 I'm so happy to inshallah be spending a little bit of time with you in these next few nights reflecting on the month of Ramadan and really hoping that all of this brings us closer to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala and to receiving his mercy in this month and his forgiveness. Today inshallah I'm going to go through a couple of reflections on the meaning of the month of Ramadan and each night inshallah I hope to add a little bit more to that discussion. I reflect on how in this month of Ramadan my teachers had very specific definitions of how they determined or defined what this month really meant to them. Of course we know it's a month of fasting and a month of prayer and a month of Quran reading but there's more to this month than those very trademark and consistent features of Ramadan. And our teachers would say that unless we dive deeper into that discussion we may not fully reap the full benefits of what this month has to offer. So first and foremost I would often hear my teacher say that Ramadan is a month of little food and little sleep. Now I'm sure now that we are about a week into the month we feel the little food part of it Masha Allah and how our sleep schedule has really changed. If you are consistently getting up for sahur or sahri which I hope you are as the sunnah of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam then our sleep schedules have definitely changed as has our food schedule too. But the idea of little food and little sleep is really important to reflect on because the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam reminds us that Allah is not in need of our hunger and our thirst. The point isn't to feel those pangs of hunger and thirst just because there is definitely an underlying conditioning and discipline that Allah is putting within us to really help us understand how others in the ummah are experiencing life. For those of us who have had the privilege of having much, then SubhanAllah it takes actually putting yourself in the shoes of someone else to really feel any different. And this is where I reflect on the difference between the word sympathy and empathy where sympathy you're cleaning back and sort of saying oh that poor person bachara, yaharam. As opposed to empathy which is literally putting yourself in those shoes so therefore you feel the pains of hunger, you feel the thirst, you feel the disrupted sleep and the exhaustion that comes with this month but it's a blessed exhaustion. It is purposeful and it is part of disciplining. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knew what he created and knew that he needed we as humans needed all 30 days or 29 to reach a point of change. That simply doing it for a day or night or a few weeks you know or you know every so often once in every 10 years wasn't going to actually make this work. It was something that had to happen annually and had to happen for at least a month for us to really feel that change. Our teachers also remind us that this is the month of patience. Why? Because we have little food and little sleep and we're exhausted that are bandwidth with our family members and loved ones and even in our workplaces shrink. And because of that we tend to be angry which is a play on the word hungry and angry at the same time. And that is important because we're taught that part of fasting isn't just letting go of food and drink in certain hours of the day. It's also letting go of anger, any sort of yelling or screaming or cursing or bad language or anything that's considered or misunderstood as bad mannerisms. Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la takes this month and wipes it clean of those things. And that's really important because that's part of the fast. Otherwise you have a partial fast. And I think that's a very important idea too that this is the month of patience. And because we're taught patience Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is patient with us. And in his divine mercy does not have what humans have a decreasing of bandwidth in his patience with us as a Bisan and as we make mistakes and as we don't keep consistent with what we need to be doing and so on and so forth. So we are learning how to feel for the people in our ummah. And we are learning how to be as magnanimous as Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is with us. This month has so many underlying messages and real lessons to be learned. It's also month of kindness. This is the month that we reach out to everyone around us, family, friends, neighbors. We figure out who is in need of anything that we may help them. Yes, this is the month that it's a very charitable month. And this is the month where most Muslims choose to pay out their zakat, their alms charity if they owe it. Because again, that is annual just like the Muban is annual. So it helps to market all those that can be given any time of year as you know. So it's a time where people look out for the needs of others. What do other people need and let me be charitable either with my wealth or with my time. Or with my energy or with my knowledge. All of these are considered to be types of charity or types of Sadaqah that count for us as Sadaqah if we engage in them this month. And charity starts at home and kindness with our own family members, especially those who we are currently in this pandemic living with, whether they be roommates or family or others. Charity starts at home. And then there's a ripple effect where it extends outwards. Mashallah. And Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la teaches this and reaffirms it in the month of Ramadan. Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la this is also a month in which our teachers would say is a month of getting rid of lehu. Lehu in Arabic is typically a word that remains anything that's considered to be extra or wasteful, particularly wasteful speech. Things that we shouldn't be saying, things we shouldn't be doing. But then also our teachers say that the word lehu can be extended out to everything and anything that's considered frivolous. Anything that's an extra and unnecessary. Ramadan is very much a book camp where you're meant to focus in and really intensively engage in worship of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la in the reading and recitation of Quran, in the extra prayers and of course the fasting and the charity. And really, in order to accomplish this you need, we need to get rid of the extras. The extra TV watching, the extra phone calls and chatting, the extra social media, the extra anything that's not useful or productive and focusing in on our betterment in this month. Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. Right? And I think that's a really key component of understanding what does this month actually boil down to in its essence. And so inshallah, I will just end in today's reminder of reminding us that we are still in the days of mercy. The first third of Ramadan that is demarcated by the days of mercy to remind us that there are thirds of Ramadan that each have their own theme. And in this day of mercy, and we will talk inshallah in the next session about what does mercy or Rahmah actually mean. But in these days of mercy, one of the most important things that we take away from it is that Ramadan comes to us like a bath. It bathes us. It allows us to erase the sins we have accumulated from the year prior. It is a cleansing time, a purifying time. It is a time that if done well, we emerge on the other end purified and cleansed like the day our mothers bore us. Mashallah. So in that month of forgiveness, there's also the month, the days of mercy and consider this like a bath, like being bathed. Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, spiritually speaking. And we hope inshallah Allah SWT shows us his mercy and grants us his forgiveness and allows us to be people who enter Jannah and have nothing to do with Jahannam. Allahumma Amin. Inshallah Allah, please keep me and our community and our families all in your blessed du'az this month. And we'll see you all very shortly. Tomorrow, Ibn Allah. Wa sallallahu ala Sayyidina Muhammad. Wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.