Jewish Inspiration Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:01 - Intro (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe, director of TORCH, The Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.

00:12 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Good evening everybody. It's so wonderful to be back here at Mondays, and today we are up to Miss Silatih Shariim. I believe this is the third class. We mentioned last week that the purpose of our existence, the purpose of why every single human being is alive, we all strive for the same thing, we all desire the same thing, and that is pleasure. Every single human being wants pleasure. Every single human being is created for pleasure and the ultimate pleasure, as we mentioned last week, is a connection with God.

00:52
Now I want to, just for a second, talk about last week's parasha. Last week we read in the parasha that Yaakov is about he's blessing all of his sons, but in that portion, the end of Genesis, it says the name of the portion is Vaychih. What does it mean? Vaychih? And he lived, and yet it's like the last day of his life. So it's an obvious question why would you call the parasha, why would it be named as Vaychih and he lives, when he actually died then? So I say, just explain that it's a righteous person, even when they're dead or considered living, while an evil person, even when they're alive, they're considered dead, why? So, in order to understand this, we have to understand what is a human being. If someone were to ask you what are you? What would you say? I'm me, right, I'm me. Well, what is the me? What is me? Oh, that's the perfect answer. I am a soul that is wrapped in a body. Most people say what do you mean? I'm flesh and blood. No, that's not where you are.

02:15
That's your clothes. What you are is a soul. So now let's see what happens here. A righteous person what does he invest his life in? In his soul. The soul doesn't die, the body dies. While in a wicked person, what do they invest their whole lives? In? Their body, not their soul. So when they're alive, when they're living, they're considered dead. Why? Because all they're investing in is something that is nothing, while the righteous, they invest in their souls. Even when they're physically dead, they're alive. Okay, it's a very important principle to understand.

03:02
Now, how do we feed our soul? How do we feed our soul? There's only one thing you can feed your soul with. You can try all the Coca-Cola, you can try all of the pizza, you can try all of the food and all of the fashion, all of the houses and all of the cars and the vacations and the yachts and the cruises. Nothing is going to feed the soul. It'll feed the body and it may do a very good job at feeding the body, but it won't feed the soul. The only food that we can feed our soul is spirituality. Oh, so what is spirituality?

03:42
So we open up the Torah and the Torah tells us what spirituality is. It is everything you see, from Adam to Eve, to Noah, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to the tribes. We look at what they were doing, not from a very simple Many people. They like to look at the Torah and think that the Torah is like a novel and you can argue with the author. The only problem is that here the author is God. Not worthwhile. It's not worthwhile trying to argue with God. He knows exactly who and how and why he created each creation and the purpose of everything that's written in the Torah is to give us not only an example, but to give us a manual in how to attain spirituality, how to attain a connection. So that's 630 commandments, every one of those commandments, by observing the commandments, those that are performative or prohibitive commandments, they are all part of a package in helping us attain our spirituality.

05:03
Every mitzvah one performs has the ability to nourish the soul. Now there also comes with an understanding of what we're doing. If you do something, even the most meaningful thing in the world that you might do, but it's robotic, it doesn't fulfill, you know, the action doesn't fulfill the spirit in any way. So if a person is putting on the most incredible, one of the great mitzvahs that we have every single day to put the fill in on. But if a person doesn't stop to think, what am I doing here by putting on these to fill in, it's very unlikely that it will have a strong spiritual impact on the person. Same thing with reciting the Shema you can recite the Shema, but if you don't have focus and intention when you recite the Shema, it's not going to have an impact, because every mitzvah requires us to do it with intention, so that it brings about that awakening, it brings about that inspiration. That is something we crave for every day. There is no greater pleasure than the pleasure of connecting to Asha.

06:24
There is no pleasure at all on all of God's green earth and everywhere outside of that. That doesn't have the ability to fulfill us when we pursue those spiritual pursuits. Now let's continue. She says like this when is this place?

06:52
where is the last sentence in the previous paragraph? Where is this place in which we get this ultimate pleasure? You know where it is. That's in Olam Aba Kihur Anivrah Ba'achana Mitzdarecha Tadavaraz. He says something very important around the Bible Now how. It tells us that every person was created with the perfect requirement, with the perfect tools necessary to attain their lofty spiritual status. That is waiting for them in the world to come.

07:33
Imagine this. Imagine you come to a Gala. So you come to the Gala, they have a card with your name on it. You say what's your name? Benjamin? Oh, very nice, benjamin. Benjamin, what? Oh, okay, you're sitting at table 12. They sign your seat.

07:52
They have different reasons why they put people at certain tables. I usually get the random table. I'm usually designated as the random table guy. You know that random table. It's like I don't know. I don't know any of these people. Nobody really knows who they are. You're not just put them with what they will be, just you know. Just put them there in the back and I get the random table. But you want to know something? It says call Yisrael, yeshnam, chaleklolam Aba.

08:21
All of the Jewish people have a portion in the world to come. Every single Jew has a portion in the world to come. You have a seat waiting which says Benjamin, it's your seat that's waiting for you. I have a portion in the world to come, but our sages tell us you have to earn the ticket to get in. The seat is there? So how do I know if I'm going to be able to get all the way? It means I have to really earn getting to that seat, because you're front row. You're front row. How are you going to get to the front row seat? We have to earn it. We have to earn our way to the front row. So if God gives us certain talents, certain abilities, certain skills, and instead of getting to that place where we earned that seat, so let's say, god has that seat for us and we're on our way to earning it, hopefully. But then we get distracted. We get distracted by one thing or another. So what that does is diverting our attention from what we need to focus on, and then we lose out because we haven't gotten as far as we needed to go.

09:35
Imagine if someone's goal in life was to climb up to the top of Mount Everest. Now imagine, on Mount Everest, every 300 yards there's another little community. People decided to settle on the mountain. It's doable. So you go and the people tell you in the bottom listen. The only way you'll get to the top is if you don't stop and talk to people. Just go. You got to stay focused on your target and don't stop. It sounds like a reasonable objective. I want to get to the top of the mountain. There's only one way to get to the top of the mountain Don't get distracted.

10:14
So he starts climbing up and he gets a little tired. He gets some snow in his boots and he's like you know what? I can really use a really good meal right now. And he stops by one of the villages. He sees really nice, a really nice village, and then he meets someone, comes out and greets him and says you know what? Why don't you stay by us? Stay here in our community? It's a nice little community. It's called the Everest. First, the first community, and we're the original right, excellent, fine.

10:46
So then at night he goes to sleep. Next morning he wakes up and he sees that the host has this beautiful daughter. He says you know what? I'm a single guy. I've been wanting to get married. Maybe it's a good shirrach, maybe it's a good match. But he remembers. You know I have to continue. You know what. It's not going to hurt if I just, you know, if I just stop to get married. You know it's not going to hurt.

11:11
But what's going to happen is he's going to forget that he was on a course. He's going to forget that he was on a mission In life. We are here, god says, before we are even born. He says my people, they're all righteous, they all have a portion of the world to come. People have a portion of the world to come, but if we get carried away and we don't stay on our focus, what's possible to happen is that someone gets distracted and then, when we're distracted, we don't accomplish what we need to accomplish. Everything that you see around yourself of course not here at the Torch Center, but everything outside of the Torch Center that you see around yourself, whether it's cars, whether it's stores with you know, all of that is a distraction.

12:11
Its stated purpose is to get you to forget about why you're here. That's its stated purpose to get you to forget why you're here. Now, who put it there? You think the person who's selling this product. They care. Well, they don't care. Yitzahara cares. Yitzahara says one more person going to guide or one more person going away from God? What's his job? His job is to distract us. Do everything in his ability to get us to be distracted Everything. That is the stated purpose of the Yitzahara. That's what he's here to do.

12:57
So what's the challenge that we're facing? What's the challenge? It's a very simple challenge. The challenge is that in order to get to our place in the world to come, we have to pass through this world and earn it. In the world to come, we have a place that's ready for us, it's waiting for us, but in order to get there, you know what we have to do. We have to go through this world. It's like in order to get the big prize and to hold up the trophy, you know you have to run through this course and that course and change here and do this and do that. You have to do all of these stumbling blocks that are going to come your way and if you pass, then you'll get the trophy.

13:39
Our place in the world to come doesn't come for free. There's a price to pay. What's the price? The price is working hard in this world, and working hard in this world means we're going to have to give up on some things, we're going to have to let go of some things so that we stay focused, so we stay right on course. And this is what the Ramchal tells us.

14:01
Now, although man's ultimate purpose is fulfilled, not in this world, but rather in the world to come, nevertheless, life in this world is necessary for the attainment of man's goal. In order to get to that world where we get the reward, we have to pass through this world, which is the world of challenge, which is the world of tests. So our sages tell us, says the Ramchal Ah hadar kadeela gi'al m'chos khefzeinu zeh. But the path that we must traverse to reach this desired destination of ours, who zeh'a'ola? Is this world. Vehu ma'a sh'amru z'chonamavachayin. This is the meaning of what the sages of blessed memory have said in Ethics of our Fathers, chapter 4, mishnah 16. Ha'olama zeh, domelah prosdor Pifnei, ha'olama vaah, this world is similar to a festival before the world to come. Thus, man's ultimate goal lies beyond this world, but he can reach the world to come only by passing through this world.

15:12
You can't get the trophy by running around the obstacle course. You have got to go through the obstacle course, and when you fall and get up again and fall and get up again, and fall and get up again. It says the righteous fall seven times, but get up, shaviyapolzadik v'kham, and they get right up. If we just try something once and say, hey, didn't work, m'dam, you know what would happen if you had that mentality you would never walk. You probably would never talk. I know my daughter has just learned to walk the past couple of months and you know, every time she stands up and she falls, and she stands up and she falls and now she can walk. But they keep trying. So just because you fell doesn't mean you shouldn't try to stand up again. We try to say the right blessing. We say the wrong blessing so we're going to stop. No, they say that making the mistake once helps you never make the mistake. They say it particularly if you're remembering your wife's birthday. You know, you remember it. You forget once, forget once. You'll never need another reminder.

16:27
The responsibility that we have in this world is to get through the obstacle course. Now we're living in a world where people are pursuing a problem-free life. Have you ever met anybody? Yeah, I just want to live a peaceful life. Just leave me alone. Everyone is dreaming for that peaceful life where you're on a vacation out in Hawaii and everything is just so blissful and perfect Guess what? That's not reality. That is not reality. And nobody's happy in anything that they do unless they're on their mission.

17:07
Nobody has it easy. Nobody has an easy life. Everybody's got a difficult life. One person it's this and one person it's that. And everyone says well, they say that if you put everyone in a room and they all put their troubles in a basket and put them in the middle of the room to pick your dog grab bag, everyone could pick anybody else's service. Right, you'd pick your own again. You'd pick your own problems again. Nobody has an easy life. No one has a free life. Just do whatever you want. Everybody's got challenges. One time it's the father, the other person it's the mother, the other person it's the son, the other person it's the daughter, the other person it's the brother, the other person it's themselves, the other person it's their community. Everybody has got issues they need to deal with. Nobody's in this world scot-free. If they are, something is wrong. They either don't have the file or the file is totally corrupt. But nobody lives a problem-free life.

18:09
It's a fallacy, it's a rosy imagination for someone to think Look at them, they don't have any issues, they don't have any problems. It's only me. I'm the only one who's struggling. No, it's funny. It's one of the benefits, even though it's one of the. Ironically, it's one of the biggest problems of this world as well. But internet is a very interesting thing. Did you ever have a problem and search it on Google and they say sorry, no one's ever asked this question before. You're the first loser to be stuck with this problem. Did you ever?

18:47
think you ever think about that? No, everybody's dealt with the same issue with AT&T or with whatever company or whatever product. Whichever someone else has dealt with the same exact problem. If not one, maybe 15,000 people dealt with the same problem and they have YouTube videos about it. I think we need a few more Jewish YouTube videos like how to put up your Mizzaza, what to do if your Mizzaza falls, what's if they did? There are things to do. We need to recognize that. No one's got a free ride no one. Everybody has issues. Everybody's got problems they need to overcome, and that's part of the beauty of our life we need to not be upset about, even if it's God forbid illness.

19:35
I need to share with you an idea that my great-grandfather, my grandfather's father-in-law, my grandmother's father his name was Rabbi Avram Grzinski and he was the spiritual leader in the Yeshiva of Slobotka in Lithuania prior to the Holocaust. One of the things that he writes is that there used to be a time where anybody would get an illness and there's no right away, not an illness, but anybody would get a message to have any challenge and they would immediately go to the Prophet and they'd say you know, I have this pain here. Let's go to the Prophet. The Prophet would say, oh, it's because you did such and such and therefore you need to repent. And you say, okay, repent, you'll do the four-step process for repentance and, boom, the pain is gone. Okay, what happened was is that, with time, people stopped taking the message. The Prophet would tell them what they did wrong and say, okay, okay, okay, the pain would go away, or they wouldn't even pay attention to the Prophet anymore. All they want to know is what's the cure? What's the cure? What's the cure? And not even pay attention to the message behind it.

20:48
So God took away prophecy. Prophecy wasn't effective anymore. So what did we get? Instead of prophecy, god gave us pain and suffering, yisurim. Yisurim is a replacement for prophecy. So if you have that pain in your arm or your leg or you have a headache, you have something.

21:12
You know what. That's a prophecy where God is telling you a direct message and you're the, by the way, going to be the only one who's going to be capable of explaining the reason behind it, getting an understanding of that prophecy. You're going to be the only one. You're a prophet. Every single human being is a prophet. You're a prophet and you are able to decipher the message behind it. It doesn't have to be pain, by the way. It doesn't have to be a medical pain, a physical pain. It could just be a pain of something that goes wrong in your life. Why? Well, you're a prophet and as a prophet, you can track it down.

22:02
Why this? Why this time? Why this place? Why through this person? All of those details are part of the riddle.

22:14
For what purpose? Why does God do this to us? To wake us up. We're not here on a free ride. Okay, it's established. We've got this. Okay, we're here to attain our place in the world to come. The only way to get there is through this world and in so doing, in going through this world, facing our challenges, that's an overcoming them. That's how we get our place in the world to come. How long do you live? Hopefully 120?. 120 years of challenges. It could be a same challenge for 10 years. So we get the message and then the next one comes.

22:59
You know, I'll give you an example. I was once talking on talking to one of the classes about the topic of humility, and some of the people were pretty confident. Some of the things one of the things I like to do, I remember is to ask people what they feel about this trait and how comfortable they are, and one of the people was extremely confident that this was a trait. They really didn't need to work on that much, until we started defining what the trait is, and it's with any trait like that. It's also the case, by the way, in any world issue that you deal with, even sports. Sit in the stands. You sit in the stands. You think anybody's going to throw the ball to you. No, but if you go in the field, they will.

23:48
When we get into the real field of life, god starts to run curveballs. You can take the blue pill, you can take the red pill. You can take one. Live in oblivion you take the other. It could get complicated, it can get tricky, it can get very testy, but that is part of our life that we're here to experience, to live, to enjoy, to grow from. No person's got, it's got free. We need to embrace our challenges, because our challenges are our tools that are going to get us to our perfection.

24:26
The means that enable a person to reach this goal Haem HaMitzvot, hashher Tzivanu, aleem HaEliyit Barachshimo are the mitzvot. You know what gets us to this goal, the mitzvot that God, blessed be his name, commanded us to fulfill the mitzvot Umakom asiyat HaMitzvot, who rock HaOlam HaZeh, and the only place where we can perform these mitzvots is in this world. Once we check out, it's all over Al-Qayn Husama, adam Bezea, haolam BaTchila. Therefore, a man was placed in this world first Kideh Shalideh HaMitzvah HaEliyit HaMizdanim Lokan, so that, through these means which are available to him here Yuhal Ighe'al HaMakom Asher Rukhan Lo he can reach the place that has been prepared for him, shahu HaOlam BaTchila, which is the world to come.

25:27
So, without this world, without these challenges, without all the struggles that we have here, it is impossible, it is impossible for us to get to the place we need to get to in the world to come. This is the playground, this is the place where we trial, fail, succeed eventually. We're going to be tested time and again. If you're not on that field, you're not going to be tested. If you're not going to be in the game, they're not going to throw the ball at you. Sometimes they throw the ball. It will be a curveball, sometimes it will be a fastball, sometimes you'll be ready, sometimes you won't. But it's much better to be in the game than out. And in this world. The challenges that we face mean that we're living. It means that we're hopefully. You know anybody here who every time they're tested or something gets worse usually not Every time you get tested, you get better, a little better, a little better, a little better.

26:34
But to completely fail and do worse, it's not likely. You know people are afraid to fail. Today we have participation trophies. I've shared this before. My son once went to a soccer league and he lost. It was the final game of the season and they were the two best teams and my son's team lost. I said, okay, give him a hug, we'll do better next time. And they said no, no no where are you going?

27:04
I'm like, what do you mean? You lost, we're going home, maybe we'll stop for ice cream. You know something? You know? Like one second. He didn't get his trophy. I'm like he lost. But yeah, we want everyone to feel good, so we give everybody a trophy. That's a disaster that we give our children a fake feeling of success when they failed. The feeling of failure is the greatest tool one can have that leads them to success. Do you know which NBA athlete was thrown off? Did I give this example last week? Was thrown off his basketball team because he wasn't good enough Michael Jordan. He was thrown out of his high school basketball team because he wasn't tall enough and he wasn't good enough.

27:58
Someone's regretting that that failure, that teacher, that coach that threw him off that team, deserves a lot of credit because that brought out in him. I'll tell you myself. I once undertook a project. It was a year long project, one year long project. And I remember, like three weeks in, my brother said to me you know, everyone who tries that fails right, and that gave me every single bit of momentum. I needed to finish it, every single drop. Oh, he doubted me. Now I'm going to prove it to him and the truth is, I owe the credit to him Because, who knows, maybe that week would have been the last week I ever do it. Sometimes that punch is the greatest. That pain, that struggle that we have is sometimes the greatest blessing as well.

28:47
I'll tell you something else. Anybody here ever heard of someone named Larry Bird? Larry Bird was a great basketball player. Do you know how Larry Bird became Larry Bird? I'll tell you. His father was a drunken. His father was such a crazy drunken and so violent that he wouldn't. Larry Bird would not go home after school till his father passed out. It was a nightly ritual. His father got so violent he didn't want to be home when his father was still awake. So he'd go to the basketball court even in the cold, freezing weather of Chicago, where he grew up, in the outskirts of Chicago, and all he did was shoot basketballs and he became the great, unbelievable. What was he? Which team did he play? Boston, boston, celtics, celtics, amazing.

29:40
Yeah, we all have challenges, because it's what we do with those challenges. It's not enough to just say, well, if I had the money like he had, then I would do better things. There's a reason you don't have the money like he has, because you're here to do a different test. What would it help you? You have a different test. See, go back to what we said earlier. If we're only here to serve our physical, external elements, our body, then you're right, you want the money, you should get the money. But if you're here to serve the internal, spiritual soul, then we want to stay on course. And God giving you that billion-dollar lottery ticket and you win will destroy everything that's inside it and people say it's okay, just give it to me and everything will be fine. I'll do such good deeds with it right now. No, no, no, no, no. You're never going to fulfill your purposes.

30:45
Every person has got a unique challenge. Every person has got a unique something they can contribute. We've mentioned this. But if you take your finger, take your finger. Everybody's got a different fingerprint. Every human being has a different fingerprint on this world. Everybody can and should accomplish, contribute something to this world that's unique only to them, something only they can do. And what if a whole lifetime passes and we work hard doing the wrong thing? That's total catastrophe. There's a story told about I think believers are of Naftali Amsterdam. He was a genius of geniuses, but I guess to some degree. When he was a child it was a little bit of an ADD or an ADHD. They say that if Einstein was alive today he'd be diagnosed as a total lunatic. I think it would be an ordinary person. They wouldn't. Thank God, he grew up in a generation where they didn't put people in boxes, so I've told Amsterdam one night.

32:06
here's his parents talking about him and they say you know, it's really not doing well. He's not doing well with his learning rabbi, he's struggling with him. Maybe we'll just send him to the shoemaker. We'll send him to the shoemaker, we'll teach him how to make shoes. I know, make shoes. He'll be a good shoemaker. He heard this and he got a shudder.

32:34
Now, many years later, when Naftali Amsterdam was a great, great scholar, when he completed writing his book, he shared this story and he said the frightening dream he had that night. The dream was that he came up to heaven and they said to him knew what did you accomplish? This is what you mean. I was a shoemaker and I made these beautiful shoes for all these people, made them so happy. I made shoes especially for the father of the bride and for you know. I made really beautiful shoes. I did it with all my heart, with all my soul. I'm like, okay, very nice.

33:21
And then the angels in heaven say but where's the book? We heard you were supposed to author a book. It says me a book. I'm a simple shoemaker. I don't write no books, I read books. I don't write books. So no, you went down there to write a book. Where's that book Me?

33:41
So when Naftali Amsterdam completed his book, he says here, this is the book, this is the book I came to this world for. It's a frightening thought that someone perhaps could be coming to this world to publish, to do something great, and then they become a car salesman. Not nothing wrong with being a car salesman, but for someone who's supposed to be writing books to be a car salesman, you're in the wrong trade. For someone who's supposed to be a scholar to be a shoemaker, you're in the wrong industry. You're not going to bring out your greatness by being in the wrong trade. This world is a place where we need to face our challenges and not run away from them, and that when we see that we are hitting a challenge, we're hitting a struggle. Guess what we do?

34:41
like the righteous do Shavayi, paltzadik v'kham. Seven times we fall and we get up again and it's going to be painful, and it's going to be challenging and it's going to be a struggle and every time we'll get up again. Because that's what we do when we are on a mission we want to stay on course with no distractions. She says like this and what will be in that world to come, liravod Shambatavashir kanal, loa liye deem tsemele To there to be sated by enjoying the good that he earned for Himself through these means, all of the opportunities that come to you in this world, guess what? They're all here to help you on your mission. A grandfather says actually last week's parasha, he says, brings from his rabbi that everyone has a perfect trait, perfect positive, and a perfect negative. You can have a positive trait of kindness. You can have a negative trait of arrogance or laziness, whatever it is, or 100% capacity on both of them. And the idea is to take those qualities, the quality that you have in perfection, and infuse it into the not so perfect positive traits and bring them up to perfect and, with the negative traits the same, overcome that negative trait and help that tool overcome the other negative traits. But we all have negative traits. We all have positive traits. It is no person on this earth that is perfect unless they've worked really, really hard to get to that perfection. So he says like this and this is what our sages told us you shall observe the commandment that I command you today to do them. Today, in this world, is the time when we do them, and tomorrow meaning in the world to come is the time to receive reward for fulfilling them. So now we work, later we get the reward. If you ever do construction, one of the challenges that you have is that you got to pay a lot of the money. Usually before they do the construction, you have to buy the materials, whatever their reasoning is, it's very rare. Usually you pay after, because what if you're not happy with the work? What if they don't end up doing the job? What if they just walk off on the job? Sadly, this is something that happens in Israel. People buy an apartment building and they speak to the builder. And they speak to the builder and they say everything is great, except that the builder decided to keep the money and not build a building. And now what are you going to do Now you're stuck. I'm sure there aren't many, many people who are this dishonest, but sadly there have been a few over the years.

37:50
We all have a great amount that we can contribute to this world, and we have something unique that we can contribute and something that will help us attain our own level of perfection and success in our day to day life. So let's just finish here, as he says as follows this is what our sages told us, hayyom la sotam. Today In this world is the time to do them, and tomorrow, in the world to come, is time to receive reward for fulfilling them. It does emerge that man's obligation in this world is to fulfill the mitzvoss, and the goal towards which he should strive in everything he does is to achieve the eternal delight of the world to come. So, like this, if you are doing any action, a person needs to think how am I bringing God along on this journey? How is what I'm going to do now be godly? And that's what we have to constantly be asking ourselves. Every action that we do, we have to connect it to the Almighty. It includes any mitzvah that you love, or love a lot, or love a little. We have to figure out a way to keep God in the process.

39:17
Additionally, and interesting that Shabbos is also considered like the world to come. In fact, shabbos is, according to the Talmud, a sixtieth of the world to come. We want to taste what it is the world to come. Observe a Shabbos, you'll know what the world to come is Peace and serenity. But do you know what's unique about the world to come? Same thing. It's unique about Shabbos Because you can't cook on Shabbos.

39:48
Guess what? Whatever you prepare before Shabbos is what you will have to eat on Shabbos If you forget to cook. Guess what I can have what to eat I had one week before Shabbos I set up. I was my job in the house. I'm left-handed in both hands when I'm in the kitchen, so it's best for me not to be there because you want your food to taste edible and Zahab is an amazing cook, as you all know. You don't want me messing around with the food. I'm not good with it, except for one thing that I have had the privilege of making the chalent. I was really with the chalent, an ancient Jewish delicacy and we had a little Texas flair to it.

40:39
One Shabbos, I prepared the. Before Shabbos on Friday, I prepared the entire pot. Everything is ready to go. I even put the water in. Everything is ready to go, but I forgot to turn the pot on Guess what chalent. We had to eat that chalent.

40:58
Well, thank God, neighbors, friends, I made sure everyone knew. Yeah, I don't know what happened. Suddenly we had different. That's the beauty and the benefit of living in a community, but you have wonderful friends, so that's even nicer. But if you don't prepare for Shabbat, you're not going to have what to eat on Shabbat.

41:20
Anyone here ever go on a cruise? No, neither did I. But they say that if you were to go on a cruise and you needed your sunglasses on the cruise liner and you forgot it in your car, and as soon as that ship leaves the dock, you know what happens. It's too bad. I'm sorry, you forgot your sunglasses. You forgot your sunglasses. You had sandwiches inside your trunk. It's too bad. Once that ship has sailed it has sailed and it's all over You'll get the tuna fish sandwich when you get back and you probably don't want it anymore, right? What you took with you, you took with you. It's. Imagine people in this world have opportunity to do mitzvahs, say you know what One day I'll get to it One day, one day, and then that ship sails, meaning we move on to the next world, and what happens? I wish I could have given more stock. Sorry, I wish I could have forgiven that person, sorry. I wish I could have asked forgiveness from that person.

42:25
Sorry, the ship has sailed. And once the ship has sailed, everything you've left out, everything you forgot, it's all gone. And that is what this world is. This world is a place we can do things. This world is called the world olamha siya, the world of doing. The world to come is the world of reward. Once we're through here, it's all over.

42:50
So one of the important lessons that Yisrael Salantar was once, passing in his town, he sees a little candle on inside the shoemaker's booth. So he goes, he sticks his head in, he says what? You're still working. So he said these words that changed Yisrael Salantar's life. And he said as long as there's still oil in the can and the candle can still burn, there's work to do. And that is as long as we're still alive.

43:27
There's still things we need to accomplish, there's still tasks we need to complete missions. We need to accomplish places. We need to go to do the will of Hashem. That's our life. This is a place where we are here in this world to be challenged, and we ask Hashem not to give us challenges, not to give us challenges that are too difficult for our imagination. Our imagination sometimes like no, I can't do that it's okay, you can do it. Hashem shall bless us all that we should not only accomplish our mission, but enjoy the process of those tests. We should enjoy the whole process and never let a day pass us by without enjoying and living a pleasurable life. So then, my friends, thank you so much. Have a good evening, el Tuf.