23. VaYikra 5777 -Top Of The Seventh -When G - D And We Become One

Trailer Link: https://www.facebook.com/TheJewishMind/videos/1736572779692847/ Audio Link: https://soundcloud.com/hachaim/23-vayikra-5777-top-of-the-seventh-when-g-d-and-we-become-one LiveFeed Link: Will be posted Written Notes Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6r9kz13cb3g24ed/23.%20Vayikra%205777%20-Top%20of%20the%20Seventh%20-When%20G-d%20and%20We%20Become%20One.pdf?dl=0 Parsha Vaikra 5777: Top of the Seventh ~When G-d and We Become One (based primarily on d”h Hachoidesh Hazeh Lochem (II), 5726) In a conversation with a woman, discussing the feeling of being protected and of losing that feeling, the woman shared with me the precise moment of when she for the first time in her life felt unprotected, vulnerable, and afraid. The woman went on to tell me that she has never recovered that feeling of sureness and protection ever since. For this specific woman, it happened after a ski accident, when she was in a leg cast, on crutches, and while walking as such down the stairs, she fell down the staircase. At that very moment she looked up into her husband’s eyes, and said, “I lost it.” Not understanding what his wife meant, he just pushed aside what she said with soothing words of, “It’s okay… etc.” She responded with, “No. You don’t understand. I lost my Guardian Angel…” Many of us may not be able to pinpoint the exact moment that we lost our feeling of being protected, and many of us may have never had the feeling of being unconditionally protected by a Higher Power in the first place. What is important for this lecture, however, is the latter feeling, of not being unconditionally protected by a Higher Power. In my book, The Gift of Sin, which will be in print, G-d willing, shortly, I speak of the first such human experience when Cain responds to G-d saying (-Genesis 4:14), “Behold You have driven me today off the face of the earth, and I shall be hidden from before You, and I will be a wanderer and an exile in the land, and it will be that whoever finds me will kill me." The discussion there is of the effect of sin on mankind. This lecture isn’t about the effect of sin, rather, the lecture explores the personal experience of feeling blessed and protected by G-d in everything that we do. The Reichmann family is a Canadian family best known for their property empire built through the Olympia and York Company. Being quite an affluent family, people often sought their advice and their ‘secrets’ to success. Once at a wedding two of the Reichmann brothers were sitting at a table, and a man was pestering one of the brothers to share his ‘secret’ to success. The other brother couldn’t take it anymore and replied, “It is 97% mazal (luck) and 3% intellect!” To which the first brother then added on, “And all that we do is pray that the 3% of intellect should not get into the way of the 97% of mazal…” What paralyzes the majority of the population from the pursuit of happiness is precisely the 97% of luck that it takes to become successful. You see, if one accepts that it takes 97% mazal, and at the same time believes that they don’t have any mazal, then they are paralyzed of even beginning their pursuit. In this lecture, we are going to uncover how to bring mazal into our lives, and how to bring the tangible feeling of being unconditionally loved, blessed, and protected by G-d into our lives.