I’m here to tell you about a great opportunity. I know those words may not sound appropriate at this time, but I’d like to share a thought from a parashah (Torah portion) that is very familiar to all of us, though perhaps not for the point I’m going to make. We all learned the great story of Avraham Avinu when he was ill and in pain, and because of that, Hashem wanted to make things easier for him. So He made it extremely hot so that no guests would come that day, and Avraham could rest. Of course, we know that Avraham Avinu wanted to have guests at any price. He sat by his petach, by the entrance, and when Hashem saw how much Avraham wanted to have guests, even in his situation, Hashem brought three angels to visit him. And we know the rest of the story.
There are two critical questions about this story. Number one: Why did Hashem need to make a miracle? Why was it necessary to send three angels? Hashem only makes miracles when they’re absolutely necessary. In this situation, the only reason people weren’t coming was that Hashem had made it very hot. All Hashem would have had to do was turn down the temperature, and people would have come naturally. So why angels? And number two: a question about Avraham. Why was he in such pain because there were no guests? At the end of the day, if people don’t need you, that means they’re comfortable where they are. Why does that bother you? Why did Avraham want so much to perform an act of kindness that day?
I’d like to share a very important principle in life that I think is critical in the situation we’re in. I’m going to give you an example of two people. This example could be millions of examples. But I’m going to give you two examples of people who are very committed to their learning and their tefillah (prayer) with a minyan (prayer quorum). They come to their seven o’clock minyan and learn afterward every single day. One of them never misses. He’s always there. Sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes he’s out late. Sometimes he has a little bit of a headache. But even so, he energizes himself, shows up to minyan, and continues his seder (study session) every single day. This happens maybe five, six, seven times a year. Maybe ten times a year. But he battles it and continues, and he’s there every single day.
We have his friend, who’s also there every single day, on time for tefillah and for his shiur (Torah lesson). But when things get a little difficult for this person—he’s out late or he’s not feeling so well—he skips. They’re both wonderful people. In our eyes, they’re the same. The only difference is that this person has an edge of a couple of days over his friend. But in reality, that’s not so. The person who steps up his game when difficulties come is a different type of person. He’s in a different category. It’s not just, “I came five more days than you, and therefore I’m five up.” It’s not that way. It’s not that way. My entire learning and my entire tefillah during my year is a different essence than yours, because I was tested at the most difficult time and I made it. When I make it through those difficult moments, I raise everything I’ve done up to now to a new level.
Not only that, it’s also relevant to the future of these two people. When I go back to normal life and it isn’t as difficult as it was before, now we’ll both be there at 7 o’clock. But my 7 o’clock is different from your 7 o’clock.
Let me give you a mashal (parable) so we can understand what this means. You have a doctor who went to school, went to medical school, and started to work. He’s a regular doctor. He makes $200,000 a year. He works hard. Then he decides he wants to get one more title. He goes back to school to get expertise in a certain area. After a few years of school, he comes back. Now he’s a doctor plus. Those two years aren’t just an extra title. Going forward, he’s no longer the same doctor. This guy is now making $500,000 a year because he’s no longer the person he used to be.
So too, when a person goes through a difficulty and is able to withstand the challenge, stick with it, and continue what he’s doing even though it isn’t as easy as it used to be, that raises the person going forward. Even when things become easier, he’s in a new category. He’s now plus. He’s not the same. He’s Joe plus. He’s Avraham plus. Those challenging moments are what raise the person, both in the past and in the future.
It’s like a store. A person has a regular retail store selling food. He does good business. He works hard. Then he makes a major improvement in the store. He works for a month. He paints. He restructures. He advertises. Going forward, it’s not just a month’s difference. Every single day going forward, it’s a different store. When a person goes through challenges and withstands and excels through those times, he’s a different person going forward. He’s no longer the same.
Avraham Avinu understood this opportunity. You see, Avraham Avinu was a man of kindness. But he loved kindness. He was comfortable. Hashem blessed him with wealth. Hashem blessed him with wisdom. Hashem gave him the time and the money to help people. And it was his pleasure. But when Avraham realized that, at that moment in his life, on that day, things weren’t going to come easily as they used to, and now he was in pain, what would happen? Avraham Avinu understood that it was specifically that day in his life that would make a difference to all the kindness of his life. All the kindness he had done and all the kindness he would do would go to a new level if he could continue his kind deeds on that difficult day when he was in pain. Therefore, Avraham wanted so badly to raise not only that day but his entire life.
When Hashem saw that Avraham so badly wanted to do chesed (kindness), Hashem did not want to lower the temperature and bring regular people. That would be just another day of kindness. Hashem gave Avraham his wish: that on that day he would be able to do kindness in the most difficult circumstances. And because he will do it, he will raise everything about himself, past and forward. Avraham Avinu rose to the challenge.
You know, it’s interesting. Avraham did so much kindness in his life, but the Torah highlights specifically that parashah. Imagine 150, 160, 170 years of kindness. Which story would you choose for the Torah to stand for him and his children? Which one should we learn about? The Torah chose this one because it was this one that gave great credibility to every single act of kindness he did. It raised even the easy types of kindness.
When we go through struggles, like we’re going through now as a community, as a nation, as an entire world together, Am Yisrael always asks, “So what do we need to do?” Before we even ask why, we have to ask what. What are the marching orders here? What am I supposed to do in this situation? To know what, you just have to read the map. You have to see what happened and what’s going on in our lives today that’s very different from what was happening a week or two weeks or a month ago.
Today we’re no longer able to pray in a Bet Knesset (synagogue) like we normally would. Now we have to pray at home. Today we’re no longer able to learn in school or in yeshiva or in our chabura (study group), or go to our shiur. Now we have to learn at home. Now we’re no longer able to give charity like we used to. Rather, we have to sit at home. Everything is done at home. If those are the cards we were dealt, that must also be the instruction.
Rabotai (my masters), our avodah (spiritual service) during these days—hopefully, maybe weeks—is to turn into a real Jew at home. You see, it’s very easy to pray when everybody else is praying. In fact, when you go into a room and there are so many people, you feel weird not praying. It’s easy to learn when you have tables all around you, people opening a Gemara and learning, havrutot learning, rabbis giving shiurim, action, energy. You sit in a shiur and there are hundreds of people. It’s easy to learn when everybody is learning.
But Hashem says, “No, no more. Go home. I want to see you learn in your house.” It’s easy to be happy outside because we all like to give the world a face of happiness. We want everyone to believe that we’re perfect, so we try to act the part of perfection. We may be miserable inside. We may have the most terrible shalom bayit (peace in the home). We may not get along with anyone in our homes. Our lives may be miserable. But in the street, we put on that big smile. We say that big “Shabbat shalom.” Hashem says, “No more. No more outside smiles. If you want to be sameach (happy) going forward, you have to do it in the bayit (home). You have to do it in your house. Let me see how you smile at your wife. Let me see how you smile at your children. Let me see your kindness to the people who are in your bayit. Let me see you pray. Let me see how you pray in your home.”
It’s so easy to pray with kavanah (focused intention) when everybody is praying with kavanah. You’re going to pray with nobody there. Nobody is watching you. What kind of tefillah are you going to have? Are you going to pray a 10-minute tefillah? A 20-minute tefillah? A 30-minute tefillah? Are you going to pray an hour-long tefillah? Are you going to watch everything you say? Are you going to concentrate? Are you going to do it at least as you would if people were watching you? You were the chazan (prayer leader). Everyone was watching you. No more. Now Hashem is watching you. Let me see what you’re going to do for yourself. Let me see your bayit.
The bayit is not only a house that we live in. The bayit is the inside of our souls. It’s not only about tefillah. It’s not only about Torah. It’s not only about simcha (joy). It’s about chinuch (education). Generally speaking, we send our children to school. Baruch Hashem (Blessed is God), in our community we send them to school because everybody sends them to school. But Hashem says, “No more sending them to school. You now have to give chinuch b’bayit in your house, because it’s your obligation to take care of your children.” Maybe we forgot about that. Maybe we just thought it was part of being a parent to send a child to school. That’s not what it’s about. School is only a messenger for doing our job. The job is not done in school. The job is supposed to be done at home. School is supposed to help us.
Hashem says, “No more school. No more going to yeshiva. We want the yeshiva to be in your house. Is your house a yeshiva? Is your house giving the chinuch that your children are going to need to live a fruitful, successful Jewish life? Now it’s on you. It’s no longer on the people outside.”
It’s about berachot (blessing). When we sit in the Bet Knesset, around other people, we make a beracha. A few days ago, I saw a person making a beracha in front of 30 people. He closed his eyes and said, “Baruch atah Hashem, Elokeinu Melech ha’olam, shehakol nihyah bidvaro (Blessed are You, Hashem our God, King of the universe, by whose word all things came to be).” It was one of the most beautiful berachot I’ve ever witnessed. I took him over to the side and told him, “I give you a beracha.” He said, “What’s the beracha?” I said, “I pray and bless you that you should make berachot like that in your home when nobody’s watching.” He was taken aback, but he understood.
To make a beracha in public with kavanah is much easier. To give charity in public when people are watching you, announcing your name, and seeing how kind you are is easy. Let me see you give charity at home when nobody’s looking. Let me see that beracha in your home. Let me see that calmness you show in the street, that cool, calm, collective strength you show to other people. Let me see you do that at home.
The avodah of the coronavirus is the bayit. How are you doing at home? No more outside. No more acting. Sometimes on the outside we act. We’re on stage. When we’re on stage, we have to look good. I can speak first as a rabbi. I, too, have to look good. I, too, have to act the part of a rabbi. I have to pray like a rabbi. I have to talk like a rabbi. Hashem says, “Rabbi, sit down. Go home. You’re a regular guy. Let me see how you are at home. Let me see the rabbi by himself, how he learns and how he cares about his children and his family. Let me see you pray the way you’re supposed to pray when nobody’s looking at you.” That’s what I’ve been thinking about the last few days.
And why now? If our homework is to turn our homes into the things I just discussed, why now? Let me tell you what the Vilna Gaon writes. The Gaon of Vilna writes that, in the time of Mashiach—which many of our rabbis tell us we’re right here in the footsteps of Mashiach—it will be a time of... He says it will be a time of superficial living. That means the quality of your shirt is no longer as important as knowing who made it. The comfort of your couch isn’t as important as the brand name. The speed of your car isn’t as important as the name on it. Everything is about brand name. It’s not only about the clothes we wear and the cars we drive, but about our lifestyle. We build our brand in the street. We want to give each one of ourselves. I’m Rabbi Yadid, so I have to build the Rabbi Yadid brand. Then there’s the Rabbi Heber brand and the Rabbi Ozeri brand, and then there’s the Joe Cohen brand, and then there is Avraham. Everybody’s got their own brand, and we’re all trying to sell our brand.
When you start to become a brand, all you care about is advertising. To sell brands, you don’t have to have such great quality. You have to have decent quality, but you have to have a great advertising agency that’s going to put your name out there all over so that people, when they see your name, say, “Whoa, that person is unbelievable.” Not because they’re unbelievable, but because you have a great team advertising you and making you look good out there in the street.
The Gaon of Vilna says that this is the generation before Mashiach, when everything will be superficial. Weddings will not be about the chatan (groom) and kallah (bride). They’ll be more about the entertainment, about what people will talk about. They’ll be about the flowers, the music, how much money we spent, the wow factor. What about the chatan and kallah? Where is their simcha? Isn’t that the most important part of the wedding? Not in the superficial generation.
Even our shuls (synagogue) are following some sort of superficiality. Yes, we’re supposed to pray to Hashem, to talk to Him. We’re supposed to sit down, open our siddur (prayer book), and pray. Talk to Hashem. It’s obvious. Anybody in the street, even if they’re not Jewish, knows that. What do you do in a place of prayer? You pray. You talk to God. You open the book and speak to Him for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or 45 minutes. That’s what you do when you go to a place of prayer.
But in the superficial world, it’s not like that. We talk about my shul. I go to my shul. “What’s your shul?” “This is the place that I learn.” “Where do you learn?” Now it becomes teams. “I don’t like that. I don’t like that. I don’t like that about you. I don’t like that about you.” Each one is fighting for his team and for his building. That’s called the superficial generation. Did we lose the understanding of what tefillah is? That’s the generation we’re living in, where a person can go to shul for 45 minutes and spend 5-10 minutes socializing. You can go for 2 hours, and for 20 minutes of the 2 hours, you’re talking. Of course our intentions aren’t bad. Of course we’re not doing it to spite anyone. We’re not doing it on purpose. But that’s the generation we live in. We live in the superficial generation. So as long as you go into the right shul, go to the right minyan, and end up looking good in the place where you’re supposed to be seen by people you respect, that’s a good enough job.
And that’s for all circles, from the boy sitting down in yeshiva to the person learning in kollel (Torah study institute). Even that, even that world, has a lot of chitzoniyut (superficiality). It’s about the yeshiva I’m attending or the kollel I’m in. It’s about, “I’m the one they speak about. I’m the one who has the name.” Even there, that superficial view of Torah learning can come in. But this is not what Hashem wants from us, on any level.
The Gemara says that Rav Papa tells Abaye, “What is the difference between the early generations, that miracles would happen to them, while we don’t have the merit for the same miracles as the early generations?” He tells him, “Maybe you’ll tell me they learn more Torah than us.” Rav Papa proves to him that it’s not true: we actually learn more than them. We know more than them. Abaye answered him, saying, “You’re right. Maybe in today’s generation they learn more. Maybe they know more. But there’s one major factor that’s missing in our generation,” says Abaye. He says that in that generation... Which means they had... In our words today, it means they had heart.
Hashem wants our heart. Hashem is not looking for the exterior. We must do the exterior. The exterior is the only way to get to your heart. Someone who says, “No, I’m only a heart,” is talking nonsense. You can’t just be a heart person. You have to do. But the actions are only the way to get to your heart. Tefillah is about your concentration and your connection to Hashem. Torah is about learning the wisdom of Hashem: understanding what He wants us to live life, how He wants us to live life, what He wants us to feel is valuable, and what isn’t valuable. That’s how you approach Torah learning.
Kindness is about giving from within, not because anybody else is looking at me. Taking care of my children is my job. The way I behave is my middot (character traits), not about how people see me. I have to improve my middot. I can no longer get angry—not in my house, not outside, anywhere. Anger is my problem. It’s not that I want people to think I’m calm. It’s not that I want people to think I’m happy. I need to be happy. I have to be calm.
That’s why the older generations—maybe they weren’t as great as this generation in their Torah learning—were people of heart. And I think, and I’m sure most would agree, if not all, that perhaps our biggest challenge in this generation is that, while we have so much to be proud of and so much to look at and say, “Wow, look how beautiful, look how many shuls we have, look how much Torah is being learned, look how much kashrut, look how much this and how much that,” and we need to be proud, can anyone deny that the last generation, even the ones we saw with our own eyes, maybe weren’t as observant, but had a certain heart, a certain understanding of what a person is supposed to be doing in a real way? They were people who actually lived by bayit. They lived in their home, inside.
But I think our avodah in these few days, hopefully, like I said, is to make our home a life that anybody would look from the outside, if there was a camera in our home today, and someone would be watching us, and the community would watch our home, they would want to see the most beautiful home. A home where there is respect to each other. A home where there is calmness. A home where there is happiness. A home where there are smiles. There are people who have a very hard time smiling at home. In the street, it’s easier for them. At home, maybe they feel it’s unnecessary, or maybe they’re used to it, or maybe they just don’t feel it’s important. But smiling at home is number one. You have to smile in your house, especially during these times. You have to make your kids comfortable.
Torah has to be part of your home. Torah is not meant to be in shul. Torah is not meant to be in a shiur. Torah is not meant to be listened to on TorahAnytime or iTorah. Torah is supposed to be done in our hearts, wherever we are. What an opportunity we have. We would never stay home if we could go to shul. But now Hashem says, “No, stay home. Stay home and take on the challenge. Learn in your house. Pray in your house, but pray a real tefillah. Let me see what a real tefillah looks like. Nobody’s watching you.”
If we succeed over the next few weeks, over the next few days... I began this class by saying that we live in a time of opportunity. If someone had told Avraham Avinu, “Avraham, you know, today, this hot day, today is your day of opportunity,” he would have said, “What, today? Today is the hardest day. Today I can’t even get up. There are no guests around. What opportunity?” And look what happened. That day is the only one that Hashem says, “I want to talk about your chesed of that day.”
All of us right now have a decision to make: to turn our homes into a holy place with everything we mentioned and more. Imagine what will be if we took our homes to the next level, just for the next few days, the next week. We've raised our families, we've raised ourselves, not only in the past, but going in the future, that with G-d's help, we will get over this. And b’ezrat Hashem, we will go back to normal. But it will never happen. But it will never be normal again. During that time, when it was challenging, we took it to the next level.
When they write a book on our lives and point out our success, they’re not going to look at the years before this or the years after. They’re going to choose this week and next week. And they’re going to ask, “Let me see how you learned. Let me see how you prayed. Let me see your kindness. Let me see your smile. Let me see your calmness. Let me see how you honored people in your home. Let me see it now.” Because that’s going to be your matzeva. That’s going to be my matzeva. It’s going to be my stone when I leave this world. What did I do when things got difficult? Did I go into the bayit and make this bayit the most magnificent home one can imagine?
I think it’s a great opportunity. It’s not one we necessarily wanted, but it’s one Hashem saw as necessary. I give you all a blessing, a beracha, that every one of us should turn their bayit into a Beit Mikdash. Hatzlacha u'Beracha.