The Lavan (translate it into English) House

This week flew by. I am having a wonderful time here in Israel and am learning a lot. This Shabbat was the first in-Shabbat since I came back to the Yeshiva. All the students stayed in the dorms and we all spent Shabbat learning, eating, and singing together. We got to hear two interesting speeches over this Shabbat that I want to share with you so you can get a taste of the things we are learning about. The first was by Rabbi Shuster and the second was by another Rabbi in the Yeshiva.

Rabbi Shuster posed a question. He asked, "Why do we keep Shabbat? One of the answer's I always here is that God rested on Shabbat, so we also rest. But did God really rest on Shabbat?! We say that every second God is sustaining creation, so how can he rest on Shabbat?! The Vilna Gaon answered this question by saying that God created everything for Shabbat on the sixth day. But this statement needs explanation. Am I supposed to think that God lets every Shabbat run by itself?!"
He said that on Shabbat there is a difference between things that are primary and secondary. He used an example from the laws of carrying. He said that if a person walks out of his house into a public domain with a huge pot with just a drop of food in it, he has not transgressed the law of carrying on a Biblical level. This is because there was not enough food in the pot. So, the obvious question is, What about the pot?! Wasn't that big enough! The answer is that even though the pot is big, you didn't transgress the law of carrying because the pot is secondary to the food. The only reason you were carrying the pot was for the food inside it.
Rabbi Shuster said that another thing used to bother him. It was the concept that every Jew should enter Shabbat feeling like he completed all of his work. He painted the following picture for us. You are working on a huge project. It's Friday and you have to leave work early. As you are about to leave your boss comes over to you and says, "Where are you going? We need you to do your part on this project! If we don't finish it will cost us millions! And you are behind, we need you to stay. If you don't finish by Monday you will be fired!" You answer back, "You know boss, it's Friday and I have to go because Shabbat is coming." You rush out the door, drive home as fast as possible, jump in the shower with 10 minutes left. You run out the door to try to make it to shul on time and you say to yourself, "Thank God Shabbat is here, my project is finished. I still have my job. Everything is wonderful!" This obviously sounds ridiculous.
He then proceeded to paint another picture. Same scenario. You need to work extra hard to get this project done so you can keep your job. You get a phone call on Tuesday. It's about your son. He was in a terrible accident and they are rushing him to the hospital. They don't know if he will survive. You start to head for the door and your boss says the same thing, "Where are you going? We need you to do your part on this project! If we don't finish it will cost us millions! And you are behind, we need you to stay. If you don't finish by Monday you will be fired!" But this time you answer back, "You are going to fire me! My son just got into an accident and he is in the hospital! I'm going to see him! You want to fire me! I'll fire myself! And I'll fire you too!" With that you rush out to see your son not worrying about the project at all. This story is believable because the only reason you work is to support your family. Your son is primary and your work is secondary. Obviously you are going to see your son.
This is the answer to the original question of isn't God also working on Shabbat? A wedding is hard to plan. You have to get the right hall, the band, the food, and everything else. Even though all of those things are very important parts of the wedding, if the future father-in-law gets up and says, "Um... sorry but the groom got cold feet and ran away. But I don't want to waste all of this planning so please stay. Eat all the food, dance, have a wonderful time." Most people would leave because even though the hall is perfect and the food looks great you are there for the bride and groom. If they don't show up, all of the planning is unnecessary. When the Vilna Gaon said that God created everything for Shabbat on the sixth day it means that on the sixth day God created human beings. The whole purpose for the world is so humans can keep God's commandments. If we don't show up for Shabbat, the whole world is unnecessary. Therefore, we are primary and the world is secondary. So even though God is sustaining the world on Shabbat, it's not considered like He is working, because it's only secondary to us.
This also explains the statement, "Every Jew should enter Shabbat feeling like he completed all of his work." It doesn't mean that your job miraculously disappears, but rather it is a day where you get to focus on the primary. There is a famous story where a Queen marries a common man. Every day he tries to please her. He brings her fresh milk in the morning, just squeezed from the cow, but she finds it repulsive. He brings her fresh eggs, just hatched, but she doesn't appreciate it. This is because she lives in a different world. Common things cannot please her.
This is a metaphor for each one of us. We all have a body and a soul. When you try to please your soul with bodily pleasures, it doesn't work. This is because our soul is in a different world. If you are always looking for the next best physical pleasure you will never be satisfied, because physical pleasures are incapable of satisfying your soul. On Shabbat we get a chance to focus on spiritual pleasures.

The second speech was about last week's Torah portion, which was Vayeitzei. This is the portion where Jacob goes to his uncle Lavan to look for a wife. On the surface it seems like a very happy portion with two weddings, (Jacob marries Lavan's two daghters, Leah and Rachel) and many births, (Jacob has 12 children, who are destined to be the 12 tribes of Israel).
Every year on Passover we say in the Haggadah, "Go and learn what Lavan the Aramean attempted to do to our father Jacob! For Pharaoh decreed only against the males, Lavan attempted to uproot everything." Over Shabbat one of the Rabbis here posed a question. First of all, what did Lavan do to the Jews to be worse than Pharoah! Pharoah killed us, threw our children into the Nile, and used our bodies to build the pyramids! Secondly, there is a Gemara that says when you are looking for a wife, you should look at her brothers to see what her characterictics will be like. If Lavan was so evil, why would Abraham send Isaac to marry Rebecca, Lavan's sister! And why would Rebecca herself send her son Jacob to marry Lavan's daughters!
He answered the question by asking another. He asked, "Why does it say in Isaiah that "in the future both the lost and the pushed aside of the Jewish people will return?" (not exact quote) Who are the lost and who are the pushed aside?"
The answer is Pharoah tried to destroy us through genocide in Egypt and Lavan tried to destroy us by being nice. The Jews in Egypt got pushed aside while Lavan was trying to make Jacob a lost Jew. A lost jew is much worse than a pushed aside Jew. The pushed aside Jew might be in dire straits, but he still knows he is Jewish and sees the value in it. The lost Jew doesn't know who he is or where he comes from.
The Jews living in Nazi Germany were pushed aside. There is no reason to go into detail about the horrible atrocity that was the Holocaust. Suffice it to say that Nazi Germany was just like Egypt. We were being killed for being Jewish. But In America, we are becoming lost.
Rabbi Kaniyevski was once asked a question about Shabbat. The question was, can one play basketball on Shabbat? He asked, "What is basketball?" The Jew explained to him, "Well, it's this game. There are five people on a team. There are two teams. One team tries to get the ball into the basket while the other team tries to stop them." The Rabbi answered back, "Just tell them to put the ball into the basket before Shabbat starts." The Rabbi giving the speech over Shabbat said, "Rabbi Kaniyevski didn't understand what basketball was because he grew up in a small town in Europe. I grew up in Memphis, I know what basketball is. It's not just a game. It's beautiful. I used to love watching someone dribble the ball behind his back, going from hand-to-hand."
He said that America is more dangerous than Nazi Germany because in America people are nice. They love us Jews in America, and a Jew is a sucker for someone who loves them. We have been through so much hardship in our history that when someone says, "You are welcome here, we love you," we love them back. Basketball might be an amazing sport which takes skill and beauty, but when a Jew watches a great move and gets a tingling feeling throughout his body because he cannot believe what he just saw, he is becoming lost. We are losing more Jews through assimilation in Amerca than we did in Nazi Germany!
I just heard an interesting story about the Reform movement. When they hit their 200-year anniversary they decided they were going to have a huge celebration and honor the children of the movement's founders. The celebration never took place because when they went to contact the children of the movement's founders there was NOT ONE JEW LEFT!!!
I am not trying to say that America is evil. America has done wonderful things for the Jewish people and continues to do so. There is a reason that Abraham wanted Isaac to marry Lavan's sister and Rebecca wanted Jacob to marry Lavan's daughters. He had good character traits. He was nice to the Jews. America is the same way. Extremely nice to the Jewish people. However, we need to be on guard for ourselves and our children, knowing that even though America is nice to us, they are killing our people with that kindness. Ironically, they didn't even bother to change the name!!! Lavan's house just moved. It is now in Washington D.C.

My Intended Result

I remember learning about a psychology experiment at U of M. The subjects were instructed to listen to a comedian with a pen in their mouth. Half of the subjects held the pen with their lips while the other half held the pen with their teeth. The subjects who held the pen with their teeth laughed more. This is because when you hold something with your teeth you are already somewhat smiling, and when you hold something with your lips you are somewhat frowning. Your emotions are somewhat controlled by the way you control your body. This was a life-lesson I will never forget.

Happiness is 100% expectations.

A person who works hard every day because money is his goal can succeed. However, the difficulty in succeeding if your goal is to make money is that your goal changes. If you want to make $100,000 a year and you succeed, it is natural to want more. Then when you make $250,000 a year, you will want more. It takes discipline to be content with the amount you are making if your goal is to make money.

A person whose goal is to be happy can be succcessful persuing that goal. However, it is hard to succeed if you are always looking for the next best thing because your old hobbies that made you happy get boring.

Judaism takes the opposite approach to happiness. I think it's because it knows that happiness is about expectations. That's why we pray the exact same prayer, 3 times a day, 6 days a week, for our whole lives. That's why every day we put on the same tefillin. That's why every week we celebrate Shabbat. That's why every year we celebrate the same holidays. I find that the easiest way to be happy is to be happy with what you have. Instead of always looking for the next best thing, the higher paying job, or whatever it may be, I am learning how to be happy with what I have.

This obviously doesn't mean I do not want or appreciate "the finer things in life." But it does mean that if I don't have them, I will still be happy. I will be happy living in a mansion and I will be happy living in a shack. I will be happy with a BMW and I will be happy with a car that I have to pray makes it to work. I will be happy if I choose to go to social work school in the Fall and I will be happy if I choose to stay in yeshiva. I will be happy with anything and everything Hashem chooses to give me.

The Encarta definition of the word "Successful" is "having the intended result."

I think everyone lives with the same goal in mind; to be successful. Achieving success is a subjective goal. Each person has their own intended result and therefore each person is successful in different ways. A suicide bomber who murders innocent civilians can be just as successful as someone who fights for civil rights.

Just for clarification purposes, to both myself and everyone else, this is my intended result.

First and foremost, to realize that I am not in control of my destiny. God is the Creator of this world and can do with it whatever He pleases. My job in this world is to somehow try to payback everything He gave me and continues to give me. Just a few of the favors God gave me are my soul, the air I breath that keeps me alive, the water and food I need to keep my body functioning, direction, purpose, this world which is too beautiful and complex for me to begin to praise, and my family and all my friends who care about me. Hopefully later in my life I will reach a point where I am doing this for the sole purpose of His praise, but for now I will have to settle with doing it for my own selfish purposes.
Secondly, to come as close to God as I can through learning His Torah and keeping His mitzvos, which include honoring my parents and making sure our family doesn't fall apart, but is instead strengethened.
Third, to build a family that cares about each other second only to God.
Fourth, to make enough money to support my family.
Fifth, to have a means to make the money, preferably a job where I know I will be making enough. However, if I ever have to choose between family and an increase in pay, I will choose my family.

Every person has different goals. It is hard to say whose are better or worse since each person has his own dreams and desires. I am a 22-year-old college graduate who thinks about the actions I take before taking them. I know that I am mature enough to make my own decisions in life. Even though I know that nobody is immune from mistakes and therefore I will be wrong in certain decisions. I am ready to do my best.

Modeh Ani

Before Shabbat I was talking to my sister about the Zionist event she went to where our grandfather got a standing ovation by hundreds of people for the part he played in the creation of the state of Israel. She expressed to me how it felt to witness such an event. It is an amazing realization when you comprehend that your ancestors did something special. That they are written in the history books, so to speak.
It's amazing to think about how each person who is alive today came from so many people before them, especially us Jews whose ancestors fought through so much to keep our people alive and strong. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to all who came before us. I am alive today because my ancestors survived the horrible conditions in Egypt, the destruction of two Temples, all the pogroms, and even the Holocaust. I am a link in a never-ending chain that spans thousands of years. When one stops to think about where they come from, no matter who they are, they should feel so lucky.
I used to wake up in the morning complaining that I didn't get enough sleep and saying, "Why!!! I want more sleep!!!" Now I wake up knowing that every day is a gift. Not just from God who returns my soul to me every morning, but to every person who fought to pass Judaism to their children until it reached me. When I say "Modeh Ani" in the morning I don't only think about God, I think about my parents and grandparents and their grandparents.