Emunat Chachamim (Great Story about True Love)

1:15They have to go to a rabbi. Who's the rabbi? Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. It's a nice rabbi to have; you should pick a good one. So Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, they knew that going to the rabbi... Difficult thing to do. Why? Because they already knew his psak. They already knew his halacha. What's his halacha? If you're married for ten years and have no children, you have to get divorced. So they went to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai knowing this is the psak. What are you gonna do? He's your rabbi. Where are you gonna go? You're gonna go to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. What are you going to do? Go to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. He says, "Kvoda Rav, we have been married for ten years, and unfortunately, Hashem has not blessed us with children. What should we do?" We know the halacha. Rabbi Shimon says, "You need to get a divorce, but there's one condition." What's the condition? The Torah tells us that we're supposed to thank Hashem for both good and bad.

2:34We have to thank Hashem for the bad just as if it were good. Meaning, if you won the lotto or lost your leg in a car accident, you're supposed to thank Hashem the same way. So, he says there's one condition to fulfill this mitzvah: you have to make a divorce party the same size and significance as your wedding ten years ago. Simchat Levavot, excitement, yay, dude, ah, invite everyone, 100 bucks for each meal, 300 bucks a plate, this, that, invitation, each invitation is $30. You want them back, maybe cash them in at the end of the party, big party, divorce party. So, the Chachamim say, we do. Miskinim, not only do we have to get divorced, but we also have to celebrate it. And on top of everything, they have to embarrass and publicize it. The worst thing about bad news is publicizing it. It's bad enough you have bad news, but it's much worse when everybody else knows about it. "Oh, why did you declare bankruptcy? I heard, huh?" Yeah, I heard too. You don't have to remind me. I was there.

3:59I was there when I declared bankruptcy. You don't have to remind me, but thanks for letting me know what I actually experienced. Thanks, buddy. Oh, you just got a divorce? Ah, tough luck, man. Oh, I knew I got a divorce. Why do you have to remind me? It's not bad enough you already got one; you have to remind them. People are evil. Without Torah, they're evil. Without Torah, you are nothing but evil. It’s not possible to be good without Torah. person thought for a second about the feelings of his fellow, 90% of your conversation simply wouldn't exist because most of what we say is not good. Now, this couple... The tiniest little Tanna was able to revive the dead. Imagine what Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai did. When they sent Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai to go talk to the Caesar, he said, "Listen, Rabbi Shimon, you make miracles. I'm sure you're going to do something." So Rabbi Shimon did a small prayer, and suddenly, the king of all the Shedim appeared, saying, "I'm here to help."

5:12You make miracles. I'm sure you're going to do something. So Rabbi Shimon did a small prayer. Suddenly, the king of all the Shedim showed up. He's like, "I'm here to help." Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai started crying, because this is what I get. Yes, you, the king of all the Shedim, the king of all the Shedim, came to serve him. I'm here at your service, sir. Kvod Harav. Kvod Harav. I'm here at your service. Rabbi Shimon, he said about this. Why? He says, look, the shifcha, the maidservant of Avraham Avinu, she got three angels. I get you. I get a shed. That's what I get. He goes, "Look how lowly I am. He said one word and the king of the Shedim shows up like a little soldier and he's crying about it. Imagine." So anyways, Rabbi Shmuel says you have to get a divorce. But you have to have a party. Big party. So, what do they do? They have a party. They invite everyone. Everyone thinks they're crazy, first of all. They have a divorce party. You're having a party? But everybody got the nice invitation to this, to that. Everybody went to their tables, and they're there laughing and celebrating, and everyone's at the celebration, and so on. And the husband says to the wife, "Honey, I love you. Here are the keys to the house."

6:35Go and take anything you want. It's yours. No arguments, no lawyers. It's not like today, where people get divorced and half the money goes to his lawyer, and half the money goes to her lawyer, leaving them both broke. No, he says to her, "Honey, here are the keys. Take what you love the most in the house, it's yours. Whatever you want. Tomorrow, we have to go to the rabbi and finish the get. But for now, here you go, it's the keys, take whatever you want." And Mishkin, the guy, Miskin, where's the guy? What is he going to do, Miskin? The guy is leaving the love of his life. What are you doing? He starts drinking. He has the Blue Label. He has one, he has two, he has three, he has four, he has five, and he has passed out. He’s passed out. He wakes up in the morning, and he sees he doesn’t know where he’s at. Where am I? Where am I? And then he looks right. He sees his wife. No, what did I do? We're not allowed. We already decided we're getting divorced. I'm not allowed to be next to you. We already decided to divorce. It's not allowed. What did you do, honey? She goes, what do you mean what did I do? You told me to get whatever I love the most. What's better in the house than you?

8:00We only get the house when we get the walls, the painting, the Mona Lisa. What do you want me to get from the house? What, the plant, the dog, maybe the cat? What do you want me to get? You said get what I love the most; I took you. He says okay, I love you too, but what are we going to do now? We have to go to the rabbi. You have to tell the rabbi we have a problem. Okay, that's the problem you have. So they go to Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. They go to Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai is not surprised. He knew this was going to happen. He said, oh, how are you? How are you? How are you? You know? Yeah, yeah. How are you? Has everything. We messed up. They want to start telling them the story, "No, listen, I didn't mean it really. It was supposed to be that, but at the party I had a couple of drinks." It goes, "No, no, listen, everything's okay. You're going to have a kid in one year." What? "You're going to have a child within the next year." Just like the angels came and told him, "Hey, by the way, you waited 100 years to have a kid," and Avraham has a kid.

9:16Says to this couple, you're going to have a kid this year. So, the Rabbi, alav ha-shalom, asks the question. He says, "Wait a minute, I don't understand. Why did Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai need all this theatrics?" Tell him you can have a kid. He's about miracles. He can make any miracle. He wants. He could pray to Hashem. It's like, "Yeah, I'm gonna show my best friends. What do you have to make these people embarrass themselves with the party, with the smarty, with all this stuff, for what? Just tell them you have a kid. No problem." I can revive the dead if you want, or the kid with the dead, or I just want the kid. It's the same price. Like what's the price? Just tell me. Why do you have to go through this whole thing? Because Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai knew something. He knew something that if we knew it, there wouldn't be any divorce in the world. There wouldn't be any problems at all. What did he know? He knew that the biggest disease that we have in this world is not going to be cured by doctors. It's not going to be cured by biologists, chemists, governments, politicians, or money.

10:26It'll never be cured by it because the biggest disease we have is, unfortunately, when we get used to something. We get used to something, we mistreat it. We get used to something, we forget its significance. You get used to your wife. You forget to tell her you love her. You get used to your wife, and you start talking to her like you talk to a truck driver. You get used to your husband. You don't get up when he comes into the house. You continue staying on your phone with your friend. You get used to the kids. You forget to hug them and say, "Oh honey, how was your day?" You're too busy telling them to go to their room. You get used to God. You forget to thank Him for doing anything for you, the good and the bad, because it's both good. You forget He's the King of Kings. you forget He's the boss. You start thinking you're His buddy. Why? You got used to it. The Prophet Yechezkel says that at the time of Mashiach, we’re not going to be allowed to exit the Beit HaMikdash from the same place we entered. And the reason why

11:44Yahveh, it says, is because, chas v'shalom, a person will exit the Beit HaMikdash from the same place they entered and get used to the Beit HaMikdash's walls like they get used to the walls of their own house. Meaning, getting used to things is a very, very bad thing. The point of our tefillah every day is in order to revive our relationship with Hashem. The point of our learning Torah every day is to revive the relationship with Hashem. The point of all of the things that we have between ourselves and our spouse, all of the experiences, the good ones and the bad ones, is to constantly revive them. Constantly have something new. Because if things get stale, the beracha leaves. The beracha leaves. So even though the couple loved each other for 10 years, and they're both tzaddikim, they've gotten used to each other. When they get used to each other, there's not enough love there. When there's not enough love, there's no bracha. The Mishnah says that when there's Shalom Bayit, that's real Shalom Bayit, full of Ahavah, full of love, then the Shekhinah comes. And when the Shekhinah comes, it cannot come unless there's perfection.

13:02And if something is missing, then the Shechinah fixes it. If you're missing a child, the Shechinah fixes it. If you have a disease, the Shechinah fixes it. But first, you have to have Shalom Bayit, you have to have Ahava. So even though they were both righteous people fulfilling mitzvot, they were so busy fulfilling the mitzvot that they forgot to fulfill each other's desires. And Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai knew that the only way they would be revived was by understanding you can't command someone to love another. The way to rekindle that love is often by removing the relationship, making them realize its value. In this particular case, they had emunat chachamim. They had faith in the Chacham and they listened to him at a time when it was very, very difficult to listen to him. Why is he telling them to get divorced? "But I love her! Why do you want me to get divorced?" "No, I don’t want to listen to this halacha. Let me listen to a different halacha. Let me find a heter, I'm sure there's a heter somewhere, and someone says that I don't have to get a divorce. There's plenty of rabbis that were married for many years and never had kids, so I don’t have to listen to Rabbi Shimon. Let me listen to somebody else." The Lubavitcher Rebbe never had kids; he never got divorced.

14:18There's many other rabbis that have had kids and never got divorced, so obviously there are multiple opinions here. But they had emunat chachamim—they believed in the Chacham, they believed in Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, and they had the party. And because they had the party and they had emunat chachamim, they learned the lesson that he was trying to teach them the whole time, a lesson that he couldn't teach them any other way. He couldn't tell him, listen, you should love each other. Ah, you know how much I love my wife. You know how much I love my husband? I make him gefilte fish every day of the week. I love my husband. People think they love each other because they give each other stuff. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai wanted to tell you, you have to love each other. You have to work on it. Work on it as if you're about to lose it every day. If you do that, then you've got something. Because they had Emunat Chachamim, they followed the advice, they learned the lesson they needed to learn. And they got results that were drastically better than they could have even imagined. But had they not had Emunat Chachamim, they might have said, "Yeah, Rabbi Shimon, he's not all that, though. There's Rabbi Yehuda, there's Rabbi Yossi, there are other rabbis." We have other rabbis who have different opinions.

15:38Different opinions and they go to different opinions. They know you have to get divorced and they stay married for another ten years. No kids. That's the difference. Emunat chachamim means that you listen to the chacham regardless of whether the Torah opinion he arrives at agrees with yours or not. In fact, emunat chachamim is about recognizing the wisdom of the chacham and trusting in his understanding, even when it challenges your own perspective. If it completely disagrees with yours, and you follow it, that really means you have emunat chachamim. But if you just listen to the psak because you agree with it, that doesn't mean you have emunat chachamim. It just means you agree. It just means he's reminding you of something you already agree with. Emunat chachamim means you're going to follow it regardless of whether you like it, dislike it, agree, or disagree. That's emunat chachamim. And when you do that, then you have bracha. Why? Because you're fulfilling the Torah. You're fulfilling the Torah. You're valuing the Torah for what it is. You're not valuing your own logic.