Elevating Our Spirituality: Overcoming Challenges and Trusting the Process - Behaaloscha

0:02 Some pay millions, literally millions, to acquire this item, while others will work their entire lives to acquire it as well. It is a Kodosh, a special burial plot, to have a spot in the cemetery, perhaps in Eretz Yisrael that Rashi tells us is choice destination to be buried in HaRazesim HaRamimim Nuchos, to be buried next to the righteous Quite, the special thing. Diometrically opposed to this, there is a cemetery that I imagine nobody would want to be a part of, in Parashas Baaloscha.

0:42 We learn about these terrible people named the Erev Rav, who actually started out pretty solid as they came out with the Jewish people into the midbar, but as they began to murmur and complain about the Almighty's guidance of the Jewish people and His total dominion over the world, and then further complain that the chicken on the bone and the schnitzel's not enough. But no, we are not okay with the mun. We want rib steaks, we want tomahawk steaks, we want it all. This isn't enough, we want more. And eventually Hashem said I'll give you more. And they died with the meat still between their teeth. And a cemetery called Kivros HaTayvah is the cemetery for the lustful.

1:25 It's not a good place to be buried. What went wrong with these Erev Rav? Now the mixed multitude of Revobah explains. They were obviously inspired, they obviously jumped on the bandwagon of the Jewish people and they were a part of the lech teikh acharay ba midbar, the eretzloy zuruah. However, it was short lived. It was built on inspiration. Yet when the pump died down, eventually it came back to reality. Now I ask you, in our lives, the takeaway what can we learn from the Erev Rav? it is, and who gets to journey up to the mountain of Hashem? Who gets to climb this mountain?

2:05 Meyaleb ahar Hashem, who gets to go up? It's not just somebody who's willing to take the sacrifice, but it is Umayakum bimakayim kachay, but to somebody who can remain on that madrega, to somebody who can withstand all of the new winds of chains that are forcing him back down the mountain, umayakum bimakayim kachay is the one who gets to really traverse his way up the mountain of Hashem. In so many of our lives missions, we expect immediate gratification and success. While it's clearly very different, there is definitely a jumping in, there is a following the Almighty into the desert.

2:48 But then Revolba says there is also a b'cheneav Umayakum bimakayim kachay, a stick toitiveness of watching this journey until the end and trusting the process, and it can take years to master Amida, if not longer, and to really study a person's idiosyncrasies and how sins happen, what triggers him. Keep working on yourself and keep trying to be Yaaleb ahar Hashem, but then put the same amount of effort in staying in that spot. Umayakum bimakayim kachay, to withstand all of the different things that may deter you and bring you down, because that person reaches the top of the mountain in his avidah Hashem.