worse wor we always wonder how people fall so far and the reason people fall so far when things are rough on them is because they're running away instead of in towards the only way out is through why do you think God made it so impossible to leave your spouse why did God make it so miserable I get phone calls all day even when I was mountain biking I was counseling somebody he's said you know he's like I'm married to a vulture you know vulture is better than my wife at least a vulture waits till you're dead and I've been getting the same phone call from this guy for 15 years cuz there's no way out the only way out is how through through you got to do your work he's got to do his work and become a man she's got to do her work and make him her man in conclusion of today's session I'd like to give you the actual meter of how spiritual they are you know normally spirituality is not something you can measure obviously but there is one measure of spirituality so I'd like you to listen carefully spirituality is the amount of time it takes you to go through something that you wish you weren't going through and realize that it was meant to be the amount of time yes for 7 billion people on the globe it may take 10 years for us to get the whole globe agreeing that what they went through and which by the way could only be with a god an involved God not the kind of God like created the world like like like people believe he like spun it like a top but then he went Paras sailing in a lot you know like God took off and just left it I people think that way do you realize if God took even the words let vegetation be upon the Earth that were set at Genesis in baret if God were to take those words out of creation for a second there would not be a single strand of cotton in this room most of you would be naked right now I'd be just wearing my vest which would be pretty foxy cuz this is let this is Let There Be animals it's made of wool and I'd still have my pants on though I'd be without underwear but as a surfer I don't think I wore underwear for about 12 years so I'd be cool you'd be a little embarrass the world only exists because God's God's uttering those words those 10 beams those n the word bate and the nine let there be let there be this let there be that that's how we're here right now the meter of spirituality is how long does it take you to go through something and realize why does it take you a year a more spiritual person maybe half a year like you realize why you broke your leg because you got you had to marry the nurse or something like half a year like the how long does it take you to to realize if it's a long time you're not that spiritual a person if it's a shorter time you're more spiritual even shorter whoa hey and I'll finish with a quick story and that was that I was walking to synagogue near my house and this elderly lady in her 80s who walked fully bent over like literally 90° which means she must had an amazing stomach muscles and back muscles I don't know how she did that cuz she was kind of thick and she she's walk she walks like this you know 80° her 80s she's going to Sho now the women's section had a thin RW Iron Gate you know with a lip that hits the you know post and it's standing straight open because it's time for prayer and on the other side of her is the men's section and I'm walking this way and I a friend of mine sees me says hey I said hey she thought I was saying Hey to her so she looks up realizes it's me and I'm I'm looking at someone else and she looks back and boom right on that lip with all her Force I mean she weighs twice as much as me boom right on her forehead and she makes this ghastly sound words it wasn't so understandable but it was definitely Hebrew and we quickly she's just like seeing stars and we grabbed her and we like held her and like brought her into the women's section and sat her down she was like literally almost unconscious from hitting this thing we walked outside and I said to him she said something when she hit the gate and he says yes she did you know what she said because he's Israeli understand better he he she said miali it was coming to me she's in real time 7 billion people yeah we see God's hand if 7 billion people 10 years later can say God was behind it all well they can at least say I know why I GRE how I grew another person maybe a few months maybe it takes another person a couple days to get over something difficult to realize why it's probably part of the not probably but definitely part of the story it's part of my Milla but this lady she was in real time things are happening in real time in her life know who knows what she just did I mean she probably like she probably like thought of God in the bathroom or something she's she's like so holy like that like that was like her her her big sin You Know M Ali m al it was coming to me how long does it take you to say that how long does it take you to say that this is exactly what I need I'm in God's seminar I am I mean God's seminar I I'm going through stuff not running away from stuff I'm in I'm in and putting up that white flag which is the key to all growth the white flag of surrender that I surrender to my circumstances right now I'm going to try to do something to get out of it but I at least in this moment surrender to what's going on and I'm awake and I'm alive and I'm watching and I'm growing and I'm moving accordingly as God presses my ploh into shape I'm Gumby and God is moving me exactly where I need to be so that I can become great thank you very much um just want to mention to everybody want to mention everybody uh to join my club please join my club already it's uh it's uh y yomo media club.com please join that we're also we uh thank God we we raised money for the poor bride we already got her uh dress in a half a th to and shels for a dress for her her marriage and stuff okay Shalom everybody said