It's Your Choice - The 11th Principle of Faith - Rabbi Lazer Brody

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The opening of this shiur, in Hidabroot - Torah & Judaism’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

[music and singing] [music] [music and singing] [music] >> With Hashem's loving grace, welcome to Emunah hour number 211. Tonight, with Hashem's help, we're learning the 11th principle of Emunah. This is the principle we called "It's Your Choice." This is reward and punishment and free choice. Principle 11, as Maimonides teaches us, I believe with complete belief that the creator, blessed be his name, rewards those who observe his commandments and punishes those who transgress his commandments. Which means we have to take responsibility for actions. We can't blame anyone else. It's all up to us. And so, what's up to us? Everything comes from Hashem. We learned the first principle of Emunah. Uh yes, but the Gemara clarifies that everything comes from Hashem except for the reverence of Hashem. Fearing Hashem, honoring Hashem, this is up to us. So, whether we're going to honor Hashem's Torah and the mitzvahs or not, this is up to each one of us. We have to take responsibility. Because Hashem grants us the free will to do good or the otherwise. And what the Ramchal explains is there's no concept of reward and punishment outside the context of free will, free choice. Therefore, there can't be the slightest coercion in any direction. So, simply speaking, it's our choice. So, what do we do? We We want to build the world or destroy the world? Build our own lives or destroy our own lives? Some people do things very silly for a moment or two of physical pleasure and they destroy their lives, they destroy their careers. You see leaders of countries that do scandalous things. They went Why do they do things like that? They just don't think. So, back to the Ramchal's teaching. This is a cardinal teaching of the Ramchal. He's one of our greatest Sephardi thinkers ever. Uh

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1. 0:01[music and singing] [music] [music and singing] [music] >> With Hashem's loving grace, welcome to Emunah…
2. 5:38a commandment of Torah, it is a rectification of the soul. On the other side, every…
3. 11:45there's reward and punishment. In the family there's reward and punishment. So, we certainly we see…
4. 17:48couldn't do that good thing. But Hashem it's as if he did it cuz that was…
5. 23:57elaboration of Torah There's two Rabbeinu Bachyas. There's Rabbeinu Bachya of Duties of the Heart, that's…
6. 30:04people in our group and other people is we know that we're fighting the battle. We…
7. 35:44side of the heart that in this case it's the right side of the heart and…
8. 41:53wild stallion and and she trains him. She gets him back and rides him. She very…
9. 48:02Psalms, "My heart is is a vacuum inside me." So, he's talking about the left side…
10. 54:11and if I feel some type of heaven forbid sadness but some type of lack of…

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