Episode Transcript
[00:00:16] Speaker A: I want to remind you that several months ago, we learned a new verb in here.
It wasn't a good, it wasn't good English. It wasn't even good Hebrew, for that matter. We learned about a hero from jewish tradition, the guy who took the step into the Red Sea to show Israel about faith and courage. I hope you remember his name, because his name is the verb. Do you remember his name?
Nachshon. And we created this verb to Nachshon it, to take a stand, to be courageous, to be bold. The message was called the call to courage from January 27. If you missed it, go back and listen.
But now that we're actually in the days of Passover, now in late April and Monday, the 7th day of Passover, is actually the day that is when the sea of Reeds was parted. That's the day that they went through.
It brings up again the thoughts of Exodus and redemption and, of course, Nachshon, which you can't have the 7th day without a nod to Nachshon. So even though we're a little ahead of that. Ready? Nachshon. Hats off to Nachshon. And a check in.
How many of you have no it since? Have you done anything bold, courageous, stepped out, taken a hold of anything that you had fear of from January 27 to today?
It's a good check in if you haven't. But I want to go in a very different direction. Not very, but a different direction today. And I mentioned it last week in the, in the pre Passover message. Now we're in the Passover message, but we have to start looking at what's after Passover, because Passover is coming to an end. So this is your post, pre, pre, post Passover message.
The question is, what's next? Okay, what's next? What happened after Passover? Israel didn't just cross the Red Sea and stop. I mean, that was not the thing.
That was not the end of the story. There's a whole new story that was about to be lived out and was about to be written and recorded in the Torah. Something came after, something very, very important, which was the journey.
The journey and the destination. And it was a journey both physically covering geographic space, but also very much spiritually, mentally, spiritually. And we know this period of time that we're in right now as what? Say it in Hebrew for bonus.
The counting of the Omer. Say it in Hebrew for bonus.
Spherat ha omer. The counting of the Omer. This is the journey period from the other side of the Red Sea to where? To Mount Sinai, right and we read about this in Leviticus 23, Deuteronomy 16, you shall count seven full weeks. The counting is a time of spiritual reflection, preparation, marking the transition from the liberation in Egypt, the physical liberation to the spiritual redemption that's supposed to occur on Shavuot.
And you'll remember that according to jewish tradition, while in Egypt. For how many years were they in Egypt?
Any others?
Good. However long they were in Egypt, you'll remember that tradition tells us they had descended to the lowest level of impurity, the 49th level of impurity. Note the number 49. Like there's almost no way back.
How many days is the count of the Omer?
Hmm, interesting. All right.
But that 49 day journey, this was monumentally important in the history of Israel, the jewish people, and the world. Why, you ask? It's a very, very easy and favorite. Good two words for me.
Identity shift.
A change in identity. That's four words, but identity shift. A necessary identity shift. The time of ascension and improvement, absolutely necessary that they get out from the depths of where they were, not just physically, but where else in their minds, in their mindset.
This was a journey.
And they don't just get better. Okay? They don't just improve their physical status, that they're no longer in bondage. They're elevating. They're getting higher spiritually, mentally.
And there were points this time of journey, there were points of choice that had to be made. Stay down or stand up, wallow or walk, slave or servant of God. Points of choice. Points of decision.
Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler describes this concept in jewish thought. It's called nekudat bechirah. I want you to remember that. Nekudat Bechurah. Point of decision. Point of choice. Nekoudat bechirah.
It refers to this specific point in a person's moral, spiritual life where the choices between doing wrong and doing right is perfectly balanced.
The point of decision between choosing your baser, lower fleshly instincts versus your higher YeTzer hatov good instincts. The point right in between, when you make that decision, which way to go is your point of choice? Neku dat bechirah.
Mount Sinai. You see, Mount Sinai was a destination. A destination. It wasn't the destination. There was a lot more that happened after that as well. But it was a point of decision.
What did they say? Yes, we'll do it.
Everything that you said will do. They accepted the Torah. You think about all the other ones that Israel had. Points of decision. Moses had to have one at the burning bush. Aaron had to have a point of decision. We don't really hear about that, but he was the high priest. He had to go with Moses. Israel had to decide, are we going to listen to Moses? The first time they did, it didn't go very well. They got no straw, more bricks. They had to decide, do we believe this crazy guy who's telling us to kill a lamb and put its blood on the door? Should we do that or should we not? They had to decide. Are we going to trust to go out of Egypt? Are we going to trust to go through the sea of Reeds? Points of decision. And so much of our progress in life, hours talking about you and me now, our happiness, our contentment, or the opposite, comes down to pivotal moments. You make Nekudat Bechirah choices that you make in specific situations, or making the same choice over and over again.
And I want to tell you that right now, right now, spiritually, is an opportunity. Right now, today, this moment is a Nekudat Bechirah sitting in this chair, sitting in your living room, wherever you are, this time on the calendar, when we know what was happening historically for God's people, the ones that he said, I will redeem you, I will take you out. You will be a people. This was the period. This was the time when they were elevating to receive the Torah. It was. It is a powerful time of potential growth for us, but it is a choice.
And I want to tell you something. Most of the world knows nothing about what I'm telling you today.
Omer, wasn't that the guy on the Simpsons?
No one really knows what we're talking about and what we're doing and what we're counting and especially why.
But you do.
And so today is a choice.
And, you know, I talk a lot about improvement. I have been accused.
It's been suggested that I am too self helpy.
But I have to tell you something that I. Well, I want to repeat something that I tell you often. You ready? And this season just brings it to mind again and again and again.
This you may not like, but the Bible. You ready?
It's all about self help.
It is.
It really is. I mean, the lives of biblical characters. There are the easy ones, the ones who had a point of decision, a choice they had to make. There's the easy ones, Moses, David, Abraham, Jacob, Peter, Paul. But how about the lesser ones? Ehud, Gideon, King Josiah, the daughters of Zelophehad, all of these people that are obscure, who had to make difficult choices to better their situation.
The Bible itself is full of things that help you make good decisions. There's this book called Mishlech in hebrew proverbs. You know what it's about?
Being good and being better at things. Paul wrote you a whole bunch of letters about your personal conduct. We're in the book of Leviticus right now. Well, that's just about blood and guts. No, it's not. It's got a holiness code in it. That's all about how you are supposed to be better, elevated higher. This is the Bible. Well, Jesus wasn't about. Jesus was no self help teacher.
Jesus came just to deliver me from the filthy, wretched, despicable, horrible person that I am, that was destined by God to burn in hell forever. That's what Jesus did. Well, that's not exactly best phrased for more on that, see, another series I did called is our hope in heaven.
Jesus did come to rescue you from eternal death, to allow you entrance into the world to come, rather than to be separated forever.
But you know what else he did?
He taught a lot of things.
He taught a lot of things.
He told us to do good things here, to be good people, to serve others, to store up treasures from this life for the next one. And I want you to consider that when you read Yeshua's words and look at his life and the gift of the Holy Spirit, which he made possible on Shavuot, which was at the end of what, the 49 day count of the Omer. He gave you this holy spirit. God gave it through him that you might make good decisions, that you might make your life more powerful and potent in the world. The Holy Spirit's a comforter. Yes, it is. But it's a guide. And it is to improve you. It's to help you help yourself.
That's called self help.
Anyway, Tangent sorry, I'm all about self help when it is calling out to heaven, heaven help me, help myself. And by heaven I mean God.
To make good choices. Nekoudat Bechirah to make good choices when they present themselves, that's helpful to you. Did you know that? When you do that for yourself, it's helpful.
But there's this point. I've mentioned it.
We make the decision between our baser instincts and our higher self. So, you know, right now, through the lens of Israel's journey these 50 days, there's no better time to ask ourselves some questions. That assumes, however, that you have any interest in improving yourself. Because if you don't, you're dismissed. Wherever you are. Go get some coffee. Enjoy it. Write down some notes, email them to me, we'll talk about those.
I think most people know that they have some areas of potential improvement.
But if you're interested in elevating yourself, this is an important time on God's calendar. Now here's a tough realization many, many, many people. And the reason I hear that periodically about you need to teach more bible and less about self help is because people don't want what I'm peddling.
A lot of people don't want to confront their own darkness or difficulty.
You know why?
Because it's difficult and it's sometimes painful.
And so just teach me about, you know, what the locust plague means spiritually. Teach me about that. Don't teach me about how I need to look inside myself and improve myself.
Let's point do like a 15 page tape together timeline of when Jesus is coming back, which we can have no idea about. But don't tell me about how I might invest some serious time in making myself better. I don't want to hear that.
I'm going to challenge you with some questions today to put you on the path. They're not my questions actually, but they're really, really good. And if you'll think on them, if you'll invest, if you'll participate with them, I expect you will have some powerful, powerful moments over the next. It's only 45 days now because we're already in, right? Today is the fourth day. Tonight some the next day. What comes after four, we don't count forward.
There's this guy I love. His name is Sahil Bloom. He is. His mother's Indian, his dad is Jewish. What a combo, right? Like Indian Indian and from the Bronx or Brooklyn. And he's just a really great guy who's been very, very successful and played baseball at Stanford and did all kinds of amazing things. But he has an email that I subscribe to, to that I get every week.
And I looked at this one that came out this week and just glanced at it. They're worth reading. But then I thought about it in the context of our calendar, our period of time that we're in. So I want to challenge you with some things, courtesy of Sahil Bloom, of myself and hopefully of the Holy Spirit, run through the way we think. The first question that he asked the thing was seven questions that changed my life.
That's a potent title, right? You'd want to know those. I'm not giving them all to you, I'm going to give you a couple.
The first one was, listen carefully.
If I repeated this day for 100 days, would my life be better or worse?
You zoom out of your life and ask this question. We live micro focused on day. What am I going to do today? I got to do this. Got to do this tonight, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week. 100 days, he says, but I'm going to change that. How many days do you think I'm going to ask you? If you did this day for 49 days, 45 now, would your life be better or worse?
It's so simple. But at the end of the day, for the next 45 days, you take an inventory of your day, and I'm dead serious. I mean, you might think you're at a Tony Robbins conference right now, but I am dead serious. You take an inventory of your day.
If you do that already, great. You should. You should have a journal. You should have all kinds of things that are good for you. If you do it already, great. But I doubt if you do. But you reflect. If I repeated the day I just had for 45 days, would my life be better or worse?
Now, that's a bigger question, because it's not a closed question, is it? You can't just say yes or no.
That's not very helpful. It's an open ended question.
Needs to go deeper. You identify what things you did in that day that made it good or bad. What is it about this day that I contributed to that made it bad?
God forbid, maybe someone else did something to you, but how did you react to that?
You can't push it off and say, well, they did the bad thing. How did you react to it?
And if you reacted like that every day for the next 45 days, in that situation, would your life be better or worse?
Did you help yourself or did you hurt yourself with that reaction?
And then consider the concept I introduced you to, Nehudat Behura, the precise point in your moral and spiritual life where the choice between right and wrong, between higher aspirations and baser instincts, is perfectly balanced. And then ask yourself in your inventory, how many of those did I have today and how did I do? And if I made the same choices for the next 45 days, would my life be better or worse?
How many moments, points of choice did I encounter today?
And if it's the bad things, if you made the wrong choice, that's still not the end of it.
If you say, well, that was a terrible choice I made, oops, I wouldn't want to do that again. No, that's not the end of the task. The task is to ask yourself, why?
Why did I make that choice?
That's how you get into yourself. And yes, I am talking about psychology now. That's how you grow.
That's how you get in. That's how you learn about yourself and you change. Why did I react that way?
What is it in me that would bring up that feeling? And is that something I can correct?
Do I want to do this forever in my life?
Confront it. Stand face to face with yourself and confront your shortcomings and be willing to change it. If it's a good thing, double down on it. Write down the good things. Look what I did. I'm proud of myself. I want to do that every day for the rest of my life, if I can.
Give yourself some credit, too. This isn't just all about down. Dan Downer. Dan Downer. Damien.
Repeat it. The good thing. Repeat it again and again. And speaking of repeating, here's my second big question, and I'm going to talk to you for a little bit today, so just settle in. What lie have I repeated to myself so many times that it feels like the truth?
What lies have I told myself? Or has someone else told me about myself so many times that it. It has become truth?
Lao Tzu. Watch your thoughts, they become your words. Watch your words, they become your actions. Watch your actions, they become your habits. Watch your habits, they become your character. Watch your character. It becomes your destiny.
There is a concept, and I'm taking this directly from Sahil Bloom's email. There's a concept in cognitive science, it's called the illusory truth effect, to believe false information after consistent, repeated exposures. In other words, if you're told a lie over and over and over and over again, eventually it's no longer a lie.
Sometimes people tell us things that take up residence. But you know what? It's particularly damning when you do it to yourself.
Particularly harmful.
Do you know that? One of the main reasons people will never change, they're never willing to confront, they're never willing to engage in self assessment, to become happier, more contented, balanced, blissful people. The best version of themselves is because for years they have uttered this lie to themselves. You ready for it? When they're faced with a difficult situation or something that poses a huge challenge for them, they tell themselves, it's just how I am.
Deal with it.
It's just who I am. If you don't like it, go jump in a lake. If you jump in a boat, you'd be able to float across a lake. Jump in the lake.
The other version. I can't help it.
I can't help it. It's just who I am.
This is how I deal with it. Guess who tried that line? Moses. How did God respond?
By the end of it, he was angry with Moses.
Because I want to explain something to you. Hashem didn't buy that line from him, and God doesn't buy that line, that lie from us either.
You believe that?
You should.
It's actually. It's actually. And I don't want to just crush anyone's phalanges, but it's a lie.
It's an insult to your creator, is what that is.
Because most of the time when that statement is made, it's just who I am. Deal with it.
It's usually in defense of some behavior or action or attitude that is either hurtful to you or to someone else. When is the last time you heard someone donate a million dollars to a charity or give their wife some beautiful affirmation and say, sorry, it's just the way I am?
Or, like, encourage their kid in some amazing thing? Or congratulate a co worker on a promotion and say, don't like it. Deal with it. It's the way God made me.
When's the last time you encountered that situation?
Never.
If the just how you are thing or things are causing disruption in your life or your relationships, it's very worth asking. Is it helpful for me to be just how I am?
It's very worth asking that, because I want to explain something to you about that. The statement that says, I can't help it, it's just who I am.
It's just a way to avoid helping yourself. It's just a way to avoid changing.
It's just an excuse.
And God doesn't buy it. And you shouldn't buy it either, because that's not the way he made you.
Yeshua said to the woman caught in adultery, go and sin no more. I would, but I can't. This is just how I am.
I don't know what she actually said, but I doubt if she said that.
And I don't care what the hangups are, if they're not doing you any good, it's not the way God made you. And someone might fail to recognize that just how they are is actually damaging to them and to others. Why? Because it's a safety net.
It's a thing that allows you to back up from problems and say, oh, I can't.
But you know what it is? It's just anchors. It's like sandbags in a hot air balloon that just keep you from getting anywhere.
If you're a person who thinks that or feels that, consider if that attribute is positive, and then say, if this is. If this defines me, is this how I want to be defined? And then tie it into the first exercise. For the next 45 days, you're identifying these things and saying, is that just who I am?
I don't want to be that.
That didn't do me any good. Today. You'll encounter many days of failure over 45. I sure. And you can just dismiss them and say, ah, just the way I am. But to tell yourself that lie is not doing you any good.
And if it has become your truth, I want to change it for you today.
Tell yourself that is a lie. And at that moment, that point of choice, the neku dat bechirah, you confront the lie and you say, it may be how I've been, but that's not who I want to be.
I got a bad temper. That's how I am. I'm not a generous person. That's just how I grew up. I have a difficulty with commitments. That's just the way it is for me. No, those are choices you make, and I make really bad choices. I will never condescend to you and be holier than thou. I make terrible choices.
But I can be honest enough to stand before you and give a message like this, because I have spent the last decade probably being honest with myself.
And particularly over the last few years, the more I've seen this place grow, and the more I've understood the accountability and the responsibility of leadership, the more I have had to ask myself, why do you make these bad choices? What is it that's driving you to do that? And so all I'm asking you to do is to do that for yourself.
And I firmly believe that we can make great strides in helping ourselves. But I know it's so much easier when we're willing, at least just to be honest and to. To open up to Hashem's helping hand. You see, I'm talking about self help, but it's in the context of this point of the calendar where God is proven himself to be someone who's elevating an entire people, that they showed up at Mount Sinai, and that it's been done in Judaism for a long, long time.
He will help us help ourselves. That's the way it works. That's what the days are about. But you have to commit. That's why I've given you easy, digestible questions and tasks. You have to do them again. You can't just say, huh, that was a good self help message the rabbi gave. What's for lunch?
This is forever kind of stuff. This is what disciples do. Disciples learn, disciples grow, disciples change. Disciples influence people.
Do you want to be a genuine influencer? Not some stupid Instagram person who's wearing a bikini and flexing their biceps?
Look at the influencer. She's got a million followers. I could care less.
I want to see a room of influencers who are healthy and strong inside. Because God made you that way.
50 days. 50 days. That's how long Israel had. From 430 years, 400 years, 210 years, 116 years, 86 years. It doesn't matter. They had 50 days to overcome it. Thank God we don't have that kind of track record. Right?
I don't think any of us are at the 49th level of impurity. Thank God.
But we should treat this equally as serious as that, because there is a spiritual opportunity.
There really is, to nachshon it, to move with courage into the better part of your life.
But there's. I.
I had it in my notes. I just have to say it. You ready? There was one other question. If I knew I would die in ten years, what would I do today?
Everyone's heard the question. Well, most people, when they were being presented with the burning fires of hell, if you died tomorrow, where would you be? No, that doesn't work.
Where would you be if you knew you were going to die in ten years? Knew I was going to die tomorrow? No offense, I wouldn't be here if I knew I was going to die in a year, no offense, I would gather my family and spend every dime I had to go everywhere and do everything we could in a year.
Ten years is reality.
It's not forever away. It's a little ways away, but it's.
Think about it.
It's the extension of 50 days.
If I was going to die, and I knew it in ten years, what would be different about my life?
What big thing would you do? What fears would you let melt away? What new ones might show up? Who would you remove from your life? Who would you spend more time with? And I think about it, in the scope of your Yeshua's words, what treasures in heaven would you focus on laying up?
What would you do to hear even louder and more clearly from your master? Well done, good and faithful servant.
How can I allow God to help me, help myself to be the best?
Let me conclude by revisiting this idea I gave you a couple of weeks ago. I said, no, not better, right? It's the title of the message. Not better, but higher.
Not better, but higher. It's a little bit confusing. I thought more about it. I didn't articulate it, but I want to now because it's important.
Better we might liken to improving skills or attributes, like being more patient or becoming a better listener.
Higher, on the other hand, is the deep changes growing in the sense of humility, of justice, of servanthood, deepening one's relationship with God. Changes that transform your essence.
That is an elevating change in this journey. Over the next seven weeks, you have plenty of opportunities to do things that make you better. And as those things become your norm, as the better things become your norm, your baseline increases and you go higher and closer to God. Better is like often incremental, measurable enhancements, like skills, behavior, efficiency, higher, transformational shift, quantitative versus qualitative. And I don't know exactly what it is about that phrase, not better, but higher, that resonates so strongly with me.
I think I can visualize it in my mind. It works for me like that. Better, higher. And I can see it. But the thing is, I do feel that hashem is urging me to make that statement a part of our culture at Shalom Macon, that we recognize ourselves in that lens.
We're always on a journey for those quantitative betterments in our lives.
But as a community and as individuals in every aspect, we are qualitatively elevating and counting up.
And on Shavuot, 45 days from now, I expect to see every one of you floating in here off the ground like a hot air balloon that ditched its sandbags. And, like, we have to tie you like one of those balloons that got up on the ceiling.
I expect you to take what I say seriously.
I'm your leader. That's what you put me up here to do, was to teach you and guide and lead.
So if I'm going to take the time to do it and teach it, I expect you to do it.
Not for me.
It doesn't help me.
It's for you.
And that's my job. So here's the last thing. This is just an article. I want to read it real quick.
Yankee Talber from Chabad. Yankee. I love that one. Or Yankel, that's the other. Great. These are like, you know, good Chabad names. Yankee Tauber. I happen to read this at 04:00 in the morning when I couldn't sleep.
And I just thank God for the fact that so often he does these little things and just brings some thought, like, thank you, Sahil Bloom. Thank you, Hashem, for that. Thank you for Yankee Tauber.
We proceeded to free ourselves.
I'm sorry. Let me the day we left the borders of Egypt, we were free in the conventional sense. No longer could an alien taskmaster dictate what we must or may not do. That is to say, we no longer had to believe the lies we were told.
That's my comment.
We then proceeded to free ourselves of the alien influences that constrained us from within the pagan habits and mindset that centuries of subjection to the depraved culture of Egypt had imposed on us and our own inborn negative inclinations. That's to say, we no longer have to listen to the lies we tell ourselves.
Then at Sinai, we were empowered to strive for yet a deeper dimension of freedom, a freedom that is not the negation of adversarial forces and influence, but of surmounting our own positive and behavioral potential.
That is to say, we begin to see ourselves for who we are and ask God to help us become the people he wants us to be.
There is nothing negative about our human potential, but we are capable of more, of raising our achievements to a level in relation to which yesterday's liberated self is small.
Our sages have said in every generation a person must see himself as if he himself has come out of Mitzrayim, Egypt. Listen to this, Egypt. Mitzrayim means boundaries, and the endeavor to free ourselves from yesterday's boundaries is a perpetual one. I told you this is a forever task. I've given you a 45 day bite of what you should do forever.
For freedom is more than the drive to escape foreign and negative inhibitors. Freedom is the incessant drive to pass over these boundaries, to draw on our divine infinite potential, to constantly overreach what we are. Thank you, Yankee Talber I couldn't have said it better. Myself and my friends, we have work to do and that work will never stop. Embrace it. Enjoy it. Knowing that stepping into the sea right now, this nachshon moment, has incredible potential for you and your life to leave the lower self behind and begin to rise.
I will rise.
When he calls my name, ask him to call you Shabbat Shalom and happy counting.
[00:42:24] Speaker B: Please visit our website, shalommakin.org, to learn more about us. Join our live services. Access other teachings sign up for our newsletter join our private network that will connect you with our greater community from around the world or contribute to the work of Shalom Macon, thank you for watching and we look forward to connecting with.
