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This Jewish Inspiration Podcast is dedicated to learning, understanding and enhancing our relationship with Hashem by working on improving our G-d given soul traits and aspiring to reflect His holy name each and every day. The goal is for each listener to hear something inspirational with each episode that will enhance their life.
Welcome back everybody to way number 27. Way number 27 is probably one of the most important ways for this generation. What is someone who is happy with his portion? Is it fair to say that today in our generation there is more depression, more anxiety than there has been 50 years ago, 40, 50 years ago? Probably tenfold. Do people have more today than they had 40, 50 years ago? People have much more. People today, I mean the poor person, I'll tell you why.
This way number 27 is what I attribute it to. I'll tell you in a second, people today who are on government programs have more than a wealthy king had a thousand years ago. You have medicine, you have food stamps, you can buy food, you have free housing, you have free transportation, they give you free cell phones, they give you... It's unbelievable. If someone is destitute, today they are wealthier through the government programs than a king was a thousand years ago. It's unbelievable.
So why are people so depressed? Why are people so anxious? You know why? Because nobody says thank you. People don't realize and appreciate what they have. If we woke up every morning and said thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, we'd be the happiest people on earth. But the problem is that we go to the mall and we go window shopping. You know what window shopping means? Let me see all the things I'm going to be jealous of.
I'm going to be jealous of this dress. I'm going to be jealous of that if I only had more money to buy that watch. If I only had more money to buy that furniture and that house and that ring. And people are busy looking at what they don't have. Everything. We said consumerism, right? People are just buying and buying and buying, hoping when I have that then I'll be happy. No, they buy it. They have that stimulation, that dopamine in their brain,
which lasts till about the time they get to their car. And now they need a new fix and a new fix and a new fix. And we're running tired from all of the desires we're chasing. What does the Mishnah tell us here? Way number 27. Key to happiness. Look at what you have and be happy with what you have. Do you remember when you bought that shoe, that pair of shoes? You remember how happy you were? Be happy with it now like you were then.
You remember that house that you bought? How excited you were? Do we walk around our house every day and say, Ah, I love this house. It's my dream home. That's what people say right when they move into their house. Ah, it's a dream home. It's my dream. I've always dreamt of this home. Two years later, they're like looking. Maybe I can buy that house. It's a little bigger. Maybe I can buy that one. It's a bigger garage.
Hasameach be chalko, be happy with your own. It's yours. Hashem gave it to you, for you to enjoy. Not to look it out to others. What do I don't have? What do I not have? A person always needs to look at what we do have and be thankful what you do have. The first word we say every morning as Jews, Modeh ani lefanecha. I thank you. Thank you Hashem for giving me life, for sustaining me, for keeping me afloat,
for taking care of all of my needs. Modeh. And if we realize that our entire day, we're supposed to say, by the way, Allah says we're supposed to say 100 blessings a day. So how many hours do we sleep? We sleep eight hours, average eight hours. So let's do the math here. Okay. We have 16 hours that we're awake. Let's put a nifty calculator. 16 hours times 60 minutes. We're 960 minutes that we're awake.
And now if we were to say 100 blessings a day, that means that every 9.6 minutes we'd be saying thank you. That means every 10 minutes we say thank you again. You know why? Because within 10 minutes you already forget. I say it's like marriage. A man needs to say to his wife every 10 minutes that he loves her. Otherwise she'll forget. She's not gonna know. Because a couple once came to the rabbi and they're complaining they have issues. The rabbi says to them,
okay, what's going on? She says he doesn't love me anymore. He says you don't love her? He says I love her. He says you haven't told me you love me in 15 years. See he says what are you talking about? When we got married I told you I love you and if anything changes I'll let you know. You know that doesn't work. Every 10 minutes she forgets. Does he love me? Does he not love me? She needs to reinforce it.
I love you. I love you. And you have to reinforce it with flowers and with chocolates and with everything. With cards and with a hug. All the components of reinforcing that love are what are required constantly. You know what? Our relationship with Hashem parallels the relationship of a husband and wife. We need to say our thank you to Hashem not because he forgets but because we forget. We forget how lucky we are that we have food.
We forget how lucky we are that we have oxygen. You know I had a wake-up moment. I was at an event a weekend. I was invited to a weekend retreat in Connecticut. A weekend people come. I was a guest. So people pay a fortune of money to go to these weekends and there's food from the second you walk in to the second you leave Sunday afternoon. Food and food and food constantly. So I go and I say hello.
I meet a lot of friends there. It was very nice. The conference had hundreds and hundreds of people over the whole Shabbos. I see a Jew come in just like everybody else. But he comes in a wheelchair. He has tubes that he's connected with. And then I see right behind them they have a whole cart that they're pushing behind him with oxygen tanks for the rest of Shabbos. And it hit me. Do you realize I never needed to do that?
Hashem gave that to me free. I don't have to worry that my oxygen tank is running out. Something we need to be thankful for. Something we need to be thankful for. Something we need to be thankful for. Something we never... I never even thought about that prior to seeing that. Thank you for not putting me on life support and giving me the ability that within my body I can breathe and I have lungs that take in the oxygen
and the alveoli that exchanges the carbon dioxide with the fresh oxygen and that nourishes the body with oxygen. I never had to think about that. But that happens thousands and thousands and thousands of times a day that our heart pumps. It's an unbelievable thing. But if we stop and we think it's the most remarkable thing. I want to share with you. I hope you don't get disgusted. I hope you don't, please. It's an amazing, amazing experience. If someone ever asks me
what's the craziest thing I've ever done? It happened to me last week. I get a phone call at about 5.30 in the evening from a friend of mine who has a business. His business is that he does medevac. He transports organs from donors to recipients. See, he gets a phone call at 5.28. He gets a phone call that someone died in Austin. A young guy. And he's donating. They're donating the heart, the liver, the kidneys, and the pancreas.
Not the lungs because he was a drowning patient. The lungs are filled with fluid. So they, okay. So he's flying emergency flight to Austin to pick up the heart to bring it to a patient, a recipient here in Houston. He asked me, do you want to be my co-pilot? Sure. So we get to meet him at his private hangar at Hobby Airport. And we fly 30 minutes. We're in Austin. Meanwhile, we had with us the surgeons, the nurse. We get to Austin.
And I said to the surgeon, I said, do you mind I come along? I'm an EMT. I would love to see this. So I go into the operating room. And they sit and tell me, we have the surgeons. They're standing over the main, the torso. They say, you stand by the head. I'm right there. I'm right there. See, they open up. Sadly, a 16-year-old boy who jumped into the lake from a cliff. They do cliff jumping into the lake.
And sadly, he hit his head on a rock, died instantaneously, right? Had brain dead. He was underwater for over 30 minutes. They brought him out, tried to resuscitate him. They open up. I see them opening up his abdominal cavities. His whole, his whole, his heart is pumping. Pumping. I see the heart. It's the most, it's the most remarkable thing. It's the most remarkable thing. It's art. It's the greatest form of art. How Hashem put everything into our body.
And it fits so perfectly. The heart and the lungs and all of the vessels that connect the vena cava and the aorta. And all of the other veins and the arteries. It's perfect. And you see the pancreas and you see the liver. The kidney is a little bit more difficult because they're in the back. It's unbelievable. And there I am. I see the craft of Hashem. When I left, I had a different appreciation for the blessing that we say every day.
After we go to the bathroom. We say a special blessing. Asher yatsar et ha'adam b'chokhmah. That God created man with brilliance. Not wisdom. We say wisdom. Chokhmah means wisdom. With brilliance. Like it's unbelievable. If you try to put everything back in it wouldn't fit. It's unreal. The gift that Hashem has given us. A friend of mine told me. He went to a doctor. I hear some noises. I hear some noises coming from my abdomen.
I don't know what it is. There's noises. He says, do you know what goes on in your abdomen? Do you know what your stomach does? It's like think of an incinerator. Incinerating the cardboard boxes. You hear it smashing. You hear the garbage truck. When it takes all that garbage, right? Then it's smashing everything. Right? He says that's what's happening inside your body. You don't hear it ever. He says now you hear it one time and you think something's going on.
Yes, something is going on. It's a miracle that goes on in our bodies every single day. Yes. A disclaimer for those who are listening on podcast. After someone passes away according to the Torah, you are not allowed to donate any organ. It doesn't belong to you. This notion, by the way, in other political discussion, that my body, my choice is flawed and against the Torah. It's not your body. It's not your body. It's the Almighty's body that he loaned to you
while you're in this world to accomplish things. It's not your body. It's like I borrow your car and decide I want to change the color of the car. It's not your car. You have no right to just take it to the body shop and to change the color. It's not yours. That's why we're not allowed to do tattoos. Why are Jews not allowed to do tattoos? It's not your body. What do you think? You have a right to just start coloring on my car?
Right? That's number one. Same. It's another thing with the whole abortion I'm not going to get into. But it's not your body. While you're alive, you can donate non-vital organs. You can donate non-vital organs. So kidney. You can also, you can donate blood obviously, plasma. You can donate what's the called in the bone marrow. There are many things you can't give your heart because your heart is going to render you not living anymore. That you can't do.
You don't have a right to take away your own life. That's considered murder. Someone who commits suicide. You know what the Torah says about that? You're a murderer. What right do you have to kill yourself? Considered a murderer. Now, we also say that it was a moment of insanity where anyone who commits suicide. And therefore, you know, typically you don't want a murderer being buried next to you. But because we say it's a moment of insanity and they have regret for that insanity, therefore,
if they did teshuvah, they repented. And they're part of everyone else. They did teshuvah, they repented. And they're part of everyone else. But that's where that myth comes from. That someone who has a tattoo can't be buried in a cemetery. That's because in the Jewish cemetery, that's because the Jewish mothers, that's the only way they can threaten their children not to do it. But the truth is the halacha really says, the Torah tells us, you're not allowed to write a tattoo. It's not your body.
Not your body. So to answer your question, a Jew is not allowed to donate his organs. Unless it's a non-life-threatening organ while they're alive. So I volunteered, and you're all welcome to do so as well. I volunteered to donate my kidney. There's an organization in New York. This is just a little side advertisement for them. It's a non-profit organization in New York. They don't charge a dime. It's called Renewal. And they have a list of people who need kidneys.
And a list of people who are willing to donate. And they do all of the matching and they take care of all of the expenses to assist. And over 20% of all altruistic kidney donors in the world are through this organization in Brooklyn, New York. It's unreal. You know what? If you release a car and you start getting dents all over the car, you're banging the front fender and you hit this and hit that, when you bring it back, they're going to say,
hey, you're going to have to pay for all this damage, right? That's you take out the waiver. Yeah, you sign the waiver. So the key to happiness is being grateful. That's the key. Ha'sameach b'chalko, someone who's grateful with his portion. They're grateful with what they have. Focus on what you have and you'll be happy. Focus on what you don't have and you'll be miserable. Guaranteed. You're busy looking at what you don't have. Oh, look at them.
They have nice vacation and they go in on a cruise and they have their own plane. That's a good way to be miserable. Look at them. Look at them. Don't look at anybody. You know, in my house, when we grew up, my neighbor once came to us and said, came to my father. We were all outside. Says, you know, it looks like you can use another painting outside. My father's like, I don't look out. I look in. It bothers you.
You can paint it. But we live in the house. We look inside. We look inside. We don't have to see looking out. I remember I was once visiting someplace and I saw they had a couch facing the window, facing out. So I asked them, I said, what's going on here? Said, no, this is a picture window. This is when we look at everyone. We look at our neighbors. We look at the school children walking. It's called the picture window. It's creepy.
Yeah, right. But it's a, but I'll tell you what. Torah says, look in. Look in. Look at yourself. Look at your family. Look at what you do have. Don't look at what you don't have. Because when you look at what other people have, you'll be comparing. I know many people, I try to do this as much as possible. Hide your valuables. Not so that it doesn't get stolen. You have no need for other people getting jealous of you.
There's no need for someone coming to your house, looking up at your China cabinet. See that? And look at this silverware. And this piece of, it doesn't need to be seen. Hide it. I know people who have no glass on their China closet. No glass. It's not see-through. People don't need to see it. You don't need to show it off. You have guests and you come into your home. They don't need to see it.
For you, for yourself, be grateful for what you have. Happiness, though, is not a goal in life. It's a means to tap into the inner energy in order to accomplish your potential. Rabbi Brody said something beautiful today. He said, someone who doesn't smile, it's because they haven't talked to God. Someone who's happy is because they're confident. Why are they confident? Because they just talked to God and they know he's going to take care of everything. Someone who doesn't smile, because he hasn't talked to God.
Talk to God, you'll be happy. Happy people are healthy, optimistic, and have more driving force to achieve and accomplish. Happiness is not living in a state of semi-depression. That's mere survival. People like going from one challenge to the next challenge. And life is so awful. And life is so terrible. And why did God do this to me? Get out of that funk. Get out of that trap. Because happiness is an attitude. It's not a destination.
If a person has the gratefulness and the thankfulness for everything that they were gifted with, they're happy. They're happy. No one can take it away from them. Happiness requires discipline, determination, and hard work. Because you're going to have to push things away. You're going to have to push things away so that you keep that focus. Happiness isn't a happening. It doesn't... You don't fall upon happiness. Don't wait for it to happen. Go out and create that happiness. Go out and think.
I had a story, true story, with an individual student of ours. He was about 28 years old. And I met him at an event and we scheduled a time to meet for coffee. So we meet. I get to the Starbucks and he says to me, Rabbi, my life is miserable. I haven't dated a girl in so long. Nobody wants me. He says, life is just pointless and aimless. I said, look at you. I said, is that your car out there?
He shows me his paid off hybrid car. I said, where do you live? He owns his house. What do you do? He has a good job. I said, do you know what your problem is? The problem is not that you don't have happiness. You don't have gratefulness. I said, look at you. Here you are sitting in front of me with an $8 latte, working on a $2,000 iPad, with your paid off car and your paid off house. And you're miserable.
I said, you're ungrateful. I said, open up a notepad in that Apple iPad. Open up a notepad. He opens up and I said, I want you to write 10 things you're grateful for. 10 things. Couldn't come up with one. I said, are you grateful to be alive? Yeah, I guess somewhat. I said, you're grateful for your parents, for your siblings, for your job, for your house, for the roof over your head, for your car, for your $8 latte, for your iPad. Write them down.
Write them down. Come on. He starts putting together a list. I said, I'm giving you homework now. You're going to go home and you're going to write 50 things that you're grateful for. Let me know. Call me up. I'm waiting for your phone call when you have 50 things you're grateful for. Calls me back two days later. He says, I thought long and hard. I have my list of 50 things. I said, great. Assignment number two.
I said, when you wake up every single morning, you're going to stand in front of your mirror and you're going to read the things you're grateful for. And you're going to say, Hashem, thank you for my life and thank you for my legs and thank you for my arms and thank you for my eyes and thank you for my nose and thank you for my father and thank you for my mother and thank you for my sister and thank you for my brother
and thank you for my house and thank you for each one of those things. And I promise you, your life will change. Nine months later, I officiated his wedding. And a couple of years later, I officiated his son's bris. And you know what the first thing he said when I walked into his son's bris, it was during COVID, the bris was in his house, he said to me, he said to me the first thing
I walked into the house, he says, Rabbi, I have my list of the things I'm grateful for. I have that list. And he told me that changed my whole life. A life of misery went to a life of love, a life of happiness, a life of now a family has more children. He has that list because that list that you're grateful for is the key to happiness. It's the key to confidence. It's the key to everything successful in one's life.
It's just like salt and pepper adds flavor to food. Happiness is the ingredient to add and enhance to your life every day. People complain about their bills, I have so many bills to pay. You know, I have taxes and people get upset. I have a friend of mine who had a very, very successful business. Very successful. He sold his business and he's retired now. You know what he told me? This is back when he was in business.
He says, when I open up my mail, I say, thank you, God. So I say, thank you, God. I said, why? What do you say? Thank you. You have bills. He says, because if you don't have bills, you don't have business. He says, I thank God that I have bills because that means I'm doing something. That means that I'm making money, that they're charging me taxes. A person who doesn't have that perspective is constantly miserable. You know who doesn't get bills? Dead people.
Until they realize they're gone. Stay away from negative people because when you have negative people around you, you'll become negative. It's just a matter of time. So the number one thing we need to do every single day is stop and yell, thank you, God. Thank you, God. On top of your lungs, count your blessings. I want to share with you one final story. I had a study partner that I learned with every single week. Very extremely wealthy human being. Wealthy financially, not wealthy in life.
You know, people say, oh, very successful. What does that mean? Let me tell you what successful means in most people's mind. It means he makes money. No. Successful is someone who's a good husband. Successful is someone who's a good parent, a good wife, a good friend, a good neighbor. Someone who has all that money but can't hold up a relationship. That's success? What's that? That's a total failure. He tells me, Rabbi, today was the worst day of my life. He lost $300 million.
This is 2008. On the crash, he says, Rabbi, and his face was like a dead person. He says, I lost $300 million today. Worst day in my life. So what are you asking? How much did he still have? Right? How much did he still have? If someone has $300 million to lose, imagine what they have left. But that's the way someone feels when they're looking at what they don't have.
If we had what he doesn't have, if we had what he had left, we'd be like, whoa, whoa. So I only have $58 million left. But to him, he lost everything. Happiness is not about what you don't have. Happiness is about what you do have. Go get him.