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Sort of at a crossroads with the shiur right now because this is the last shiur before Yom Kippur. And that means the last shiur until we come back from Sukkot break. So I'm going to try to do two shiurim in one. So it's an attempt. Not sure I'll succeed. But I'm going to try to cram together two shiurim into one because I think it's important to do these together. So they're really all the same Indian, just different aspects of it. Hopefully I'll be able to give it across properly. There is a very interesting Gemara in Brachas and Daf Yud. The Gemara says, Hani, I'm sorry, I didn't print it out for you. It's only a few lines. Just it's about five lines. Just hang out. Hani Chamisha Barchi Nafshi connected me on David. Five times it says Baruch Nafshi in Tehillim. Who did David? What was David saying that about?
So the Gemara says la amr ad ela keneged Hakadosh Baruch Hu vekeneged neshamus. Talking about Hashem and our neshama. What's the connection? So the Gemara makes the following connection. Five connections between Hashem and our neshama. Ma Hakadosh Baruch Hu Malo Kol HaOlam. Just like Hashem fills the entire world. So too the neshama fills the entire body. Comparison number one. Number two. Just like Hashem can see and not be seen, so too the neshama can see and not be seen. Number two. Ma'akadosh Baruch Hu zane es kol alam kulos. Number three is just like Hashem supports the entire world. Af neshama zane es kol aguf. So the neshama supports the entire body. It's the life force behind the entire body. That's number three. Ma'akadosh Baruch Hu tahor. Just like Hashem is pure. Af neshama tahora. So the neshama is pure. That's number four. Just like Hashem lives in the inner chambers So too the neshama lives in the inner chambers.
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One that has these five things, one that has these five things. Should go ahead and praise the one who has these five things. So in other words, the neshama that has these five qualities should praise Hashem, who has these kiv'yachol, as if to say has these five qualities. What is the meaning of this gemara? And that's essentially what I'm going to spend today's shiur on to try to give us insight, because I believe that this gemara doesn't sound like it from first appearance, but it's talking about tefillah. Because it's mentioning that the neshama, which is the essence of ourselves Is coming to praise the Rebbeinu Shlalom And somehow the Gemara is sharing with us how it is And how the neshama has certain qualities that are meant to be utilized in order to praise the Rebbeinu Shlalom And this gets into the very question. As to how one actually communicates with Hashem
And so I'm going to take a few minutes to give you a little bit of a background information that you need in order to understand this, and then we're going to do an exercise that I think will help us better understand what it means to talk to God. I had you guys do the Hispodude session, talking to Hashem. And probably a lot of you had the feeling of it. Almost feels like I'm just talking to thin air. It almost feels like I'm talking to myself. What does it mean to talk to Hashem? That's really the goal of today's shiur. I believe the key is in this gemara, and I hope to show you how. When we speak of Hashem We speak about the concept of something that is infinite. When we think of the word infinite We think of a number that just goes on and on.
If I were to tell you That there are an infinite number of light posts, lampposts in the universe So how would you wrap your head around that? You would think of a number. Let's say how many lampposts. Are on the highway from Tel Aviv to New York, Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. So there's a road you didn't know about, right? Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. So ten thousand, and then you can think of that number, and then you keep on going, and then eventually get to the highest number you can think of, and you just go on and on, and the process of counting never ceases. It goes on for an infinite amount. So when we speak of Hashem, that's not the infinite we're referring to. What is the difference between Hashem being infinite and the amount of lampposts being infinite? There's a fundamental difference between the two.
And that is Although it could be that there are things in the world that have an infinite amount of them There still is a way to identify them. And that is because they are separate from other things. For example, if we were to say there are an infinite amount of lampposts in the universe. There is still a way to count those lampposts. Why? Because there's lamppost space. Lamppost space. For example, I were to say to you that there were so many lampposts that there was no room for anything else. There really was no room for anything else. When I was in an uman for Rosh Hashanah, we were so cramped in the space of the kever. There was nothing, no room to even put a needle in there. That's how tight it was. You literally cram it to the point where there's no room for space at all between them.
If I were to tell you something else other than the lamppost existed. What would you say? How could it exist if there's no room? No space in between the lamppost, no room for anything else? How could anything exist besides the lamppost? What would your answer be to that? Mathematically How could that be? It is. Mathematically, it can be done. The question is how. Could be inside. It would be within it. Another way of saying it is that it would have to exist within the reality of the lamppost. So the lamppost would be the background for the entire existence, and this other entity needs to be within that. So when we speak of Hashem as infinite We don't speak to Him as a number of many. There's so much of Him that you can't count how much there is. That is the concept of Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem Echad. Hashem is one. What does one mean? One and not two. One. It means unity.
That we all exist. We like to say Hashem exists within us. It's actually not true. Hashem does not exist within us. We exist within Him. That is the idea. When we say Ain Odmolvado, there is no other than Hashem. Did you ever ask yourself if there is no other than Hashem, then how are we here? How are you here? How are you here if there is no other than Hashem? If there's no space between Hashem and anything else, then how do you exist? The answer is that He must be the background of which we exist within. So why am I getting into this whole psychological, this whole philosophical idea? And the reason I'm getting into this whole philosophical idea is understanding this Jewish philosophical concept will begin to give you an understanding. As to what it means to communicate, Tasha, and that is his father's.
When I'm communicating to you Anyone in this room right now I am communicating outwardly. And the reason I'm communicating outwardly is you have no clue what's going on within my mind. Because there's no inherent connection between you and I. We have to create a bridge of understanding between the two of us. It requires me to use something in my ability to reach out to you and connect with you. What am I using? I'm using speech, words, emotions, hand motions and ideas in order to communicate a concept that the two of us can share. Why do I need words to do that? Because again, there's no inherent connection between us in terms of our existence, and so you are there and I am here. I have to create a bridge. When it comes to the Rovon Shlalom Is that how we communicate with God? Now I know what you're thinking right now. We use words in a seder, and we read out of a book, and we use words. It's true, we do.
But what I'm about to teach you is Is that the words in and of themselves. I'm going to come back to this later. The meaning of words. Speaking is not really the strength of davening. That is to say The concept of davening can be accomplished without speaking. Why we speak is a very good thing to go back to, and eventually we'll get back to it. I can't tackle it all at once. There is a very important reason as to why we speak and why we use words in order to communicate with God. But communication with God does not require speech. In fact, if it's only speech alone Then really you're missing a way with which to communicate with Hashem. So speech is not the way we connect with Hashem. So what is the way in which we connect with God? In which we communicate with God?
Think about this Gemara. Thoughts. In other words, the idea of this Gemara is you. Are filled by your neshama. Your neshama fills you up. It's bechedreich hadarim in your innermost places. So you exist, so to speak, within your neshama. Your neshama fills you up. It means you are in the background of your neshama. But what is in the background of your neshama, Hashem? So in other words, in order for you to exist, you need your neshama. For your neshama to exist, it needs Hashem. Says the Gemara: Let the neshama that has these five qualities come and call out, come and praise Hashem that has these five qualities. The chedrei chadarim in the innermost places. Going outward is not what's important in tefillah, although we do use words. Going inward is the power of tefillah. The way to communicate with Hashem is via tapping into the deepest places of your soul.
And then connecting to Hashem, which is at the source of your soul. This is the meaning of the Nefesh Hachaim when he says that every person at the root of his neshama has a chelik elokis mamish, has literally a portion of Hashem inside of his soul. It almost sounds like fear to say that. What do you mean, Hashem is within my soul? Hashem is above it all. The meaning of the Nevo Shachaim is that the root of your soul is that background that we mentioned before, that infinite lamp post that we spoke about. That fills up all space. Time and matter And that is Hashem, and that's the source of it all. Rav Yisrael, what I'm essentially saying is, if you're spending your time speaking outwardly But you're not going deep in terms of your emotion, then you're really missing what tefillah and how tefillah is actually effective.
And so it becomes very, very important to learn how to do this. It's one of the things that you are attempting to gain when you do hispoders. So when you go out and speak to Hashem in the forest, the idea of speaking for an hour was to go deep, and by going deep, you feel connection to the rebbeinu. Because the Ravonah Shalom is the source of your soul, and the deeper you go into your soul, the deeper you're going into your connection to Hashem. The challenge becomes I'm trying to fit two she'erim into one, so that's why because there's only one she'er today until after Sukkot, so I can't really take questions till after. The question then is how And more importantly, Rav Glanz, if what you're saying is true I have a question. See. Before, up until now, you told me that the real mitzvah of tefilla is to connect to Hashem and to talk in your own words.
So the sinner ruined that for me Because it took away my words, has me say things in a language I don't even understand, and makes it routine to the point where I totally don't connect. Let's leave that aside. What about the fact that everything tefilla seems to be today is all speech? Rav Glanz, if what you're saying is true Really what we should be doing is what the Buddhists do. We should essentially be meditating. That's what Tzvila should be. A meditation session where we all come in comfortable pants and flip flops and nice and comfortable, the kind of skirts that the Buddhists wear. We should sit down on the floor, put our hands up in a pretzel. Close our eyes and meditate and think in the deepest places of our soul and connect to Hashem on a thought and emotion level. But what do we do in davening? Quite the opposite. We stand there, we say words.
And we get through it. We've spoken everything, but how much do we feel inside? Almost none. So why is it that if that's really true, that's the concept of davening? So why did Chazal institute a sitter that seems to be the exact opposite? Of everything I just said. In order to understand this I'm going to have to do a little exercise with you. It's about seven minutes long. And it's going to require you to. I said part of the shi'is I'm going to ask you to do things. Sometimes they make you feel a little uncomfortable. This should make you feel uncomfortable because you're going to be doing it on your own and no one's going to be looking at you. But you have to entertain me a little bit and you have to trust me. And the better you do this exercise, the more you'll understand what it is I'm getting at. So I'm going to now give you an exercise that you're going to do that's going to help you develop a little bit this idea of going deeper and how it is that when you talk to Hashem from a deeper place, it can become more meaningful. Leave my questions aside for now as to how that connects to davening and why it is Chazal instituted this or if this is the point And hopefully we'll get back to that soon.
Can somebody hit the light in the back? This is much better done in a dark room, but I'm asking you to please just follow along and do the best you can. I want everyone to take a second and close your eyes. I don't mind if you put your head down. Just try not to fall asleep. Breathe in through your nose. Out through your mouth. Just entertain me for about seven minutes. In through your nose. Expanding your diaphragm. Out through your mouth. Collapsing your diaphragm. Do that for about thirty seconds. Thoughts come in. Thoughts come out. Don't think about much. Imagine for a moment you're sitting on a beach. You're all alone. A pristine Beautiful white-sanded beach. Take your toes Curl it into the sand. Feel the sand. Perhaps use your hands and pick it up and let the sand filter through your fingers.
The more you can feel it, the more real the experience will be. You see, in front of you Beautiful beach Waves crashing ever so slightly An occasional cloud Some seagulls are hanging out overhead, and you're relaxed. It's just you. Sitting on your beach chair The sun is shining. Not too much that it's hot, comfortable. Take a minute and try to really experience sitting at the beach. You start to feel light. Very, very light And you begin to float upwards off your chair. And you start effortlessly floating upwards. It's not scary, it's totally safe. And you start to float upwards towards the clouds. You turn around You see the beach. And you see your beach chair. And it starts to fade away And now, you can see the city you were in, and you begin to float upwards and upwards.
Past the first line of clouds, up to the second line of clouds, almost to where planes are. And you begin to float upwards. You start to leave the Earth's atmosphere. You're looking down. The next thing you notice You're all the way up in space. Floating effortlessly upwards. Take a moment. Look around you. Look at the planet. Imagine what it must feel like Because you're actually experiencing being in outer space. How beautiful this world that Hashem created. Looking at planet Earth. Looking at the sun. Looking at the moon. Looking at the stars and the other planets from outer space, take a moment to experience that emotion overcoming you—the awesomeness of this sight. You begin to continue floating upwards. This time, now effortlessly At a much faster pace. You pass by the moon. You continue to fly through space. Through Mars And you continue to run through the planets.
And now you're outside of the solar system Looking down at the solar system. Now Earth is just a little dot on the screen. And you begin to continue flying upwards Infinitely through space. Past many other solar systems and galaxies, asteroids And see it all pass you. And you're just thinking This universe is just infinite. You can go on forever. Looking at all the wonders that Hashem created, realizing that each one of these stars, each one of these little dots on the screen Entire galaxies. As you're floating through space You're now not going to float upwards through space, but you're going to a deeper dimension. You're going to experience, for a moment, the spiritual world, and you're going to see all of the forces behind that which support physical reality. And you enter into a dimension that goes deeper than space. For the first time in your life You see an angel.
An angel that is meant to support the physical world. Take a moment in your mind and see. Imagine the awesomeness of what an angel looks like. And you begin to continue to float. And now you see hundreds, thousands of angels running from place to place, doing the will of God. You see angels standing. In the hundreds of thousands, screaming out and praising God, serving Him As you float over them Imagine the awesomeness of such a scene. And as you begin to float even higher up, even deeper You are now in a place that is so beyond the physical world. That is so spiritual. That even an angel In its physical form Could not visit. And all you feel is this tremendous energy. There's nothing physical there. It's just pitch black, but there's such a strong energy, and you realize that this is the very energy of creation.
The very forces What's called transcendental forces. That God uses in order to generate and keep the world going. You just feel this unbelievable intensity of energy in this place that you're in now. And as you're feeling this In the corner of your eye You notice a very small, clear blue light. And as you continue to float through this energy The blue light becomes more and more pronounced as it approaches you, or as you approach it. And you're in a totally black space, filled with energy, pulsating energy. And you see the blue light get larger and larger as you approach it. And finally You are enveloped by this blue light. And this blue light is something that you've never felt before Because you thought you knew what love felt like. But now you understand love on an entirely different level. And you recognize that all of the things that you just saw All of the planets and the stars and the angels and the forces that you just felt and the energy
At the source of it all, it's all coming. From this divine love, and you're feeling in this blue light a love that you never felt A love that this blue light represents. Take a moment to feel and to experience the love of this blue light that totally envelops you, and you realize for a moment that everything that you just experienced is all of creation. Is all coming from this unbelievable power of love And as you're experiencing this You notice in the distance a bright Simple, white light that pierces through this blue light And as you drift closer. This white light becomes more pronounced. You're still in the blue light. But you're drawing closer to this white light. And as you approach this white light You finally come up to it and you see it all right in front of you. But it is encased by a glass ceiling.
And you put your hands on the glass and your feet on the glass. You're totally enveloped by the blue light, and you stand in front of this white light. And you realize that this white light is the source of all of creation, and you feel such a sense of unity and oneness. That is embodied in this white light. You feel the love of God that you're in this blue light of His. And at the same time you're touching the glass that is encasing this unity that nothing can exist outside of And then finally You find the little doorknob. You open the door. And you step into that white light. In this white light Nothing exists outside of God. This is Hashem's unity. You have no reality in this unity other than the fact that you're aware of it. Take a moment right now to feel this unity.
To recognize that there is nothing outside of this unity. This is the source that permeates all of creation. And take a moment right now. When you are totally unified with God in this white light, to speak to Him, take two minutes right now in thought. Not in words. Say what you want to God right now in this place. Feeling this white light A unity where everything just makes sense. All the confusion of the day to day, all the things you don't understand. It's not that you understand; it just doesn't matter. Everything just makes sense. Everything just connects. You feel whole. You feel source. You feel one. You feel unity. But now it's time to go. And you take a few steps back.
And before you know it, you drop out of this white light into the blue light, feeling that love, and you're falling fast. And as you fall fast from that blue light You fall into the black transcendental forces. It is the very power of creation, and you see yourself falling fast and falling hard. And you fall through that into the world of the angels. You see the angels praising God, millions of them. And you fall back from that. Into our physical plane Falling through the galaxies All the way down into our own Into the solar system Through the planets, and in front of you, you see planet Earth, and you fall hard, and you go through the atmosphere, all the way down to the point where you're going through the clouds. The second level, down to the first level of clouds. You see the city in front of you. As the beach gets closer, you see the beach, you see the chair, and boom.
You fall right into your chair. And you're back at the beach. Open your eyes. Someone turn on the light, please. Using this kind of meditation can help a person go deeper. Here's the question I have. Shun better off limits. Why don't we do this? Has anyone ever done this meditation before? No. Other than one Other than the Shneibekas, has anyone ever done this meditation? You understand that if you did something like this, imagine what we did. Imagine if. We had this kind of experience in shul, and before you talked to God, you did some sort of meditation like this. So I know some of you might think, "Oh, that's a drag. I'd fall asleep." But if you were real with it, you'd recognize that this would definitely help your focus and concentration. When you spoke to God, you would really feel more connected, going deep, deep, deep.
So why don't we do something like this? What do you say? Why don't we do this in Shul? This would be an amazing experience, no? Sinner's the bare minimum. Sinner's not up to this yet. This is a higher level than the sinner. What if I were to tell you we do this every day Leading up to Shavuot. Here's something you don't know about tefillah. Here's something that's been lost. Remember, I said it's not about the words you say; it's about going deep and thinking. One of the reasons we say words is because we're reading words. And one of the reasons that we read words in tefillah is that Chazal meant the siddur to be a guided meditation. The siddur was not meant to be read in 30 minutes. How long was the siddur meant to be read in? Three hours. The Hasidim hari shonah. This is what they did.
They used siddur as a meditative guide. As a guided meditation. Rav Ovadia, what I just did You do it every single day without being aware of it. Do you know that you can't speak after Baruch Hu until Shmona Esrei is over? Do you ever ask yourself why? Do you want to know why you can't speak after Baruch Hu? Because you are in the middle of a guided meditation, and not just any guided meditation—the one I just said. You start off with Baruch Hu, and you are in the first spiritual world called the world of Asiya. The physical world And you mention the beauty of what Hashem made The sun. The moon, the stars And you say Remember when you were up in outer space? You were looking around. How awesome this is! Marabu masecha Hashem, kulam b'chokma sisa, mala ha'aretz kinyanecha. How beautiful! These words, this baruchu, you're entering into a trance And you should be thinking about all physical creation.
And then Once you've gone through physical creation You then get into the realm of the spiritual. Kulam Ahuvim, kulam Berurim. You're talking about the Malachim. You're seeing the angels, and what do you hear them say? And you see them praising Hashem. They're saying Shirah. And what do they say? Kadosh. Hashem Tzvachos, Malach Harz Gvodo. And then finally, you go to the third level. The second level in the Kabbalah is called Olam Hayitzira. And the third level is called Olam Habriah. Before the Briah. There's the world of the transcendental forces. Va'ofanim v'chayo hakodesh. Those are angels. Barash gadol with the loud sound. Misnasim l'uma seraphim. They turn towards the seraphim. What are the seraphim? You guys say this every day. What are the seraphim? These are the forces, the transcendental forces that power the entire world that Hashem uses to manipulate and to control. The world of the angels and the physical world, and they say Baruch Huot Hashem Imkomo, and then you continue to rise up and you see this blue light.
And recognize that everything comes from love, Avaraba Avtanu Hashem Elokenu And you hold on to your tzitzis. To your teles, the blue light Approaching the white light of unity. You hold on to that glass encasing of the unity of Hashem. And you say Shema Yisrael, Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem Echad. And then you walk up. You notice the knob. You take three steps back. You open the door. You walk into the white light. And you talk to Hashem. Now you're sitting in Shun Asrei, having got. How are you supposed to talk to Hashem from coming off the street? There's a preparation that needs to be had. Baruch Hu is meditative. A meditative Guided meditation that's meant to get you to the point where you can go deep enough to actually communicate with God. Deep, not outward. Why we use words, I'll talk about later. As I said, I'm not going to talk about now. But for now, the words are not important.
It's the ideas that the words represent. The words in davening can't just be look at something I say that somehow affects things. The words in davening are meant to be a guided meditation. This is Chas v'Shalom to use this word, a Buddhist meditation But it's just not an open one. It's one in which the sitter is guiding us towards somewhere. And then we take three steps back. We walk in, we talk to Hashem, and when we're finished We take three steps back. Blue light World of angels Back to the beach. And we're back, and we're out. That is the meditation of Baruch L'Torah Shmonez Ra. So the goal of today's she'er today I didn't finish, by the way. Unfortunately, I have more to do. But the goal, perhaps I'll continue it a little bit afterwards. The goal of today's she'er was to recognize two things.
Number one The way in which we communicate with Hashem is not just by doing hispotus. His shter is talking to Hashem in our own words is a means with which to go deep. But I want to tell you that the shter, the bigger chiddush is Is that the way to talk to Hashem is to go deep, not by talking outwardly. Talking outwardly is something we do, but the idea is to go deep. But number two, the shter now has to be understood differently than what you've understood it up until now. The shter is not just a bunch of words that you say. Not just some things that you have to say that somehow fix things up in Shamayim, which they do too. I'll talk about that later. But the siddur now needs to be looked at: is the whole format of tefillah From brachos in the morning, two psukim of Zimra, two Baruchu, two Shmone Esrei. What were Chazal doing? What did they want me to think about? How are they helping me connect to Hashem through the siddur?
The siddur is a tremendous guide. Because Chazal knew to connect to Hashem. How do you do something lofty and as deep as that? So they created a guide on how to do it. Most people don't know it; they're just not familiar. You're not taught this in school as to how to use the sitter as that guide. But this was just an example of it. Your challenge is two things. I'm going to give you two pieces of homework to do between now and when we come back. Number one On Yom Kippur. I want you to do a hisboded session. I want you to take time, even if it's sitting in shul, putting your head down, to take a good half an hour to try to do another hisboded session. To talk to Hashem. Ask Him for forgiveness for your sins. Go deep. Get a good cry in there if you can.
And try to have a real good hisboded session, minimum half an hour. You'll have a good hour and a half break. Don't go to sleep if you have the energy. Take the time to do hisboded session. You want to do it at night. The night, the first night of Yom Kippur, you can do it then. You want to do it during the break between Musaf and Mincha? Do it then. That's when I usually like to do it because I'm nice and weak. And when you're nice and weak, your guard comes down. It's much easier to go deeper and put your head down. It looks like you're just putting your head down. Everyone just thinks you're resting. You don't have to say anything. You could be thinking it. That's also just as good. And number two I would like you to try. It's going to be very hard to do because the yeshiva goes very fast and they don't daven like that. No one does. Is to try your best to get to Baruchu early.
One day Over the Sukkot break, one day To try to do this To start off with Baruch, to go to the next level where you think about the physical world ends by Tisparach Tzorenu By Yefaruchat Zelah To go to the angel, the world of the angels. To go to the transcendental forces, close your eyes for a second and try to visualize it. I'm at the point already because I know this well. I can do this with my eyes open. I can do this and see this while reading the words. I understand you're not there yet. So it's going to be hard for you. But try it once. Try to use the sitter to do this. Read va'ofanim v'chayosagosh brashkum sasing masarafim and see. Feel the transcendental forces. Look back at all the physical creation, at Yotzer Ma'oros, all the things Hashem created. When you say Ahavah Raba, see that blue light. Be filled with that blue light. Hold on to the Tzitzis, even if you don't have Tchelis.
Imagine the Tchelis and the white light. That's the representative going up to Shema Yisrael, seeing the white encasing. Then going ahead, taking three steps back, three steps forward. Try to visualize each stage. When we do Shabbos Tfilah, this thing called Shabbos Tfilah. We go through shacharis very slowly, doing all the different stages, and I show you exactly how to do it. It's a beautiful meditative thing that we do during shacharis, but you don't. We don't have that. Try to do it once. Try to do it once between now and when we get back, and hopefully you'll start to internalize the lessons that we're trying to teach here in tefillah. Guys, have a kesiva chesima tova.
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