 There is a famous Jewish mystical concept. It was articulated probably one of the most famous people who formulated it was Vrsadek Hakkoin of Lublin, one of the last great Hasidic rabbis who passed away in the year 1900. He said that whenever we want to understand something in the Torah, you should look at the first place it appears. That's always the headquarters. If we're going to be learning tonight studying and thinking together about homes, so the first place to really look and the place to begin would be humanity's first home. Obviously, when God created the world, the Bible tells us he put human beings in a special place. That was their home. And so that would be an important place for us to reflect and think about some of the lessons we can learn about our homes. So the home that we had was given a name. It was called the Garden of Eden, God-Aden. And that name tells us something about what God's intentions were and the purpose of that place of residence. The word Aden in Hebrew has the meaning of pleasure or delight. And so God put us in a place which was called the Garden of Delight, the Garden of Pleasure. And it gives us some insight into what God's purpose for us is. Our mystical teachers, the Ramchal Moshe Chaim Lutzato among them, explain that God's intention in creating human beings and placing us in this home called the Garden of Pleasure was that we should have pleasure. That as human beings, we should be able to actualize the ultimate pleasure accessible to us in life. And that's actually not a strange concept. If you think about our terrestrial parents, mom and dad, they want the same thing for their children. Our earthly parents ultimately desire that we have ultimate pleasure, that we have ultimate fulfillment. And so, Avinu Shabashemayim, our Father in Heaven, has nothing less in mind for us. God ultimately desires that we have pleasure and fulfillment and therefore we are put into the Garden Aden, the Garden of Pleasure. Now it's interesting that God could have put us in maybe a more ultimate place of pleasure because we know that Judaism sees this world as we learn in Ethics of the Fathers, this world is seen as an entochamber, as a preparation for the ultimate place of pleasure, which is the world to come. The world to come is a place where it's unadulterated, it's unfiltered. Here, the idea of our soul, which is the primary part of who we are, our souls are not entirely comfortable in a world which is physical and spiritual. Our souls are pretty much out of place in this world. Our souls really come from Shemayim, from a spiritual realm, a totally spiritual realm, and our souls come into this world for a short journey, 70 years, 80 years, 120 years, however long it's for. Our soul puts on a body, our soul puts on a space suit if you will, an earth suit, and we go through this crazy life that we're all part of, this amazing adventure, this amazing journey, but our soul is a little bit out of place here. Our souls are much more comfortable in a totally spiritual realm, and ultimately that is where we will get the full bang for a buck, meaning that we can only experience a certain amount of ultimate spiritual pleasure in a world that's physical. We have tastes of ultimate spirituality. For example, the Talmud says that Shabbat is a taste of the world to come. The pleasure of Shabbat is a little bit of a taste of the world to come. And so we have hints, we have a taste of what ultimate pleasures lie ahead for us in the next world, so the question could easily be asked, why didn't God just put us there? Why couldn't that be our home? Why didn't God create human beings and make heaven their home? Why put us in this world which is less optimal and where things can easily go wrong, and many people we know go off the track altogether and plunge into a life that's totally non-spiritual? It would have been much safer, much easier to simply circumvent this entire earthly existence, place people in heaven, let them enjoy themselves. But our rabbis teach us that that would not have accomplished God's ultimate purpose, that would be basically giving human beings a free handout. It would be basically giving them their pleasure without them having earned that pleasure. And people ultimately don't take that much joy and pleasure in something that they receive without having earned it, without having worked for it. And therefore what our teachers tell us is that we are put in this world, a world of trials, of tribulations, a world where our spirituality is constantly being tested, so that we can ultimately work and earn and deserve to be in that ultimate place where we get our ultimate reward. We know that in the Garden of Eden, one of the things that we're told is there were two special trees. There was a tree called the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and there was a Tree of Life. Now they're told not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. That was one of the rules, and they were told that the consequences of eating from this Tree of Good and Evil are very, very dire, that ultimately they will face death if they eat from this Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. A very obvious question arises when we think about this story, and maybe some people here have thought about this question. Here they have these two trees. Obviously there must have been something tempting about the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The problem is that if you eat from this Tree, you're going to die. However, there was another Tree, the Tree of Life. Now presumably if you eat from the Tree of Life, what is the consequence? It would seem that you're going to get life. So maybe what they should have done would have been to first eat from the Tree of Life, and now they have this guarantee that we are going to live presumably forever now, and now we can do what we want and eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and there will be no consequences. It's sort of a simple question, and it's an obvious thing that maybe they should have thought of doing, and some of our rabbis teach us that we learn an important lesson from the fact that they didn't engage this strategy. Because ultimately we know what is the Tree of Life? The Tree of Life, the Tree of Life we call the Eitzhachayim. It's right behind here. The Torah is the Tree of Life. Eitzchayim eat, the Torah is the Tree of Life. And so they didn't eat from that Tree of Life. What did they do? They went right, they went directly to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And the lesson we see from this is that many people, many of us, make that same mistake when we go through our lives. That Torah means instructions. Torah basically is the instructions that God has given us for life. And yet so often we don't bother trying to find out what are the instructions. We say to ourselves, I don't need anyone to teach me how to do that. I'm not stupid. I can figure it out by myself. I mean, how many people read the instruction manual when they buy a car? No one reads that instruction manual. We say to ourselves, I know how to drive, I can figure it out. No one reads the instruction manual for a computer. I don't think anyone reads the instructions when you buy a bottle of shampoo. They actually tell you wet hair, put in some shampoo, lather up, rinse well. But there are always instructions all over the place. And so often in life we convince ourselves we don't need to read the instructions. I can figure it out myself. I'm going to go right for trial and error, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That's what I'm going to have. I'm going to have knowledge of good and evil. I'll see what works. If it doesn't work, I'll make an adjustment. How many people before they get married bother doing any research in terms of what would make a good marriage? People get married, let's say they're in their 20s. Wouldn't it be reasonable to possibly read five good books about marriage, what makes a good marriage? Maybe even interview five couples that have a great marriage and find out what makes a great marriage. Do some research, think about it. But when you wonder how many young people right here in Toronto that are going to get married this June, right? How many of them, what percentage do you think spent any time doing this kind of research? Really trying to figure out what is a good way to enter into the marriage? And do some research, read some instruction manuals. Very few people do that. We convince ourselves, I don't need to read the instruction manual. I don't need to follow instructions. I don't need to read any research. I'll just figure it out. The tree of knowledge of good and evil, trial and error. So if we're going to really be successful in building homes that are homes of quality and homes of integrity, spiritual homes, it's important that we explore the road map that's provided by the Torah. All of you should have a source sheet with you. And as we're going through the evening, I'll refer to some of the sources on your source sheets. The first source is from the book of Exodus, Shemot, chapter 25, verses 2-3. And it's the first which speaks about the collections that were taken for the construction of the Tabernacle in the desert. And interestingly, the Torah uses the word truma, offerings, three times in the same verse. It's a strange repetition of the same word. Speak to the children of Israel and let them take from me a portion, truma, from every person whose heart motivates him, you shall take my portion, trumati. This is the portion, ha-trumah, that you shall take from them gold, silver and copper. So you have this word repeated three times in the verse. And our commentaries point out, Rashi notes on the spot that there were three different collections that were taken. When they were building the sanctuary, they took three separate collections. There was a collection for the adhanim, the sockets. We know that the courtyard of the sanctuary contained curtains. The curtains were held up by wooden planks. And these planks were supported on the bottom by these adhanim, these sockets, silver sockets. There was a second collection taken as an operating budget to buy the sacrifices, the animals, the wine, the flower, all the things that they'll need to actually operate the sanctuary. And then there was the major building fund. They had to collect basically the ingredients, the materials that will be used to build the sanctuary, to build the vessels, to build the altar, to build the menorah, to build the ark. You had to have all the money, all the supplies necessary to construct the tabernacle. A very obvious question arises when we think about these three collections. It would really seem that there should have been just two collections. There should have been basically a building fund. And the building fund would include all the materials needed to build the tabernacle, including the sockets. And then have a separate fund for operating expenses. But why do they have a separate collection just for these sockets? It doesn't make any sense. The sockets are part of the structure. They should have been included in the general building fund. When we think about it, these sockets were really the least glamorous part of the tabernacle. They rested on the dirt floor of the camp. They were made of silver. Everything else was made of gold, or at least gold plated. So here you have these sockets. They don't seem to play a very prominent place. They don't have any special place in the worship services, in the sacrificial services. They really seem to have a side job, almost a background job. They're really just supporting the planks that are holding up the curtains. People would probably not rush to donate to the sockets first. Probably people are going to donate to the tabernacle. I want my stuff going to build the altar. I want my stuff to build the holy ark. I want my stuff to build the menorah. People are going to want to have a very glorious part in the process. People are probably not going to rush to make sure that they're able to construct the sockets, which are very, very seemingly insignificant and not very glamorous. But we all know that a building is only as strong as its foundation. And the purity of motive, the purity of the motives with which we donate to that foundation, will ultimately determine the spiritual quality of the structure itself erected on that foundation. So it's possible to suggest that maybe the reason there was a special collection for these silver sockets was to teach us how special they ultimately were. The idea that any sanctuary, any structure, any building has to be constructed with a solid foundation that's built with entirely pure intentions. That's going to be one of the most critical elements to constructing our homes. What are the intentions that we bring toward the construction of our homes? There's a very famous story in the Talmud that illustrates how disastrous things can go if we don't have pure intentions. One of the most tragic figures in the Talmud was Alicia Ben Avuya. Alicia Ben Avuya was one of the greatest sages of the Talmud. And we know that ultimately he had a terrible downfall. He became a terrible heretic. The rabbis ultimately referred to him not by his name, but as Acher, the other one. They wouldn't even say his name. What was it that led Alicia Ben Avuya to become this notorious heretic? What happened? And the Yershalmi, the Palestinian Talmud, actually has him give an answer. There are actually several answers to this question, but he gives an answer that he thinks might have been the cause. He says that his father was one of the most honored and illustrious men in Jerusalem. And that when he, Alicia Ben Avuya, was born, his father made a brisk celebration of his circumcision and invited all of the sages of Jerusalem to his son's brisk. All of the sages were in one room singing and rejoicing, enjoying the feast, but in another room two great sages were studying amongst themselves. Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Hoshua were reviewing their lessons from the day. They did this studying with such incredible intensity, we're told, that a fire came down from heaven and surrounded them. Avuya, the father of Alicia, came running into the room screaming at these two sages, what are you trying to do, burn down my house? And they explained that they had been studying the Torah with such incredible intensity and joy that their hearts were gladdened to the level of the Jewish people who received the Torah at Mount Sinai. And we know that at Mount Sinai the mountain was surrounded by fire. When Avuya saw this, he said to himself, if this is the power of Torah, I'm going to raise my son to be a Torah scholar. So Alicia said, do you want to know what happened to me, why I became a heretic? He said it's because my father did not have pure intentions in raising me. He did it more for the glory of learning Torah, the glory that can come from someone who learns Torah, than purely for the truth of Torah itself. It was not for the sake of Torah, it was for the sake of the glory. Now, it would seem to me that that's not the worst thing in the world. I mean, there are people that can have intentions for far worse things. But we see that when it comes to our intentions, the world is very sensitive. The world is very sensitive to our intentions. And as they say sometimes, if there's a butterfly flapping its wings in Mexico, you can have a hurricane in Canada. So poor little Alicia, whose father didn't seem to have the worst intentions, but they weren't entirely pure. And that ultimately led, he feels, to his becoming a heretic. When we send our children to school, what is our intention? When parents here in Toronto and elsewhere in North America spend thousands of dollars to send their children to a day school, what is their intention? I would think that if the intention of the parents is because they want to make sure their children don't assimilate, that wouldn't be the worst intention in the world. But it's not the most pure intention. Parents should ultimately be sending their children to a Jewish day school because parents value the education that children are receiving. Because what the children are learning is what the parents are learning. And the parents value the Torah, and they love the Torah. And that's what's important, not the ultimate payoff that hopefully my children want to assimilate. It's all a question of the purity of intention. So when we seek to build our homes, our homes in this world at least, one of the things we have to be attentive to is what are our intentions? How pure are they? And we just, all of us had the pleasure, I hope it was pleasurable, of coming through Passover. And I think that the timing between Passover and tonight's talk is very important. There are many reasons why people might hesitate to begin a project of spiritual improvement. Like spiritual home improvement, thinking of improving our homes spiritually. It's a great idea, but I think there are reasons why we might balk, we might hesitate, we might feel uncomfortable. And one of the reasons I think many people hesitate is we tell ourselves, you know what, I'm never going to really finish the job, I'm never going to become spiritually perfect, I'm never going to really, really do everything that I can do. So why even begin? Or we tell ourselves, you know, I'm going to be a hypocrite if I start doing positive things now because I'm doing so many things that are not so positive. Let's say a person tonight decides, you know what, I've never really spent time last year studying Torah. It's a central part of Judaism. It's the most important thing we can do for ourselves spiritually. But how many people might resist, hesitate, beginning a program of Torah study because they tell themselves, you know what, I don't eat kosher food even. I go to non-kosher restaurants all the time, I should study Torah, I'll be a hypocrite. So people often feel that if they're not going to be entirely consistent, why even get started? Or we might feel, what are people going to think? I'm going to start going to Torah classes, I'm going to start studying Torah at home with partners in Torah. I'm going to get on the phone once a week and study Torah with someone. And what are people going to think? People are going to think, oh look, the big shot now is becoming a Talmud scholar. So there are so many reasons why we hold ourselves back. We're afraid of what others think. We're afraid of our own feelings of maybe being hypocritical or looking hypocritical or feeling that if I'm not going to do everything, why do anything? But this is actually the perfect time of the year to start a project. A project of spiritual home improvement. Passover is the holiday that addresses these roadblocks to spiritual growth. We all know that the Passover event is called the Seder. Seder means order. And it's called order because there are 15 steps in the Passover Seder. We go through the evening of Passover, we go through 15 steps. The first two steps are Kadesh and Urchatz. Kadesh, Kiddush. We take a cup of wine. We say the blessing on the wine. We drink that first cup of the four cups of wine. Kadesh is from the root of holiness. Sometimes it's called an English sanctification. But we begin the Seder with Kadesh, Kiddush, holiness, sanctification. The next step is Urchatz. We wash our hands. We wash our hands. Not the washing of the hands that we normally do before eating bread. Here we're just washing our hands because we're about to have a vegetable dipped in salt water. But what's strange about these two parts to the Seder is they seem to be out of order. Kadesh means I'm going to become holy. I'm involving myself in holiness. Urchatz means washing myself up, cleaning myself off. Don't we normally wash a vessel before we polish it? We don't polish the vessel and then wash it. So why do we have Kadesh? I'm becoming holy now. And then I'm going to wash myself. We would normally think if I'm going to embark on a project of becoming holy, I've got to first wash myself, purify myself, get rid of all the things that are not proper about myself. But Passover is the holiday. The word Pesach means to jump over, to leap over. Because in Passover, God leaped over, jumped over the houses of the Jewish people on his way to wiping out the Egyptians. But on many levels what God was doing was leaping over the homes of the Jewish people because in many ways we were not worthy of leaving Egypt in many ways. We had become very spiritually corrupt in Egypt. And the angels were challenging God. Why are you destroying the Egyptians? The Jewish people also worship idols. And so even though we weren't worthy, God jumped over our houses. He leapt over us. And part of what happens on Passover is we get the energy, the spiritual energy on Passover to make these giant leaps, even though we're not ready, even though we haven't washed ourselves, even though we haven't purified ourselves. Passover says, Kadesh, become holy, jump into holiness. Just do it. Don't worry about am I ready? Am I prepared? Did I wash myself? Did I prepare myself? You can prepare later. Normally we prepare first. Passover says no, just jump into it. And you worry about preparing later on. The first question I'd like to reflect on with you in terms of how we see ourselves in our homes is to reflect on the question of who is the occupant. If we're trying to build a healthy and a vibrant spiritual Jewish home, it's important to think about who is living in the home, who is the occupant. In the Holy Temple, again it's our model for tonight, there was the ark, the holy ark which contained the Torah. And on top of the ark there were two Kruvim, two angelic figures that had the faces of children. They were made out of gold, and they had to be made out of one piece with the rest of the ark. It couldn't be an ark that was constructed, and then the angels, the Kruvim, put on top of the ark, the angels, the Kruvim, and the ark had to be made out of one piece of gold. There was not so easy to do. But why was that the case? Why was it important to have the ark made out of one piece with the Kruvim? I believe the question that's being answered is, who are we, how do we see ourselves? And who are we trying to be in the homes that we're building? One of the most popular teachers in New York today is Rabbi Yisrael Reisman. And he tells a story about meeting with the Yeshiva student, who had a tremendously serious personal problem. This Yeshiva student was studying in Yeshiva out of New York, what they call an out-of-town Yeshiva, and he was actually doing quite well and becoming a very respected Torah scholar. However, his problem was that when he came home to New York to visit his family, he would surf the Internet and visit very, very inappropriate websites. So he came to meet with Rabbi Reisman, feeling like a person who just had cancer surgery and right away goes back to smoking cigarettes. He felt he was totally out of control and he couldn't let go of this horrible habit that he had. Even though he was doing extremely well in Yeshiva, he had this dark side. Rabbi Reisman told him that your entire test will depend upon how you see yourself. How do you see yourself? He said this is obviously a temptation that's not going to go away right away. It's going to take you quite a bit of time to overcome this problem. But it depends how you see yourself. Do you see yourself as a young Torah scholar who has a problem? Then you'll probably succeed. But if you see yourself as a phony who is just pretending to be spiritual, then you're probably not going to succeed. You'll probably fail. It's all a question of how we see ourselves. Who are we living in our homes? Are we people who are spiritual on a spiritual journey? Is that how we see ourselves? We're a spiritual person and I'm on a spiritual journey? Or do we see ourselves basically as people who are not very spiritual, but we engage in spiritual activities once in a while? Who are we? Which one of these faces is who we are? And I think that what's critical to our success is to begin to see ourselves in the proper light. On your source sheets, you have a verse from the book of Exodus, Shemoth, chapter 38, verse 21, which seems to, again, we read so many verses in the Torah that when you read them, you say to yourself, why didn't God hire a better editor? You say to yourself, there seem to be words that don't belong or words that are repetitious or words that seem redundant. So here the passage says these are the accounts of the tabernacle, the tabernacle of testimony. I think that maybe someone could have streamlined the verse and written it a little bit tighter. Rabbi Eliahus Schlesinger says that this verse, by writing it in this fashion, is teaching us that there are actually two tabernacles. That's why it is written like this. There are two tabernacles. There is the one built by Bitsalel in the desert and there is the tabernacle of our homes. There are actually two tabernacles and we often don't think of our homes on that level. We can't imagine our home is actually a tabernacle. Our home really has the potential spiritually of the tabernacle that Bitsalel built in the desert after they came out of Egypt. This is not just rhetoric here. The Torah is teaching us that, yes, there are two tabernacles and the tabernacle of our home has the incredible potential spiritual holiness of the tabernacle that was built by the Jewish people coming out of Egypt. What was the purpose of the tabernacle that we built coming out of Egypt? So the Torah says in Exodus chapter 25 verse 8, ussuli miktash built for me a sanctuary vashochanti betocham, also a strange construction. We would have imagined that it would have said vashochanti betocham built for me a sanctuary and I will dwell in it. But God says, build a sanctuary and I'll dwell among them. Meaning that the purpose of this sanctuary in the desert was ultimately so that God can dwell inside of us, among us. Not so much in this building, in this sanctuary. But each one of us is supposed to have this personal connection to God. That's why on Passover we just read the Song of Songs, Solomon's poem, which Rabbi Akiva called The Holy of Holies, which speaks about this incredibly intense and passionate relationship between a man and a woman which symbolizes the incredible deep and passionate and intimate relationship between the Jewish people and God and ultimately between each individual and God. The sanctuary that was built by B'tsalel is simply a model for what our homes could be. What our hearts can be. And the Kutskerebi famously said, where does God dwell? So God dwells, he said, wherever we let him in. God can be found wherever human beings let him in. When we think about this parallel between the sanctuary in the desert and our homes, the rabbis point out many actual parallels. For example, there's an Arun Kodesh, just like we have one in the synagogue here. There was a holy ark in the temple that housed the Torah. So our homes should have an Arun Kodesh. Our homes should have Jewish books. One of the commandments, actually the last commandment of the 613 commandments in the Torah, is to write a Torah scroll. And the rabbis teach us that you can fulfill this commandment of writing a Torah scroll by purchasing Jewish books and having them in your home. There was a menorah in the temple. We have some form of menorah in the synagogue. We have the eternal light on top of the ark. But our homes also have the radiance of the Torah we study. It has the candles that we light on holidays, on Shabbat. The temple had a Mzbeach, an altar, where sacrifices were brought. And the rabbis teach us that that is paralleled by our tables in our homes. Especially among Hasidic rabbis, the Jewish table in the home was seen as the ultimate place of holiness. The act of eating was seen as the ultimate activity of holiness. And so the rabbis say that our tables where we live, the table itself becomes an altar. The food becomes a sacrifice. Each one of us sitting around a table is a priest. There's a beautiful teaching we know from the Jews who lived in France. The pious people in France, they would make sure that when they were buried, they were buried in coffins that were constructed out of the wood of their Shabbat tables, of their dining room tables. Because that table is the place where probably the most holy activities in the home took place. This idea that the tabernacle in the desert corresponds in parallels our homes very directly explains a very strange verse in Psalms, chapter 27, verse 4. We say this during the month preceding Rosh Hashanah. King David writes, one thing I ask of God, this is what I seek. What do I ask? I want to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the pleasantness of God and to visit in his palace. Again, a strange verse, because if I'm dwelling in the palace of God all the days of my life, if that's where I'm dwelling, why do I have to visit there? I'm already dwelling there. A very strange passage. Rabbi Shem Shin Rafferl Hirsch explains his follows. He says that when it speaks about dwelling in the house of God all the days of my life, he says that's your actual home. He says the actual home is to be a sanctuary for God, and our homes are to be a dwelling place for God all the days of our life. He says God would be welcome there, and he could bask in the pleasantness of God's presence all the time. So David is writing about the fact that I want to have my home be a place, which is the house of God. Because in addition to that, I'll visit with God in his sanctuary as well. It's speaking about these two sanctuaries. What is it ultimately that turns a house, a regular brick and mortar house, a wooden house? What has the ability to turn a house into a mcdash into a sanctuary? So if you look on your source sheets, you'll see there are two words. There's the word buy it, which is house. The numerical value of the word buy it is 412. And then there's the word mcdash, a sanctuary, which has the numerical value of 444. The difference between 444 and 412 is 32. The Hebrew word laid, heart. What ultimately is able to transform a simple building into an actual spiritual sanctuary is our hearts, is the desires that we have, our emotions. I often quote a Rashi commentary by Rashi in the beginning of the book of Exodus that speaks to this point. It's an amazing small little piece of Rashi that's delicious. The verse in Exodus says, I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. You know, we read a verse in the Bible. There are times when the verse is mysterious and ambiguous. We're not sure what it means. We have to run to the commentaries, maybe help us explain the verse. Here we have a verse in Exodus that seems pretty straightforward. God says, I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Rashi fuels compelled to comment. I don't know why the verse seems pretty easy to understand. Rashi offers two words that are so mysterious that many people say it must be a misprint. It must be a misprint. Rashi on this verse says, El Haavot, to the patriarchs. And now we really scratch our heads. The verse said that God appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and Rashi needs to tell me, Psst, those are the patriarchs. I need Rashi to tell me in chapter 6 of Exodus that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are the patriarchs. I know this from the first book of the Bible from Genesis. I know it from earlier chapters in Exodus. Why all of a sudden is Rashi telling me Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are the patriarchs? Some of the commentaries to Rashi want to get a sense as to how important Rashi is. There were over 500 people who wrote commentaries to Rashi. Some of the commentaries say an amazing thing. They say that Rashi here is not telling us who God appeared to. Because that's not a mystery. That's not what God appeared to, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They say Rashi is helping us understand here why did God appear to them? Why did God appear to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? So Rashi says, you know why God appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Because they were Avot. The word Avah, alav bethe, sometimes alav vavhe in Hebrew doesn't only mean father or patriarch. It can mean to desire or to want. So the reason that God appeared to them is because they desired to have God in their lives. They wanted to have God in their lives. They were Avot, and that's why God appeared to them. What this means for us is that if we sincerely and truly seek to have God in our homes, He will be there. If that's what we really, truly sincerely want, that can affect every single thing we do in our homes. That means that at our family meals, we should make it a point of studying some Torah at every meal. Having some Torah discussion at every meal. I've been to a home here in Toronto that hosts very frequently 20 to 30 people for a Shabbat meal. One of the things that they've done is they ask people, please share something that happened to you this week that was spiritual. And I often was wondering, maybe 5% of the people will be able to do that. I'm often surprised that when that question is asked, every single person around the table, after thinking for a few moments, was able to share something that they found that was spiritual in their life during the week. But think about this. So often, we sit around a table eating a meal and the level of conversation is often not very elevated. We can be speaking about chit chat, about gossip, about movies, about the weather, about sports. But this is a family that took the effort to try to make the conversation around their table elevated, spiritual, meaningful. It changes the entire meal to just a meal, to an experience that's a spiritual experience. The word company, by the way, comes from the two Latin words, com pan, with bread. And the purpose of sitting down together and having bread is to have the shared spiritual experience. If people have TVs in their homes, there are plenty of things that you can do to direct that tool in a more spiritual way. There are plenty of nature shows on television. My mind of these, the Rambam said, if you want to come to love God, study nature. Look at the beauty and the intricacies of nature. That can be something that people spend a half hour watching rather than a meaningless action flick. Or if a family is watching a television show, to think about the spiritual lessons and the ethical implications of the show, NCSY here in Toronto, maybe elsewhere, had a program called the LAVE program, where they spoke with high school students about the television shows they watched, but they discussed what were the spiritual or ethical implications or lessons that can be derived from those shows. When we eat our meals, to practice gratitude at the meal, so often we don't think enough about where the food came from. All of the steps that it took for this food to reach our tables. It's so easy to take the things that we have in our homes for granted. So to make sure that we're eating our meals because it's so easy to say a blessing and even not really think about what we did when we said a blessing. To realize that when we're saying blessings, we're trying to practice gratitude. We're trying to practice hakara tato, to recognize the bounties that we have and where they come from. To practice chesed at our homes, which means trying to have guests at our table. It's one of the most important and critically important activities for us to engage in and for children to see is that their families strive to have guests at the table. There are plenty of people in this city that are needy in more ways than one. They may be needy because they live alone. They may be needy because they don't have enough money to buy food properly. They may be needy because they're lonely in many different ways. It's an incredibly important mitzvah to engage in. It transforms the tables that we sit at. One of the things that I recall about growing up in my home was I was fortunate that my grandmother lived with us for about half of the year. My grandmother was able to live into her 90s. She was frail physically, but mentally she was as sharp as a pin. I remember her to this day chasing after my father. Velville is a shifted stucco. She received dozens and dozens of envelopes from different Jewish charities all the time, and she was running after my father to make sure he was sending out the checks. But I was able to grow up and see a person that was consumed with the importance of giving charity. Families can do this as a project together. Families can get together, have their own family website, research different charities, decide which charities they're going to support, have collections in the family for charities. Children, very young children can be involved in this, but homes can be transformed into places that are much more spiritual by all these activities and many, many more, by the music they play in the home, by the things that are studied, by the things that are discussed, etc. Adam and Eve were told that when they were placed into the garden, they were to work it and to protect it. They were to work the garden and they were to protect the garden. One of the great Kabbalistic, mystical authors commentaries to the Torah says that today's Garden of Eden is the garden of our souls and the garden of our homes, and we've got to take measures to protect these gardens to make sure that no harm comes to ruin our ability to grow spiritually in our souls and in our homes. We know that one of the commandments the Bible has for a home is to put a parapet of a guardrail around the top of a roof. If you have a flat roof, we have to be concerned. We have to make sure that no one, God forbid, falls off. But there are so many things that can go wrong in a home, things that can happen that are not healthy, that's one of the things that we're charged to do. We have to work in that home but to guard it and to protect it. One of the things that's most critical to ensure the spiritual vitality and health of a home is to have what we call shalom by it. To have peace in the home. To have a home that is serene, a home that's calm, a home where peace reigns, a home where children see family, their family is one that cooperates, that loves each other, that communicates and people are not walking on eggshells and there aren't explosions of anger. There aren't displays of impatience. To be the priest in our sanctuary in the same way that we're building our home as a sanctuary, we're told that the priest in the temple was Aaron, the high priest. Aaron we're told was someone that was Ohave Shalom and Rodave Shalom. He loved peace and he pursued peace. So we as we're priests building our home have to have as one of the foremost agenda items we want to have a home that's peaceful. And that has to mean sometimes pulling ourselves out. One of the things that our rabbis teach us is that if we want to have peace we have to work on humility. We have to work on making ourselves smaller sometimes. When Jews pray the custom is as we finish the prayer we take three steps backward and we speak about God making peace in the upper spheres in the lower spheres Ohave Shalom. God wants to make peace in our world. We take three steps backward and some of the rabbis explain if you ever want to have peace in your life we sometimes have to take steps backward. We have to be able to give up ground. We have to know when to fight our battles and when to yield. When to give in. And often giving in is not easy. It means putting ourselves second sometimes but the rabbis teach us that in order to have a peaceful home it means sometimes diminishing ourselves in terms of our egos our arrogance. I heard a wonderful teaching from Rabbi Stern the rabbi that was previously at the synagogue he spoke at a wedding that I attended and he wanted this to give some words to the bride and groom. So he said there was a very famous holy text of the rabbi of Avraham Yeshua of Apt. He was called the Ohave Yisrael. He wrote a book called The Lover of Israel and he was famous that in all he said every chapter of the Bible he said contained a lesson about Shalom of peace. So one week his Hasidim said to him Rabbi where do you see it in this week's Torah portion? He said where do you see it in this week's Torah portion? He said in the name of the chapter. There was a chapter called Balak. He said where do you want to see the lesson in this chapter? He said in the name of the chapter there's a lesson. They looked at him, what are you talking about? Balak, that has a lesson of peace? He said yes, look at the word Balak. It spells out via Haftah, Larecha, Kamochah. Be'ez, Lamed, Kuf. Via Haftah, Larecha, Kamochah. They said Rabbi, via Haftah is spelled with a Vov, not with a bet. And Kamochah is spelled with a Kuf, not with a Kuf. He said that's the point. If everything has to be 100% perfect, you're never going to have Shalom, you're never going to have peace. We have to learn to be flexible not to make sure we have to cross every T and dot every I. We have to be able to give in sometimes and relinquish. When we're seeking to build the spiritual foundations of our homes we have to be very, very mindful not to establish too firm a physical foundation. When we're building our spiritual homes, our spiritual foundations here, we've got to be careful not to build too firm a physical foundation because ultimately this is not our home here in Toronto. Our home ultimately is in Eretz Israel, the land of Israel. The most repeated prophecy in the Bible is the prophecy which speaks about the Jewish people ultimately coming back to the land of Israel from the exile. If we're not prepared to move to Israel today at least we should try to make sure that we think about when it will be possible to anticipate when it will be possible to spend part of our lives here in the exile dreaming about going to Israel dreaming, especially with our children, taking trips to Israel, having projects to focus on Israel, but keeping our eyes focused on our ultimate goal where we ultimately are supposed to be. Never looting sight of that fact. There was once a man in Israel who was not well off financially and he had to leave Israel and go to North America in order to make enough money for his family and he felt terrible about having to leave Israel and go to the United States. His rabbi said to him it's much better that you be there and wish you were here than to be here in Israel and wish you were there in the United States. It's all a question of where your heart is. There's a story about a rabbi who was building a yeshiva in the United States. The contractor offered him Finnish wood, wood from Finland that he said would last for 150 years instead of the regular wood that would last 50 years before it begins to rot. The rabbi said use the regular wood. We don't need to make our stay outside of Israel more permanent than it has to be. There's a famous story about a wealthy American businessman who once paid a visit to the Chavitz Chaim and he was shocked when he came into the home of the Chavitz Chaim and he saw how little there was. The Chavitz Chaim had basically a kitchen table and a bed. That was it. The rabbi said, where's all your furniture? So the rabbi said to him where's your furniture? He said, what are you talking about? I'm traveling. I'm just traveling passing through. The Chavitz Chaim said me too. I'm just passing through. This is not my permanent home. The Talmud tells us that at the end of our lives after 120 years we're going to have a final exam up in Shemayim. We're very fortunate that the Talmud tells us in advance what the questions are going to be in case you want to study now. So the Talmud says that one of the questions we're going to be asked is C. Pisa Leyeshua. Did you anxiously look forward to the redemption? I often tell a story that when I was in Australia many years ago I got locked in a bathroom in Melbourne from about midnight until eight o'clock in the morning. Don't ask what happened. I think the door locked from the outside. Anyway I was lucky there was a newsweek magazine where I read about 15 times. But I remember sitting there in that bathroom for eight hours anxiously awaiting when someone was going to wake up in the morning and I could be let out of that room. And after I got out I said to myself I wish I had that much anxious expectation for the Messiah to come. Sometimes we just lose sight. We don't think about it too much. But the Talmud says that one of the questions we're going to be asked is really anxiously looking forward to the coming of the Messiah. A number of years ago I went to the Soviet Union before it changed. And I met with a group of refused Nix of students who were studying in an apartment in St. Petersburg. I think back then it was Leningrad or the other way around. And it was an incredibly inspiring group of people. These are people that took great risks to study Torah. And it happened to be we were there in the winter time. It was the beginning of the book of Exodus that was being read in the synagogues. And I shared with them this verse from Exodus chapter 6 verse 6 where God says . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .