Soar Like the Angels: Overcoming Spiritual Drag During Elul

0:01 You know, humans are really weird because we're part angel but part dirt and I think of her very fair. So part of us wants to fly and part of us wants to not move a muscle and just sit on the couch and eat potato chips. We're kind of like the odd couple and it can get pretty squishy at times. Hopefully you can relate. So you know what we got to do. If we really want to learn how to be angelic and fly, feel like we got to reduce our drag right, because if we want to fly, the main force that holds flying things back is the air resistance, the air molecules pushing back on an airplane.

0:46 You gotta resist drag. That's what the Wright brothers told us. You gotta increase lift and thrust. We gotta increase lift and thrust if we wanna channel that inner angel and get rid of the drag. So how do you do that? I vote. We take a play out of Bird's playbook. See, they like to fly in flocks. When they migrate, when they want to come together and forage collectively down towards a warmer spot, they all choose to meet up, maybe make a V and fly together, not just because they want friends, but because science tells us that in aerodynamics, when you have a flock flying in a V, you can reduce 25% of the drag when you fly together, percent of the drag when you fly together.

1:47 See, when you fly together, you reduce drag. Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to increase your thrust and your lift and reduce your drag, your air resistance, you get yourself a holy flock and you hang out with feathered friends. That's how you reduce the drag, the spiritual drag. Every single great rabbi will probably relate to you that k'nei l'cha chavar, a'sei l'cha rab, a'sei l'cha rab. Have good friends, have a great rabbi, learn in the shul daven, where the people are upstanding, noble individuals. That's how you shtag your environment and your friends are very much going to shape who you are.

2:34 So the slightest, most insignificant change, but probably the most helpful and productive change that we can make this level, is to choose and ensure that we daven, that we hang out, chill, learn, study, play with noble, feathered friends, with others that are flying and migrating to the place that is holy. And like this you reduce your drag, you reduce the resistance and you're flying literally like a bird, like an angel, to the Makum of Kedusha.

3:17 And it's so much easier when the drag is cut because you're migrating as part of a holy flock.