Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] So for the past four weeks, I know I missed a couple since. But the four weeks before I left, I was talking to you about what thankfully one person got it.
[00:00:22] Confidence. Talking to you about the strength and the necessity of being courageous, stepping into the arena, you know, overcoming self doubt, becoming the best version of yourself. That's what we talked about for four weeks. And it's a bit of a strange kind of topic for a religious environment. I get it. Right. It's kind of weird.
[00:00:46] No, not at all. It's not weird. I came across the very, very famous words from the rabbi, Hillel, Hillel and Shammai. You remember Hillel, he was one of the great, the great thinkers of Judaism. He was a pillar of Jewish thought and practice, pre Yeshua. But this particular confidence resonating statement of his came to me as I was thinking this week. He wrote, if I am not for myself, who will be for me?
[00:01:21] If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I'm not for myself, if I can't manage myself, if I can't live with boldness, who's going to do that for me? Who's going to help me live a fulfilled life? Now there are other interpretations of what Hillel meant, but I'm taking that one for this message about confidence, courage in life. Hillel's words, they underscore something essential, the value of individual responsibility and self determination.
[00:01:53] We need to learn to be for ourselves, not tossed about in a sea of negativity or fear about what other people think about all that stuff that we talked about for four weeks, which I'm not going back to right now, I'm just recapping and connecting that to Hillel. But there is a criticism. No one really leveled it, but there is a potential criticism that one could bring of all this talk of self improvement and self realization when we're supposed to be learning about God.
[00:02:28] In other words, I realized how easy it would be for someone to misinterpret the messages that I have been giving, to assume that I'm falling into a modern trap, the modern trap of thinking that I can solve every problem, that everything can be solved from the inside out, that if we just think right, the world will be perfect, that we're masters of our universe. Now you might have realized that our world has become a bit me centric.
[00:02:59] It actually always has been. But you know, I think with social media, humanity has sort of taken a new turn. It's especially visible, telling us, take care of yourself, pursue what is good for you, be good and healthy individuals. And all your days if you just give yourself self care will be filled with daisies and sunshine.
[00:03:34] The I culture we have the iPhone, the iPad, we have the I, I, I, I me I culture all will be well if I just take care of me.
[00:03:49] If I am not for myself, who will be for me? Yeah, Hillel. Yeah, go buddy.
[00:03:56] He knows what's up.
[00:03:59] He does know what's up.
[00:04:02] Hillel has always known what's up. And thus he continues with a sort of limitation of his first statement. In the very next one, he doesn't stop with that question that focuses only inward and says, who's going to be for me if I don't do it? He says this very important thing, but if I am only for myself, what am I?
[00:04:25] If I'm not for myself, who will be for me? But if I'm only for myself, what am I? And there's a vitally important consideration, a component there about that question that relates to our contentment, our happiness, our satisfaction. Because as essential as personal confidence is, I want to talk about a powerful balance that ancient Jewish wisdom understood much better than modern wisdom. Wisdom seems to something that we can lose sight of when we dedicate a lot of time to working on ourselves. It's important, but it's this. Hillel's words point out a very crucial critical balance. And the Torah over the last few weeks has sort of been focused on this, especially this week. And I want to point that out to you today.
[00:05:18] I can be, I actually must be always working on the best version of myself.
[00:05:27] But if I am only that, what am I?
[00:05:32] The realization that true fulfillment and meaning are impossible when you just live inward, consumed with us. And Hillel's ancient wisdom speaks to this modern phenomenon that was jokingly coined in 2014, that was called selfitis sulfitis. It was a joke, but now it's not so much of a joke. It was about everybody walking around, taking pictures of their food. Who cares?
[00:06:06] Like sulphitis. It was a joke, but now it's very real. And they actually talk about this in psychology, the idea of absolute consumption, that self consumed behavior that represents this societal shift that we're living through.
[00:06:29] But it really points to something much deeper, a real psychological condition. What's the scientific, what's the psychological manual called? The DMT 5 or something?
[00:06:41] DSM. Yeah, a real condition. This all points to something. It starts with an M in. Sorry, it's a Greek mythological fable from this guy. His name was Narcissus.
[00:06:59] Narcissism.
[00:07:03] It's A real thing in this supposedly connected world where we can be connected at any time. We have this loneliness and anxiety and loss of meaning everywhere. A world that constantly tells us to pursue your personal, personal this, your personal great, great greatness, your self fulfillment. And. And so often what we find is that people just end up completely internalized, losing sight of the rest of the world. But the last couple of Torah portions, Ki Tisa, was when I was gone last week. It's probably the, like, the highlight of lesson learning in the Torah, which was the golden calf. And this week we move to Vayechel, and they show something so important to see about us as people. Listen, no matter how confident you are, no matter how successful you are, no matter how much life is put together for you, you can't do it alone. It's not the way we're built, as we're observing in our own culture, self obsession, all this is completely unnatural to our humanity. You can't do it alone. We're not built to live like that. Physically isolated, of course, psychologically isolated. Relationship isolation ending endlessly chasing personal recognition and validation. And the me, myself and I culture. Rabbi Hillel, 2,000 years ago certainly understood that duality of, yeah, stand up for yourself, be confident and take care of what needs. And demonstrate self care. You know, that's a big buzzword today. Self care.
[00:08:48] Yeah, demonstrate self care, but never lose sight of the fact that you are alone. You are incomplete. There's a story in the Talmud that talks of Rabbi Yohanan, who was a great healer, and he could go around and heal everybody. And one day he got sick and he called Rabbi Chanina, and Rabbi Chanina came and his disciples said, why doesn't he just heal himself?
[00:09:19] And the Talmud writes, a prisoner cannot release himself from prison.
[00:09:28] Meaning no matter how great you are, you're less than you could be if you're living apart from everything else that matters. We are social beings and listen, with all the difficulties that people can put us through, our family, all the difficulties of relationships and all that, we have to have it. We have to have it. We have to deal with it. We're wired this way. We're strongest when we're united, when we have community, when we have communal purpose, when you're struggling emotionally to have someone to talk to, a group, people to serve with, to build with, to struggle through life with. We need that. Okay, Duh.
[00:10:13] You actually brought me here on a Saturday to tell me this? Of course, I already know that, Rabbi.
[00:10:19] Community.
[00:10:20] I get it. We know this. I'm glad but that's not really the message.
[00:10:27] Israel as a community is at the center of the last two Torah portions. Same people, very different communities. And I want to show you that today to have a community is not enough.
[00:10:41] To have your peeps around you is not enough.
[00:10:49] Community requires something. And in the previous portion, as I mentioned, Ki Tisa, we read about the community of Israel. Moses delayed coming down from Mount Sinai. The people panicked. Exodus 32, the text in Hebrew says, vayika hel haam, Vayikahel haam. The people gathered. The people gathered. Where did they gather? They gathered around Aaron. This was the Kahal. This was the community that's connected to that word vayikahel. It's also connected to this week's Torah portion, which is called vayichel. Same word, kahal. There's a community. The people gathered around him. Why did they gather around Aaron?
[00:11:36] They were on a mission.
[00:11:38] Well, some of them were. It was actually a small percentage of the whole community of Israelites. But this small position, the small group was on a mission and it was enough to affect everyone else. They perceived a need within their community. Right. This is framing it very positively for what actually happened. They gathered around Aaron and they said to him, get up. Make us gods who will go before us. As for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what's become of him. This was a community initiative. It was a community gathering born from anxiety, born from impatience, born from self centeredness. It was a collective effort, but it was motivated by fear.
[00:12:29] It was motivated by lack of faith, by what if thinking. They were worried about themselves.
[00:12:36] That's what it was about, self gratification.
[00:12:41] Their unified power became destructive because their intentions were completely misguided and self centered. And we know how it goes. It devolves into this massive like craziness. They come down, they think there's war in the camp. No, they're just partying, man. They have gone off the rails.
[00:13:05] That is a critical failure. But it teaches something about communal strength, which is not alone inherently good.
[00:13:15] We've seen that time and time again through history. Nazi Germany was a community.
[00:13:21] They were aligned in purpose. October 7, the Hamas terrorists, Hamas in general, the Palestinians, they're a community aligned in purpose. What is the purpose? The destruction of the Jewish people without clear, shared, noble, God centered, disciple making, community, supporting goals. Even communities which we need spiral into chaotic, destructive behavior. And so here we have a group of individuals which doesn't really make a community, but we have all of this impact in the huge community of impact of Israel. But listen, move from that to this week. After their catastrophic mistake, something powerful happens and it's in this portion. In Exodus 35:1, there's another gathering. I told you that word. Vayikahel Kahal Moses. This week's portion starts with Vayachel Moshe.
[00:14:32] What does that mean?
[00:14:35] Moses gathered the people. It's Moses who gathers them. Now. I want you to notice that deliberate contrast. I love the fact that the Torah does that. We have the people gathering around Aaron and now we have Moses stepping up and gathering the people. And there's a connection. Pre calf, post calf.
[00:14:55] In the second, Moses deliberately regathers them. And it's the same people. Well, not exactly. Three thousand of them are dead.
[00:15:05] Some of those people are gone. But it's this community, the ones who intended to derail the power of the community, those main troublemakers, they're gone, but the rest are gathered. And there is the same collective potential here, the same collective potential. And now what we see is Moses brings it in and harnesses it for good. It's no wonder they freaked out that he was gone. He was the only one who could control these people.
[00:15:37] It's no wonder. And we can see vividly the tremendous power of a unified group. It is capable of profound destruction and incredible creation.
[00:15:54] And it's dependent entirely upon the group's underlining motivation and also the leadership. So what changed between these two gatherings of Vayikahel? The people gather around Aaron Vayechel, Moses gathers the people. What changed? Well, yes, leadership, that was a thing. But intention, intention. Moses redirected the people's powerful collective energy toward building something, building the Mishkan, a dwelling place for God. They moved from self focus and fear and collective angst into this intentional, purposeful community that is an antidote to selfitis and narcissism.
[00:16:37] When you align, the point is this. In a world that so emphasizes the idea of getting what's yours and keeping what's yours. And I just want my freedom. Usually it's freedom to do something incredibly destructive to you or the world, but I just want to be able to do it in this kind of world.
[00:17:01] Individualism, it is so contrasted with the Jewish way of thinking and being. You know, we don't talk a lot about individual salvation. There's not a big story in Judaism that focuses on individual salvation. Why? Because everyone matters. It's a collective. God's going to bring everyone in together. It's very different in Pirkei Avot, once again from Hillel we find another very important statement. You know what it says? Do not separate from the community.
[00:17:40] Tremendous weight carried there. The sages understood this. We have these isolation limits, our capacity to achieve great things, a misguided purpose. This all distracts us from something Great.
[00:18:02] Thank you.
[00:18:05] ChatGPT Live Critique of my message.
[00:18:11] Hillel continues right after that.
[00:18:16] Do not believe in yourself until the day you die.
[00:18:20] Meaning do not think that you are strong enough spiritually to handle this life alone.
[00:18:27] It's not safe to rely solely on yourself. There will come a day when you need a hand for more on this.
[00:18:37] Sometimes in our lives you can listen to Lean On Me by Bill Withers after Shabbat, consider another example from the Jewish tradition, which is prayer. Prayer itself is done in a minion, right? A group of people. The holiday prayers are said as we come into confession. In our lowest points, we're still standing together. We're saying, we have sinned. Father, forgive us. We do everything together with a united godly purpose. At least we're supposed to. And in the earlier instructions, I want to remind you, prior to any of this, when God gave the instructions for them to build the tabernacle, he said, build them. Build a place that I may dwell among them, right? Make a holy place for me so that I may dwell among them. And that seems sort of weird. A holy place should be for God to dwell within it, that they're going to build this building, and there God can come and dwell within the building.
[00:19:44] Should it read it or should it read them?
[00:19:49] Yes, it is so that God could come and build. But the real dwelling, the real power of God that we witness is God in the midst of community, dwell among where the people are, where they're gathered for a holy purpose. He does dwell in us, in his spirit anyway, but he dwells among us, a community, wherever it is, when it is functioning within Hillel's words, which is, if I'm not for myself, who will be for me? But if I'm only for me, what does that make me? That's what a community looks like. And for all the benefits of everything I talked about for four weeks and healthy thinking and confidence and taking action and conquering fear, they're all good. But a healthy religious community only amplifies the power of those things. You know that during COVID there are studies that indicate that the only people who did not have any type of depression or decline in their mental health, not only, but are the people who stayed affiliated in some kind of community of worship.
[00:21:04] I didn't research this Study. But the point is that when you have healthy community, there are fewer signs of depression. There's. Listen to this. People have better cardiovascular and immune function.
[00:21:22] They are happier, they tend to drink less, there's lower use of drugs, they give more to charity, they donate blood more often, for goodness sakes.
[00:21:33] What is a healthy religious community?
[00:21:37] There are a lot of them that are not.
[00:21:43] It's a community that's not like the Golden Calf version. It's built on a servant, community, family, faith, community, cause. Because true fulfillment comes from service, not self. That's from a great book called the Second Mountain by David Brooks.
[00:22:00] It's true. I want you to notice something else about the Torah portion. We don't even have to get past four lines of the Torah portion to learn these things.
[00:22:08] The first thing Moses says after he gathers the people, he assembled the children of Israel. These are the words which Adonai has commanded you to do. Work is to be done for six days. What does he start talking about right away? Right after the Golden Calf. What's he talking about? First thing, Shabbat. Why?
[00:22:26] That's weird, because Shabbat represents the complete rejection of individualism and self promotion. He is strengthening the community back into alignment with a holy purpose. Shabbat is. It forces us to pause our worldly pursuits, all of our ambitions and our personal gain striving, and we focus instead on what?
[00:22:55] Having a meal together, being together, spending time together, giving adoration and acknowledgement to God, rest, reflection. We spend time together and it says, literally, whoever does any work will die. Now that's literal. That's Holakic law, That's Jewish law. A lot of interpretations surrounding that, but that is. But there's also a figurative moment, an illustrative moment. If you can't take the time, folks, to put it all aside and just come together as a community and rest and reflect and laugh and eat and hang out. Part of you dies because that's not the way we're built.
[00:23:39] You have to have it. There is this profound truth of human beings dwelling better in community and a specific kind of community. You've heard this phrase, nothing unifies like a common enemy. You ever heard that? It's very true.
[00:24:01] But those situations always devolve into destruction. I have something very personal and connected. It's a Golden Calf thing. Those people in Israel at that particular moment were unified against a common enemy. What was the enemy? Fear, lack of faith. All of these things. You know, when we. When this community here started in 2009, we had come out of a Pretty heartbreaking kind of separation from another community that we were all very, very close to. And a small number of people came because it was just sort of the. That's what they felt led to do.
[00:24:41] And so we started worshiping together. But you know what? We too, were unified in some sense against a common enemy. It wasn't that community. That wasn't it. It was the hurt that we all felt. We came together just to sort of wallow in our emotional anguish and pain.
[00:25:02] And you know what happened?
[00:25:05] It disintegrated. That passed on. And, like, there were issues and everything. You can't unify against a common enemy. You have to unify with a common purpose. There's a very big difference. You unify. Nothing unifies like a common purpose, which is what we see happening in the Mishkan. All these people, yes, of course, they were incredibly grateful that they had been forgiven. I want you to note, just a side note. Sorry.
[00:25:34] That, you know, this idea that the Old Testament God is really angry and he's bloodthirsty and, oh, thank God Jesus came and we got rid of that Old Testament God. I want you to recognize the grace that's demonstrated here to Israel. There's no altar, there's no sacrifice, there's no tabernacle. God chooses to demonstrate grace to this community. They had the highest sin. He demonstrates the highest grace and says, I'll go with you. I'll still go with you, but it's going to be because you're aligned in a common purpose. And they respond very, very strongly to that. They bring so much that they have to tell them to stop bringing things. Is it guilt, maybe? I don't think so. I think it's the power of unification in a common purpose of good and of God.
[00:26:24] That's the kind of community nothing unifies like a common goal. And you know what? I can't help. As I'm thinking through this, I can't help but think about the community that we have here.
[00:26:39] This isn't really the purpose of the message yet. I walk in and I see Rusty, the security guard. We hired Rusty from a security service. He's supposed to come and provide security, and then he goes home. Okay, that's how it's supposed to work.
[00:26:57] First of all, Rusty drives, like two and a half hours one way to get here.
[00:27:04] Rusty has had a lot of health challenges, like, a lot of health challenges.
[00:27:12] But he absolutely loves being here. He loves every one of you. I didn't sell him a bag of goods. He walked in here and he Felt it, and he sees it. And he said, you know what? Even if I didn't work for that security company, I will come here and protect every one of you because I. You. He called about my mom.
[00:27:37] Rusty.
[00:27:39] Rusty, Our security guard. He's not our security guard. He's our brother. He's a part of the community, and he feels the unified purpose that occurs here. And it's not just here. It's everywhere. It's out there. And all of you people out there, we want to be for you, whatever we can be, however we do that, from 50,000 miles away. Is the world even 50,000 miles big? I don't think so. Israel I know, is 6,900 miles away. You know why? I got a little tracker on Annabelle's keychain.
[00:28:14] My daughter in college. And when I was in Israel, I looked at my thing, and it said, you're 6,900 miles away from Annabelle, wherever you are.
[00:28:27] This community tries to be aligned in purpose for God and for each other. Understanding that, and this is why I gave you those messages over the past four weeks. I don't want to be a leader of a bunch of whining, sniveling weaklings.
[00:28:48] It sounds extremely harsh. You know I don't mean that I'm always here to help people, but I'm going to help you be the best that you can be.
[00:28:57] I spend a lot of my time doing that, reading and learning and how to be the best I can be so that I can share these things. And I'm going to do that. I'm very passionate about that.
[00:29:09] But without this, without our hearts devoted to one another, without our hearts devoted to common purpose, to serve God, to serve one another, it's all useless.
[00:29:21] If I'm not for me, who will be for me?
[00:29:27] But if I'm only for me, what am I?
[00:29:32] And Hillel ends that triplet statement with something that's on my wall in my office. He says those three things, and then he ends it by saying, imloach, shav.
[00:29:47] If not now, when?
[00:29:51] And all I can tell you is, you know, community messages and sort of fluffy and all that.
[00:29:58] I don't care. The world is desperately in need of running away from this guy named Narcissus.
[00:30:07] And no one, really, it's so hard to find a place to go. And they don't necessarily have to come here to be a part of a community. But what I want you to do is to understand that you have to be for yourself. But, my goodness, you've got to be for them.
[00:30:23] And when you establish those relationships within without, you bring light to the world. If not now, when?
[00:30:34] Ach Shav. Say it now.
[00:30:39] Shabbat Shalom. I'm Darren with Shalom Macon. If you enjoyed this teaching, I want to ask you to take the next step. Start by making sure you're subscribed to our channel. Next, make sure you hit the like button on this video so that others know it's worth their time to watch. Last, head over to our website to learn more about Shalom Macon, explore other teachings and events, and if you're so inclined, contribute to the work that we're doing to further the kingdom. Thanks for watching and connecting with Shalom Macon.
