Parshas Lech Lecha: Dream On

How much would you pay for peace and clarity in your life? How much would you be willing to spend on the golden ticket, the key to finally defeating the Yatza Harrah, overcoming urges and temptations and following the path that you know you are destined for, the path to Godless? For many people, that price tag is pretty high and they'd spend quite the sum pulled from the savings investments. It's hard to find anything more valuable than this. Yet the Ramchal, the great Rev Moise Chaim Lutzato, the author of the Derich Hashem and the Masilas Yasharim. He authored another work called Derich Eitz Chaim, the Path to or of the Tree of Life. It's, truthfully, an introduction to Kabbalah, but nestled inside of one of the paragraphs about free will and overcoming temptations, ramchal gives away the secret to victory. Listen to this After Ramchal has explained the struggle of how life can be so distracting and how one's greatness and intellect and knowledge of his Creator lies dormant like a coal that he must bring out to truly light his fire, to see his Creator and to reach his goals in life. He speaks a little bit more about the struggle and how powerful the Yatza Harrah is, but then he says there is some advice, zosia Tirofa, and the following is the antidote, the medicine, ha Yoseir Gedola, that is the biggest, the greatest, the Chazaka and the medicine that is most powerful. Shetukhal Lahamsi, neged Ha Yatzaar, that will help you to prove triumphant against the Yatza. Harrah Sounds pretty good. Let's keep reading the Hekala and this advice. This practice is simple, it's easy. Upu'u Lhasa Gedola, and its impact is quite significant. Upirio and its fruits. The outcome, rav is great, is significant and wide reaching. Shiyamid. What is this great advice? Let's hold it right there just for a second. Let's leave it below Clefhanger. We're about to get to Ramchal to tell us what we've all been waiting to hear. Listen to what he says. You're not going to believe it. Lifchais Sh'achas Ponui. Mishar Kol Hamachshavus. Turn your mind for some time, a short period of time. Clear your head from all other thoughts, lachshov, and think Rakh al-Hu'inyin haza, just about the following thing. Now are you intrigued? Do you want to know what it is that is so easy to think about? And to save ourselves, here it comes the Yavakish Bilavavu. You should search in your heart. You should really, really desire ma asu harishayanim avais ha'ilam sh'ach choshak ha'ashem pohem. What was it that the forefathers, the avos, did that made them so desirable in the eyes of God. Think about it In times of peace. Set aside time. Why did Hashem like Avraham so much? Why, at age 75, did Hashem all of a sudden decide that this is the man that I'm going to reveal myself, to give some prophecy to rest my soul on? A person should think why were the Ovos so endeared by Akhadash Barakha? He continues what was it that made Moshe Rabinu so wanted? What was it that made David so beloved by Hashem? And to that, the Yalabah, sichlo, atov, al-adham. Doing this, contemplating, what would Abraham do? This will bring greatness to you all the days of your life and will put you on the right path. Sheifos, aspirations, asking yourself what would my grandfather do? Going through these Parseus, all of these lessons, they're supposed to be very practical, according to the Ramchal, to see how we should act in these situations. What would a Ram do? Let's just say W-A-D. What would a Ram do? Take a minute out of your day. Why did Hashem love a Ram so much? And as we go through this Parseus, there's so many of the lessons of what would a Ram do. Well, hanging out with Lot eventually became not exactly a nice experience or pleasant experience for him or his shepherd. So he split, he left the Russia, got immediately prophesized and revealed himself to Abraham. So clearly this was a good thing, separating himself from an evil neighbor. So what would a Ram do when we're in that situation of perhaps we're stuck in a group chat of where some gossip is spoken about things beneath us? What would a Ram do? Would he stay in the group chat? A Ramavino was the ultimate iconoclast, the ultimate salmon that swam upstream when the whole world believed, bowing down to the sun and the moon, in idolatry of Adesara, when humanity had slipped, during the days of Enoch, down the slippery slope into the horrible dystopia and abyss of idolatry, where only one man stood tall and smashed the idols and debated them and proved his victory and truth For us amazing. How many times does the world do something? Think one way. We kind of have a hankering in our bellies that maybe it's not right, but don't do anything. Everyone's going to the concert. Come on, who cares if it's not the right style music or maybe it's mixed seating? Well, wwad, what would a Ram do? Everyone eats at that restaurant. It's fine, wwad, what would a Ram do? The lessons are so frequent, so powerful. Most of the entire safer voracious is a travel log and reads like a diary of Avrahamavino. So, with this idea in mind of what would Avram do, berajus takes on a whole another facet, wearing multiple hats and holds so many different valuable lessons. But we must ask on this. It's very nice to aspire to be like Avram and ask yourself what would the Avos do? These are the people, I remind you, that are on the Mount Rushmore of Judaism. These are G'daylum that if they were alive nowadays, it seems we'd burn up from their sheer kadoosha, their sanctity and holiness. It seems odd, but we should ask ourselves what would somebody so much greater than me do? I could be asked to learn like Rev Chaim Kaniyepski, lema'shal She'ifos aspirations have to be very careful with them. But then I started to think about it. Are there any sources that would back up this question? I asked a Rebbe who showed me there's actually another meager that says a person should always ask himself when will my actions mimic the ways of Avram Yishchakanyakov, that our mice and our actual lives should parallel their lives in some way. Again, those are some heavy aspirations. That's a lot to ask A kid growing up in 2023 or any person ever. They should try to live a parallel life and mimic as a copycat the ways of Avram Yishchakanyakov, the greatest to ever do it, to be like the Avos. More research shows that in fact there's a Gamarra, that when a person will come up for his final accounting at the end of days, after 120, and Hashem should say, why did you do this sin? And man will have to answer it during the din and the reshbun, the Gamarra says well, what if man will give an excuse Gamarra and Mzachdoshavis? For example, when Hashem will say to a person, why didn't you learn Torah sufficiently? That person will say, well, I was just too poor. I always had to engage in commerce, I never had enough. And Hashem will give a rebuttal, say, well, hillel was so poor and even poorer than you, he literally had nothing. He couldn't even get into the study hall for the few pennies that was the fee to enter. He still became a Talmud-Kacham and a massive, massive gobble. So why not you? And when it comes to the struggles with the Yetzahara, someone will say it's just too hard. The temptations are everywhere. The billboards are more illicit in our generation than even the most immoral thing that one could pay for hundreds of years ago, even 50 years ago. So how was I supposed to balance that with a clear thinking. Head of Torah Hashem will say well, was the challenge greater than what Yosef had Sadik had to endure with Ashes, pray, diva and so on and so forth in this Gemara, all showing how our excuses will not cut it. But it's clear from the Gemara that we can be found guilty by being compared to the greatest to ever do it. Compared to Hillel, compared to Yosef, had Sadik. Again, aspirations and goals. It seemed that they should be quite lofty and kind of an interesting proof to one that Rabbi Ruchem says. We find that Noach was called the Ish tzadik, tomim hayyab adayro isov. He was at tzadik in his times and some would expound this pussik to say that only in his times was he at tzadik. But if he would have been born in a different generation, like by the days of Avromavina, we wouldn't have amounted to much, we wouldn't have been considered all that great. But it was only in his generation that he was so great compared to the evil community around him. But it's interesting we see that chazal Rashi here showing how one has even compared his greatness to other generations of what would you really be like if you were in this generation? The tire seems to ask a whole lot of us. We should have big goals, it seems, and all the research of trying to get out of this question only made it kind of that much harder. And it is what it is. Clearly, we have to eventually face a reality that, at some level and in some way, what we aspire to do and be like, who we put as our idols, will have a very powerful impact on us. What we hope for in life. We are told to hope and desire to want to be like the greatest to ever do it when she evils. Our ambitions should be to become like Avrama Vino. Well, maybe we'll say, but that's just impossible. Maybe we can even learn that it means that the ambitions should be the same way that Avrama Vino always chose the right thing to do and put Hashem first and put his soul before his body. Well then, us on our level, should always choose the what would Avrama do? The WWAD approach to always still strive to never quit, to ceaselessly seek to become like Hillel and Yosef. Maybe that's how we'll learn what Hazal are asking of us, from us. And really it hit me like a truck. A pound of bricks, like 50 pounds of bricks, woke me up in the most real way of. I've overlooked this source for so long and we've all heard the words probably so many times, but it can't now reads differently after kind of what we've discovered here. One of the most important and constitutional muster sapharem in the world is that of the Mesilas Yasharim from Ramchal. Whether you're Hasidish or whether you're Litvish or whether you're Svarty, everybody learns Ramchal's Mesilas Yasharim. And in his very opening thesis statement, perak Aleph, he describes to us kind of the beginning of the path, the foundation of piety, the shayrish o'avvayda hatimima and the root of perfect service of Hashem is what it says in Ramchal who she is, borer veis amit etzela adam. A person should clarify and verify to himself in his mind ma chobasso, pa olamo, what is my obligation in my world? What do I have to do? What are my talents? What am I on this planet to accomplish? And you know what else is included. And the foundation of true piety and the root of perfect service of Hashem the following Ulamah sarich shi yasim mabato umagam maso. And toward what goal? What his outlook, what his ambitions, what his sheifos are in life, b'chol asher o'mel kol yamei chayyem and everything that he's striving for during the days of his life, part in parcel of our growth, is what we hope to become, what we strive to be the foundation of chasidos Ulamah sarich vavayi de hatemima. So it's not crazy that we should aspire to be the very, very best that we can be in every situation, to ask ourselves W-W-A-D, what would I've rum do, what would the oboist do To search for Godless? There are so many stories of even my own rebellion or G-Dialyn that you read about at the beginning of their books. They had these super natural and absolutely insane, extraordinary goals in life. They were so crazy to believe that they could change the world. But yet so many of these people with these aspirations to be like Avramavino accomplished so much. Think about the Panavitur Rav. He was one of the greatest dreamers ever. He built Tyra in an unbelievable way. He would never take no from an answer, and one of his most powerful lines that's when he pointed to this big hill and he said I'm going to put this massive Yeshiva there. He wrote the plans for it. He built the whole thing from the very bottom up when there were barely any people that wanted to join Yeshiva. At that point they said Rebi, you're dreaming. He said in Yiddish I am dreaming, but I am not sleeping. It seems that dreams and aspirations they power the goal at a very deep level. So we should aspire. Greatness, rebi, I keep it eager the greatness of the Naseevis, of the Xoes, of Rav Shah, to hope for a lot and not be content with. I just want to be a pusher to Jew, because really, even with Sheifas to become a Gullaby's Thrill, it's probably the fastest way to become a pusher to Yidd, but something that even the great Rebbaruch Behr said about himself that all my life I wanted to be the great Yakiva Eager. At the end I became Rebbaruch Behr. So, yeah, let us ask ourselves W-W-A-D, what would Avram do? How would the Gdailam react and respond in this situation? Have Sheifas for greatness. Have your Mabata, your Magamasai, your outlook, your desire, your hope to be like Avram. Let your dreams power you through all the different difficult steps and have an ambition and a hankering. Have a Sheifa for Godless and ask yourself W-W-A-D, what would Avram do?