how to react to tragedy

Tonight we're going to address the recent tragedy that happened in our community. No question the most horrifying thing in the world. But since it happened, there's been a outbreak of Shilas. People want to know what they can learn from it. And that's a valid a valid response. But there's also been a big eruption of kashes. We had in shul this past chabas other people have been asking me. People are horrified and they basically can't believe how such a thing can happen. We're going to address that. We're going to address the cautious. We're going to address the shilas. Uh and we're also going to address why it is that people are asking the cautious. But first there's one condition. There's before we start we need to first understand that in order to have any productive response to this there's something that we need to do we need to separate our emotions from our not an easy thing it says in in kazal not to try to pacify somebody and of Is we're still in the category of but if people are asking questions when it's me then you need to answer but we need to understand that the our and our emotions are both important parts of us but they serve different purposes like a screwdriver and a hammer. If you try to hammer in a screw instead of a screwdriver it's not going to work. And if you try to use a screwdriver on a nail it's not going to work. If you try to use your uh to address an emotional need with a answer, it's not going to work. If somebody needs an answer, you can give him an answer. If he needs a hug, you can give him a hug. But if he needs a hug, he's not looking for an answer. And if he needs an answer, a hug is not going to help. In the perishitzk in the sidhag it actually says that this is the every morning where misspell should save us from a baldin kosha from a difficult adversary who is a difficult adversary. So it says somebody who always argues with You tell him something and he's not mab lines down he says why is this guy notab says the guy wants to feel something in a place where he has to understand with his intellect He balden that guy is baldin it's impossible to deal with him and we ask not to subject us to such people somebody who wants to feel when he's supposed to understand in it's not going to work person wants to feel let him say I want a hug if a person wants an answer let him say he wants an answer but if a person really wants a hug and he demands an answer you're not going to be able to answer him and vice versa imagine And a guy comes to you and he says that he feels like a poor man and he has $100 million in the bank. And you tell him, "Look, you have $100 million in a bank, but he says, "I don't feel it." Okay? So, he needs psychologist, maybe he needs a medicine, maybe he needs something, but an answer you're not going to be able to give him. You can psychoanalyze him, but an answer you're not going to give him. He has $100 million in the bank. He's not going to be mabbell an answer. A lot of times people come to me, it really happens and they say they don't feel like they're doing mitzvah even though they are. I don't know what to tell such people and I tell them this m of a guy has $100 million in the bank. We need to separate our from our emotions. The job of our emotions is to galvanize us to motivate us to push us to do what our says to do. But the job of our is to tell us which is which. The sele tells you what's right and what's wrong. The tape cycle tells you what's correct and what's incorrect, what's true and what's false. The job of the emotions is to give you the motivation to actually act and act with passion, to love what's true and to hate what's not true and to act on it. It's the gasoline by way of mushel. The driving a car the emotions like the gas pedal and the cycle is like the steering wheel. The gas pedal makes you go fast in a certain direction, but it's not going to give you direction. If you don't use the steering wheel and you just slam on the gas pedal, you're going to crash. And if you just use the gas pedal, you know, you just use the steering wheel, you know exactly where you want to go. But you don't use the gas, you're not really going anywhere. The job of the cycle is to tell you what's right and what's wrong. And the job of the emotions is to tell you is to push you to do what your cycle tells you. It's very simple. If a guy's uh driving uh in the winter and he's going 60 mph on a highway and his car hits a patch of ice, what does his emotions tell him to do at that moment? Slam on the brakes. If you listen to your emotions at that moment, you're dead. Especially in a crisis situation, a person is supposed to try to jettison his emotions and to use a sel. If he uses his emotions in a crisis situation where the the crisis itself causes a person's emotions to to to erupt, then he's he's dead meat. If person wakes up in the middle of the night and there's a fire in his house, what do his emotions tell him to do? Open the door and run. He's not supposed to do that. What does he fall, crawl, whatever it is, close the doors, feel the doors before, drop, stop, and roll. Whatever it is, a person has to use his sel in crisis situations because if a person uses his emotions in crisis situations, he's dead meat and doesn't have to be so dramatic. Person gets a mosquito bite. What does his emotions tell him to do? He listens to it. It just gets worse. When a person is hurt, when a person is in a a crisis situation, he needs to be able to separate his emotions from his and to understand nothing wrong with his emotions. He needs to understand what he wants. Does he want an emotional response or does he want an answer response? Both are legitimate, but if you mix up one with the other, the hammer is legitimate and a screwdriver is legitimate, but if you try to use one where the other, it's not going to work. A jackhammer is legitimate and a Q-tip is legitimate, but if you use a jackhammer to clean your ear, you're in trouble. And if you use a Q-tip to try to break the sidewalk, it's not going to work. Emotions are good and seal is good, but you have to know how to use which is which. Now let's try to figure out over here what we're addressing. People are shocked. People are traumatized. People are rattled. At the same time, people are saying they want answers. They have questions. There's a lot of overlap over here. And we're going to try to separate it. First, we're going to address the cautious questions. How could Hashem do this? And how could it be such a thing? And the truth of the matter is they were one of the speakers previously who already answered all the cautious who was the father of the nifty. He made tremendous keshashem in my mind a much bigger kishm than all the other kdishes hashems that people are talking about. He got up there by the leva. They have to understand what a terrible pain it is that this father was in. It's the worst pain in the world. How much of a pain? I'll tell you about from the dri by the so Hashem first tells then Hashem tells don't worry don't at that point asks Hashem I don't understand didn't you tell me didn't you tell me that um uh is going to live so why did you tell me before she so he asked Akasha why did wait until Hashem told not to ask this kasha he should have asked the kasha as soon as hashem told him tok and he says the oil and a's humility he says losing a kid he knew that he would lose or he thought he would lose even au felt in his humility that even though he's going to do what Hashem says but He should ask Hashem why and Hashem should give him an explanation and he should be makabo the explanation he would be unable to in his humility he held that he he's not asking Hashem because he wouldn't be ready to be mab the answer this is au after was safe and hashem told him don't now he's be able to understand but the the the the trauma the pain he says over there. There's no love in the world like the love of parents for kids. And that Abrau was going to lose it. Lose his son. He would do it. He's not going to disagree with Hashem. He's not going to rebel against Hashem. But that he should be able to understand in his mind that he should be able to understand in his mind. What uh why Hashem is doing this? He was not ready. In his humility, he held he would not be ready. So he didn't ask because he wasn't ready to get an answer. If after was safe then au asked because then he was ready to understand that's au was when he was three years old. So you can imagine the explains why parents love children much more than children love parents. He says because when when the nature was first created that was when the world was created. Who was the first person? Odharishan. He was created with the human emotions. Odarishian had children. He was created with a love for children. That was in the tea. But he had no parents. So Adam Harisha never experienced love for parents. That wasn't in the tea. That was a trait that later on the next generation had. But when the world was created, there was no such thing as love for parents because Odum didn't have parents. He had children. Ma, it's in the tea. when it was created the parents love for children the children's love for parents was acquired by the world in the next generation so it's a completely different category and this father is standing there with the son nobody in the world should know such pain and there's no such pain in the world like that and you know what he said he said I thank Hashem he's talking to the to the nifty says I thank Hashem for giving me nine years with This was in all the media and all the newspapers. It was the biggest kesish hashem of this whole thing to my mind. That's what he said. I thank Hashem for giving me nine years with you and you being nine years with me. I want to explain this. I have a question. When somebody dies when they're 9 years old, we look it as a tremendous tragedy. When somebody dies when they're n 90 years old, we don't have any cautious. Could somebody explain to me why that is intellectually? Why is that? When somebody dies when they're 90, who killed them? It's Hashem. You know how many people die every year? Over 55 million. Nobody asks any conscious how could Hashem kill 55 million people a year every year 55 million somebody asked me this shabas how could Hashem do this would a father do this and I asked him if somebody's 90 years in a nursing home 90 years old would a father kill him that doesn't bother you would a father make somebody old and sick would a father make somebody pain at all Why? Why is it? Let's think about this. Why is it that people are bothered when somebody dies nine but not when somebody dies 90? So we'll get there. We'll get there. But first we go to Gmor and Shabba Alf. Gumar and Shabba. We all know the Gmorrah. The ge comes to hil and he asks hil to teach him ka takula standing on one foot and hil tells him what's hateful to you don't do to anybody else rashi explains that the friend what's hateful to you don't do to your friend means hashem of what does it mean they will say that it means don't do to somebody don't do to hashem what you wouldn't want done to you let's Say you were a big gir wealthy man and you had a friend and out of the goodness of your heart you gave him a present of a million dollars. He had parosa problems. You gave him a present of a million dollars. One day you're walking down central one day you're driving down Central Avenue. You're parking your car and you're looking for a quarter for the meter and you don't have change. And you see this guy who just gave a million dollars walking down the street and you say, "Oh, could you please lend me a quarter for the meter and he says, "I'm sorry. I have a policy. I don't lend people money." That's a pretty big jerk, that guy, right? You wouldn't want somebody to You wouldn't want somebody to do that to you. And nowadu gives us everything we have. I'm not talking about our houses. I'm not talking about our clothing. I'm not talking about our cars. Hashem gives us our eyes. How much would you sell your eyes for? If I were to give you a million dollars for your eyes to donate them to some person, would you take a million dollars for your eyes? One eye. How much is it worth? Hashem gives us eyes and all he asks that we don't look in certain places. A little gratitude. I give you eyes. Just what I give you million dollars and I'm asking to borrow a quarter. I'm giving you eyes and I just ask you don't look in certain places. I give you ears just don't listen to Linhara. I give you a home just put on a muza. I give you a brain just use it to learn Tyra. I give you an arm just put on Hillel was explaining to the Gyra. He wasn't explaining to him all the but he was explaining to him what the motive for fulfilling thera is the best for fulfilling thera is this is what we mean when we say from love we have to thank for everything we have and that's avoid but I want to tell you something there are two types of thank yous that we say to people There's in that ask aasha when the kahan after they finish we say ask aasha why do we give the kayan they're obligated to they didn't do it to do us a is a mitzvah so some people answer the kayen can walk out the rash says no it's not true it's not a kasha because if you benefit from somebody questions we'll take later. If you benefit from somebody, even if he was obligated to give you something, if you benefit from his act, you owe him gratitude. Even if it's expected of him, even if it's obligatory of him, even if it's required of him, you owe him gratitude. So, we thank the kahan. That's one type of gratitude. There's another type of gratitude where somebody gives us something not out of any obligation, not of any ulterior motive, mamish out of the goodness of his heart. That's a different type of somebody comes and gives you mamish. Not because he owes you anything. Not because he's confining you, not because he's going to gain anything by it. Only because he cares about you. You have to be grateful to him too. You have to be grateful to the kahhan. If somebody pays you a debt he owes you, okay, without any shil of ribbis, you want to be grateful and you want to thank him. No problem. But it's a different type of sativ when a person does not owe us anything. When we thank Hashem, which hakar is visit, does Hashem owe us anything? Oh, can we expect anything from him? You see, when Hill said this is kalera, it's not just the motive. That's a nice mus and it's true in in in the as as a but it's more than that. It's why did Hashem make the whole world? What's in it for him? The answer is there's nothing in it for Hashem. Hashem is the Hashem gains nothing from the world. Hashem made the world only for our sake. Hashem it was not possible even if kavok he would want theoretically to gain something which he would never want to gain something because it's not shia he would be unable to gain anything hashem is perfect you can't improve on that can't gain anything hashem made the world only for our sake nothing else he created what we call that we could connect to him and we and hashem will share the wealth of his perfection with us and in order to facilitate take that he created haz created nishas. He created mitzvah and it's all one long plan in order for us to get hab. But whatever Hashem did, he created only he did only for our sake. In fact, there's nothing that Hashem does at all that's not for our sake. Every act that Hashem does, he doesn't gain anything by it. It's all for us. We need to understand that Hashem owes us nothing. In fact, it's almost impossible to imagine such a thing. Because if I give somebody a present and I do something good for somebody, at the very least I get a good feeling from it. Say I get a mitzvah from it. There's something a moral obligation I feel. Whatever it is, Hashem, none of the above. Nothing. Hashem did an act of creation for no reason at all except for the benefit of the creations. Hashem, nobody does anything without any good purpose. That's aus. The male of the world had to have a purpose. But when I do something, there's a purpose for me. Hashem did something, there was an act on Hashem's part and a purpose on the part of the creations. Hashem owes nobody anything. The hakar we have for Hashem for what he gives us is a completely different level than the gratitude we have for anybody in this world. Because if anybody gives us something even a present out of his own good out of his the goodness of his heart, no question we owe him gratitude. No question. Still that person benefited by giving us a good feeling, a mitzvah, a a moral uh act, whatever it is, Hashem benefits not at all. We owe for our eyes in a way that we can't even imagine owing a human being. It's a different type of gratitude because clearly alp the more a person does not gain the more a person is altruistic and selfless in his uh benevolence the more gratitude we're obligated and boru is completely and totally benevolent without any gain whatsoever. What we owe Hashem for our eyes is not merely because nobody else can give us eyes, but because Hashem gains nothing from it. Absolutely nothing. And there's no question that we have no right to expect from Hashem anything. We all said that. But now let's understand it. When we thank Hashem, do we really thank Hashem the way we should? Do we think Hashem like the we say and now I'm going to repeat the question again. Why is it that we think we believe we feel that when a 9-year-old dies people have cautious but when a 90-year-old dies they don't. The answer is there's an expectation because we're used to it. We're used to people living to 90 or 80 or whatever it is. So there's an expectation that Hashem should allow people. We have developed an expectation because of our experience. So we're not traumatized when a 90-year-old is nifa in the comfort of his bed. But when a 9-year-old does, we are traumatized because and certainly when it's not in the comfort of a bed, certainly in a terribly horrific manner because we have developed an attitude that we expect from a boru that akadesh should give us something that he did not give us. The truth is that we have to get rid of that attitude. Every day that we wake up in the morning is a gift from Hashem. When we say, it's not thank you that Hashem you you woke me up. It's thank you Hashem for another day of life. You gain nothing by this Hashem. You have no motive to do this Hashem. You have no reason to do this Hashem. You gave me out of the goodness of your heart with no reason whatsoever. I didn't earn this. I don't it's not coming to me. You don't owe me anything, Hashem. And nevertheless, you woke me up this morning. That's maidani. Every day of life is a gift. You want to teach something to your children, teach them that every day they should thankish Boru for being on this world and understand Boru owes nobody anything. And if somebody lives 90 years, those are 90 years of a mat. Every day of moment that every moment he lived, it's a presence that gave him. It's not an entitlement. It's a matayam. And every day that a person lives, not only does he breathe, but he has his eyes. Just because Hashem gave us our eyes yesterday means Hashem should still give us them today. Hashem's every moment. Hashem makes a gazer. Eyes eyes. And it's a new gazer. Every moment. Hashem did it yesterday means okay, we should expect Hashem to do it today. Oh no. Yeah, we expect our parents to give us a birthday present on our birthday. Even though it's a present, but there's an expectation. Tati, how come you didn't give me a birthday present? It's not a fair question, but there's an expectation. There's no expectation from Hashem. Hashem would lose nothing if the entire world would disappear. Hashem gains nothing by the entire world. There is nothing in this for him at all. Father gives a child a birthday present, he has such hano from it. Hashem has no literal hano from anything over here. It's only because he wants us to gain. We benefit Hashem zero. It's all a matana. We need to understand that every day is a gift. 9 years of life is nine years of a gift. There are no expectations of Hashem. We have no right to expect anything from him. Alp there's no such thing. Boru who has a for everybody wants to give and because he gave Ruvane something and Shim not that thing. It doesn't diminish what Shim received as a maton from Hashem and we have no right to make some law of averages and say well on the average Hashem gives this and therefore Hashem must give me this and if he doesn't give me this I'm going to have tinus. If somebody's giving you something because they're obligated to give you. So if they give it to you, you don't have any kindness. And if they don't give it to you, then you have complaints. If they're not obligated to give you, then if they don't give you, you have no complaints. But if they do give you, you're tremendously appreciative. And the proportion between the ratio between appreciation for receiving versus complaint for not receiving, that proportion changes. That proportion changes proportionately to the ratio between the obligation that the person had versus the altruism that the person had in giving it to us. And by there is zero obligation in 100% altruism. Nobody has a right to have any tinness on Hashem if Hashem doesn't give us something. It's all a mat. You live life like this, we would be much happier people for everything. I remember Ra Vic Miller used to say, you see these see this button hole around the button hole there's this stitching and I heard this from him many times. He used to thank Hashem that the button hole has stitching around it because otherwise the button would tear the button hole and the button wouldn't be able to button the shirt. Now of course as he had a car also for the button and for the shirt and for the workers that made the shirt and Boru sent the people that picked the cotton they now have a cotton gin or they for the cotton gin for the invention or whatever it is. Every single thing we have, we thank daily. We make a in the morning. That's what we're supposed to have in mind. We thank Hashem for our clothes. Why should Hashem give us clothes? Cuz he gave it to us yesterday. So today we expect, oh no, imagine a guy would wake up for the first time 20 years old. Hashem sends him on this world. He wakes up 20 years old. He doesn't know what's He doesn't know anything about it. He looks at his arm. He moves his arm. A whole day he'll be playing with his fingers. What an amazing thing. Do you know what kind of technology goes into a person's hand? All the scientists in the world wouldn't be able to make one. Certainly not today. The bones and the the joints and the the the cells. You know how many nissim there are just to move your hands? A guy that would be born 20 years old would be sitting there like this whole day. But only until he starts realizing how can I see my hand and he realizes he has an eye. You know that if you have a very expensive camera, it's not nearly as an eye. An eye. Besides that, it focuses. It lets the right amount of light in. This the the no what do they call the thing that no that the the pupil it expands and it contracts depending upon how much light is there. If you have a camera, so if it's automatic settings, a shakra camera, if it's manual settings, you got to sit there like that and sit there with the manual settings and figure out how much light you want in and how much fraction of a second you want the lens to open up. The eye does all the work by itself. Who told it how to do that? Focuses. You look far, it'll focus far. You look close, it looks How does it know what you want? How does your eye know if you want to look far or close? Well, you thought about it. So imagine you think something and your car comes to you. You think car open doors and the doors open. What amazing technology would that be? You think I want to look far, the eye focuses out there in the landscape. I want to look over here, it focuses over here. How does the eye know? Only because we thought. Amazing technology. You know, I don't want to go into it. We all know it. We've done it in the past here in Shul. Millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of parts, billions of parts go into the eye. any single one. If it wouldn't be there or be in the wrong place, the eye would not work. And then the eye sends the signal to the brain. Doesn't send it to the foot. It sends it to the brain. And the brain figures out how to interpret it. Person would be born 20 years old. He'd be going out of his mind. He'd be jumping for joy. He'd be wondering who is the tremendous gir that bestowed this upon him. the first day of his life, second day of his life also. Eventually though, he'll probably get used to it and that's a terrible thing. That's the sense of of entitlement that we have uh when a boru gives us things and we have to get rid of that. The father of his boy looked at this looked at his boy like that every day was a mat as a tremendous kdish hashem but I have a question this whole how come we don't see it that way yeah when we explain it is that way but does it I find it a bit odd that people in the They're asking kashes at the same time that the father of this boy has no kashas. Could be he's a much bigger saddic than everybody else. But it doesn't have that doesn't have to be the now we're addressing the emotions al that's the way it is. But for some reason why is it that he saw it this way and there are people who never met him never met the boy never met any of them and they're having kashes and at the same time he's there by the leva and he's thanking Hashem for the nine years. I'll tell you why. Guy wins the lottery. His prize is that he gets a one week vacation. Everything he wants in the world. One week fantasy life. Anything. Everything. Now he's not a Yid. So what does he want? A big fancy house in the fanciest neighborhood with the fanciest car and the best food. Everything for a week. Everything you can imagine in this world he has for a week. That's his lottery prize. Amazing. No, at the end of the week the lottery people come say 12:00 midnight time to go. He goes and he unbelievably happy. He had a week of this life. Now, let's say somebody doesn't know what he experienced during that week and all they know is that in in the newspapers it says so and so gets kicked out of his house onto the street. What a terrible this is. How could they kick this guy out onto the street? There's you know the is that if a person had a big mansion and then he became poor in sodaka you're allowed to give him back a mansion because a person is used to that standard of living because a person's used to that standard of living he's in pain if he doesn't retain it kind of pain the guy's in meantime this guy is smiling happy because he had a week of this life but it's because the people did not experience that week they only experienced him getting kicked out of the house so they have a uh in imba uh uh unbalanced emotional input, imbalanced data input that's not causing them to process it differently than this person. This father, the difference between us and this father is that this father experienced had this child for 9 years. Nobody else did. All we know is Rahman the the the bad part of the story. But he had the light and the beauty and all the hano that he had from this kid for all these nine years. And nowador says time is up. This kid's time in this world is over. And he's been living with this kid for 9 years. It's a completely different experience than everybody else has. Everybody else only knows what a terrible ending was over here. But he won the lottery for nine years and that's how he's looking at it. So everybody else is like bent out of shape because all they know is just part of the story. They don't understand that there's somebody there who won the lottery for nine years and he thanks Boru for every minute of it. And if Hashem says all right time is up time is up but every day it was an amazing gift. If you don't know about the gift, you did not experience, you only vicariously experience the trauma without the gift, then people are only going to have emotional input of part of the story. An emotional vicarious experience of the the painful part of the story, but not of the winning the lottery part of the story. Ma people have cautious. Ma the father was in a completely different position. He had a completely different experience. Everybody who has kids won the lottery. Yes. Every Yes. And if they look at things properly, yes, that's exactly how they're going to look at it. But here my the question is not why somebody appreciates his children more than the next guy. question is how could somebody feel the trauma on the outside more than he's doing it on the inside? The answer is he's looking at his child properly and he understands that he won the lottery for 9 years. Now don't make a mistake. It's still a tragedy even though he won the lottery for 9 years. And the reason is because human beings are for human beings and human beings still have feelings and there's still a day so here and there's still a tremendous pain. There's no cruelty from Hashem. Hashem doesn't own any owe anybody anything. But just because there's no cruelty doesn't mean there's no pain. Tremendous amount of pain. And pain messes with a person's mind. that messes with a person's life. Pain is a terrible thing and we not supposed to be cruel people. We're not supposed to are not supposed to be a when somebody feels pain that's a that that's a tragedy. And the pain that this person feels whether it's not a question of unfair yes fair it's not the that he had something that he no longer has emotionally that's tremendous pain it's not cruelty it's not unfairness but pain there is and that's the tremendous tragedy and that's what we feel for a person in pain. Just because something's doesn't mean it's not a painful. Listen, we know that everything Hashem does is good, right? Everything's nevertheless, but on something that's bad, we make on something that's good, we make if everything's good, why don't we make on everything? The answer is because we're not talking about good beneficial versus bad unbeneficial. We're not talking about good uh benevolent as opposed to bad uh cruel. We're talking good pleasurable as opposed to bad painful. Just because it's good for us doesn't mean it's not painful. Pain is something that's very undesirable. And if somebody has pain, we need to feel for them. We need to empathize with them. None of this has to do with none of this has to do with fairness. None of this has to do with cruelty. This has to do with pain. That's what makes it a tragedy. The tremendous amount of pain, the unexpectedness of it. Somebody wins the lottery, at least they know after a week it's over. Here it's unexpected, too. There are so many reasons why reasons on top of reasons why this family is suffering in pain. But there's a difference between suffering in pain and for that for that we have to empathize with them and and and and and no question. But none of this has to do with the question of how could do such a thing. Two completely different things and we need to separate. Afterwards, the questions afterwards. Now, what do we learn from this? Number one, we learn from this that we should recognize every day of life as a gift. And everything we have is a gift from Hashem. If we think we're entitled to something, it's worse for us. And because we owe and because if we take for granted what we have, we don't appreciate it and we don't enjoy it as much and we don't realize what a gift it is. Just remember the difference between the guy that wakes up when he's 20 years old and he sees his his hands move, how what a happy person that is. He's a millionaire. He's mammish a millionaire. Nothing you can offer him will match what he what he already has. Imagine somebody was born blind to Rahman and then one day they were able to get their sight back. Suddenly they see a whole world. They look outside and they see an oil slick on the floor. And in the oil slick, you know, there those colors like a rainbow inside the oil slick. To us, it's filth. To somebody that just got their eyesight, oh, look at that. Look at that rainbow in there. There's no reason why we should not look at the world like that. Ah, the reason the reason is because we have to tell us to take things for granted and to get used to it. We need to focus every day on what we have and that everything we have is a gift from Hashem. That's number one. Every day, this is not see I know people I'm going to speak a bit about this now, but people when something bad happens and they have a bad feeling, they come and they say, "Okay, address this. I alleviate my bad feeling and now life is back to normal. there's a problem. Fix the problem and now make it as if it was before the problem. That's a very bad thing. We should not just Okay, fine. We're traumatized now. Maybe we understand. Now we're ice traumatized and now we go back living life the way it was. Oh no. Oh no. There's a vote from heritz that by Leva when you go to Leva uh Kev burial you're not supposed to walk back the same way you came. Says why? Because after a person goes to a leva he can never be the same person he was beforehand. You can't be in the same place you were beforehand. We cannot got to be in a different place. We cannot be in the same place we were beforehand. The the goal of this, Hashem did not send a message to us over here in order for us to just say, "Okay, fine. Now I'm not going to be traumatized." That's that's I cannot tell you. I don't know what's going on. You have to ask somebody more than me is exactly what the was over here. But I could tell you what the was not. That's for sure. that the me whatever whatever the is it is definitely not the message to the world. Okay, go uh figure out why this is not a traumatic experience for everybody. Go settle it and then go back to your life the way it was. Oh no, we need to understand that everything gives us as a gift. That's number one. It's the eight. You know what it is? It's the sahara that that when when a person when a person is all traumatized to say okay now we alleviated the trauma and that's fine. There's a problem with that because you know what you're doing you're making Hashem the defendant come with a how could Hashem do this? Hashem is the defendant. Okay, fine. We found the defendant innocent and now we all go back to our lives. Oh no. Hashem is not the defendant over here. And not only is Hashem note not the defendant, here's part two. Whenever Sor has happened to Yidden, throughout history, the reaction has always been one reaction and not two, just one. Three weeks just started. The first Bikto. How did our sages react? What was the reaction? The first question. There's a question questions bikush was destroyed. What was the first question? First question is what did we do that caused this? Says in the medish the belt knows it from the balv but it's really a medish. They just say the balv because it's maralume. The bashm always used to say this hashem. Hashem is your shadow. What does it mean? Hashem is your shadow. It means that a shadow does nothing on its own. A shadow only mimics the moves of the person who is who whose shadow it is. Hashem also does nothing on his own. Hashem, Hashem just react. Hashem doesn't act. Hashem just reacts. It's pushet. Since the world is only here for our sake, anything that happens in the world is only because of something that happened over here is is is also for our sake. If it's if it's whatever it is, but Hashem doesn't do anything for Hashem. Hashem, Hashem doesn't act. Hashem only reacts. When the first base was destroyed, the question was, what is Hashem reacting to? The second Bikto was destroyed, the question is what is Hashem reacting to? The Jews were thrown out of Spain. Theit wrote a cipher. What is Hashem reacting to? A whole safer on this. The the nivas in his introduction to migillis writes that when we sit on the floor tishov and we we relate all the happens by the miktosh. There is no tlas to relate the sorus unless we also relate the causes the a that caused the sorus because otherwise you have the shal the quotes in why are we sitting on the floor tishov and fasting and crying number one if we want to cry so that something should not happen in the future let's say there's they're making so but This happened already. So what do you expect to do with your with your tishov activity? And two, shouldn't we be mab? We say every all the time that everything hashem does is for good. Weab and here we are on tishov sitting on the floor crying. Terret says we're not crying because the b mikt was destroyed. We're crying because of the ais that caused the ba mikt to be destroyed. When World War I came, when World War II came, the reaction of the Gel Israel was what is Hashem reacting to. When the B mikdash was destroyed, you won't see anywhere that says, "Okay, from now on, we have to boycott all Roman products." No such thing. From now on, the Romans don't rent them houses. No such thing. No such thing. What is Hashem reacting to is the question said it says in the Gmorra at the end of the generation will be like a dog said a dog is the of a dog that when you hit it with a stick the dog will defend itself by attacking the stick not the person that's holding the stick. He really should be attacking the person holding the stick because that's really the enemy. The stick is nothing. But the dog doesn't understand that the stick is only a tool uh wielded uh by his enemy. So too when Msiah before Mashiah comes the generation is going to think when the make sus for the yidden that the are really the enemy when the truth is they're just a stick and it's using them as a bludgeon. It's not that Hashem is the defendant. Yeah, there is a and there is a court case, but we're the defendants. Imagine the defendant walks into court and the judge asks him, "What do you have to say for yourself?" And the defendant says, "Judge, I'll have Rahmonus on you. Don't worry. We're we're putting Hashem in the defendant seat. Hashem is not the defendant over here. We're the defendant. question is what do we have to say for ourselves when sors happen it's hashem is reacting there is a for all I know could be not a psychologist hashem but it could be that we feel instinctively that there is a over here there is a court case over here just our instincts are not taking it all the way we're throwing hashem as a defense mechanism into the defendant seat. We know there's a court case. We feel there's a court case here. We feel there's an accountability here, but we're throwing Hashem into the defendant seat. Hashem, you're accountable. Why did you do this? And the truth of the matter is, we're the defendants. People are supposed to be doing chuva. People are supposed to look at themselves as defendants and try to have ra beg the court for ramonus and the court is we're not the judge and hashem is the defendant. Hashem is the judge and we're the defendant. Everybody's talking about the great kesish hashem that this terrible tragedy caused. Not the kdish hashem that I mentioned. the reaction of the community that's all wonderful thing but brings a medish in his med goes like this. He say he says the the the executive summary of what the med says is that Hashem that we dab into Hashem to end the Torus is not the causes Hashem to react. Hashem brings the Torus because he wants the Here's the metric. There was a king uh going with his uh entourage and suddenly he hears the king with the royal entourage uh damsel in distress. A woman screaming, "Help! Help! The robbers are here. They're killing me. They're mugging me." So the king has his security as the shroom over there and he tells the security, "Go see what's going on over there. Take care of it." The security goes, they see the robbers. They kill the robbers. So the woman is safe. The woman comes to the king. Oh, thank you, king. What a wonderful thing you did. I'm forever grateful. Fine. King goes home and he decides, you know what? I like that woman. I want to make her queen. So king sends a message to her. Be my queen. She says, not interested. Not interested even in in talking to the king. Doesn't even answer the door. King says, at least talk to me. Not interested. He sends her flowers, not interested. King says, "All right, I have an idea." He sends robbers after her. And at the same time he sends robbers robbers after her, he runs his entourage in her neighborhood where the robbers are going to attack her. She's going to scream, "Help, help." Then she'll talk to the king. What's the nimchil? Nimshil is Hashem wants us to connect with him. He wants us to do chuva. He wants us to do mitzvah. He sends us roses. We wake up in the morning with no soras. Barak Hashem. Hashem says, "Are you going to do chuva? Are you going to do mitzvah? You going to talk to me? Are you going to pray to me and in your prayers express your gratitude for the life of Scholam and Shalva you have?" One day goes by, uh-uh. Next day goes by, Hashem sends roses again. Third day goes by, a guy gets a raise maybe at his work. Still no no no great reaction on his part. Hashem says, "Listen, this is the purpose of our being in this world is to pray to Hashem and to praise to praise Hashem and to do mitzvah." Hashem says, "Look, we could do this easy or we could do this hard. I'll get you to pray for to me, no problem." And then Hashem sends Torus in order for the person to pray. Now it's wonderful Hashem people going to but if wean if we only go if we only become better people when Hashem sends susmon what are we telling Hashem? Hashem says every day he gives us and what is our reaction and only when there's a people get together and they do say to him and they there was a satire once there was a a zer a very bad ruler came into Romania uh go I think his name was or gaga I'm not sure how to pronounce it it's gimmlalof gimalof when I read this I don't know how the nudas go I don't know who this guy is, but he was a big Axorian. It was very bad for the Yidden. They made a an AIA to kill him in all of this. And then Barak Hashem, what happened was this guy got killed. I think it was the Russians, if I remember right, uh took care of the guy and that was it. And they wanted to cancel the Sabb said, "No, you can't cancel theifa. There's no such thing that when there's sorus, you make anifa to say to him to do tru and then when there's oy now you want to cancel it." Oh no. Oh no. And he had a mis he said there's the same thing happened and the said the same thing you can't cancel it because it's us now sends us everyday roses we should make just like this telecast broadcasts things why because a day went by a month went by a year went byemus to hashem We only get together and do better when happen. What are we telling Hashem? This is my what's upshot is like this. Everybody asks why just because you didn't serve Hashem with such terrible things should happen. Terra says that's not like this. Coil. What does it mean? Mayo coil means Hashem gave us coil. We have lives of peace and happiness and we're not even Hashem. And we're not even Hashem. Hashem says, "Oh, no problem. I'll get you to be with me. You know what done? I'll send and you'll see how fast you do chuva. You'll see how fast you stop wasting your time and you say and you're starting praying to me and you're starting to do in place that you weren't now you'll be now you'll be no problem. When sorus happen everybody gets more from that's a terrible thing I it's a good that they get more from when sorus happen but it's bad that they only get from when sorus happen it's much better for us if we become from not only when sors don't happen because sors don't happen to be we have a choice we could be hashem or could be hashem from It's always been that way. It always been that way. Next time should never happen anymore. But next time sorus happened, no problem. People ask questions, I'll say it always was that way. We think that when you tell people they should beem, oh, it was always happened that way. No problem. But then when the turists come, it was always happened that way. No, I want answers and I demand. And what do you mean it was always that way? Uh-uh. It doesn't work that way. can't play both sides of the coin here. Um, one more thing have here an article that was written over in the Jewish Observer when October 1977. It was a dra that was Raf Hutner gave in to Misora was written over actually he's a local rabbi nowadays in Sidhurst by Feman over this drush is all about World War II and um it's the role that the Zionists had in causing World War II. That's what the article is about. But in the middle of the article, Rafner writes that in order to prevent people from being traumatized when sors happen, we need to teach people, our children, ourselves, that the world is not always a rosy place. that besides all the midim that hashem does there is also para of quote we must learn these parts of the with our children as well as the sunnier portions these portions must become as much as of part of the Jewish psyche as the mitzvah we strain so hard to imbue thus when a Jewish child or indeed adult hairs for the first time of Yiddish the sufferings of the Jewish people he will not be shocked by a contradiction to what he has learned But he'll see the living proof of the Torah he has absorbed. Where does it say anywhere that there's no Torus in the world? Somebody asked me, non-Jewish person, non-Jewish people are also talking about this says, "Does this cause you to lose your faith?" I said, "I don't understand the question. Does it say in the Torah that's that that tragedies don't happen? I don't understand. But if we only teach people ourselves, our children that everything is fun and games in the world then it's taka a problem. We need to teach people our children that that sometimes turrets happen so that they will be prepared. Now this rafutner there's a marker for it in the safer perishi perishi midashish he's discussing things that are obstacles to people's avoid hashem and he says when things don't go smoothly now smoothly doesn't only mean bad things happen also when good things happen when things don't go with the normal routine so it kind of jolts people out of their schedule and it's harder for them to continue on their void is hashem But certainly when bad things happen to people it jolts them out and says what is the solution to this it says that people need a person has to be strong to accept uh the things that happen he should think about sorus before sorus come some people think let's not think about sorus until they come then when they come they take you by surprise should expect sorus at any moment. He should say to himself and it doesn't only mean bad things. It means also good things, things that are not routine that eventually, you know, things will happen. And this is the what does he's prepared in case sorus happen. If a person doesn't think like this, if a person expects things of the world, if a person says that he's not going to have Torus, then when he gets Torus, he's going to be bent out of shape. We need to understand there are Torus in the world. And we need to absorb this before they happen so that it doesn't shock us when it happens. then it's already too late. If we ex the the the reason for emotional trauma in cases like this is because there's a gap between expectations and reality. Like we said, the difference between a 90-year-old and a 9-year-old. We have to expect it. And really, the Raenutam has a mocker in the Gmorrah. And then we end there's a gamorrah that there's a contradiction in kazal regarding Alicia Ben Abuya. Alisha ben Abuya is a y that went off the dak. How bad did he go off the dar? It says that when yum kipper came out on shabas together he rode a horse in front of the keshakadoshan. That's pretty bad. He was a mman heard a bos coil come out. Alicia ben Abuya is also known as aer completely off the derek. There are two kazals that seemingly contradict each other that explain why he went off the der kazal. Number one it says that he he was traumatized because he saw the tongue the tongue of one of our sages one of their harug malus being dragged in the dirt by a swine. Mom is just like what we're talking about today. And that caused Alicia to go off the D. That's what it says in one kazal. But there's a contradiction. There's another kazal that said had nothing to do with that. It said at Alicia's bris, his father Abuya was also a big sadic. He saw birds burning up on top of the the sadikim learning tyra. And he was so impressed. And he said, "Look at the glory that Tyra brings. It's such a great thing. I'm dedicating my son to Tyra." And because it was Shalish, Alicia went off the derek. Now the first question is it's a contradiction. Second question is why should Alicia suffer? Because what the father did wrong? The terror says, "Mm- Alicia went off to Derek because he saw the tongue being dragged in the dirt, but I have a kasha." Didn't Alicia know what we're talking about here? Didn't Alicia know that the world is a world of hester upon him? That there in Russia to let him go to a k seminar or something? Alicia, the great sage, couldn't understand the terret is with the ravut with the raenutam. It's good because Alicia's father dedicated him to Tyra only because of the glory Tyra brings. Alicia was brought up in a home where the reason to be from is because Tyra brings good things and glory. And Alicia was never taught that sometimes there's sorus in this world and that there's such a thing as a sadic veroy. He was brought up like that. What the Gammorra means is that by Alicia's bris his father said this is how I'm going to bring him up and he may not have told him that bufferish but he was brought up by a father like that that there's no such thing as sorus if a person learns and there's no such thing as sorus if a person is at sadic if you grow up in a house like that and then you see turus boom it's all over his father should have taught him that we learn because that's the We pray to our kadeshu for a life of sh and visha but it doesn't always work that way there is a para of also in the there is amid and there is amidas but that's not what the father taught him he went