A Gift for God | Rabbi David Sutton

What’s said in this shiur

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

We're all familiar with the concept of מסירות נפש, which literally means to give up your soul. The term is used when someone dies על קידוש השם. They are given the choice of life or death, and they give up their life for God. But our Rabbis explain that the word מסירות נפש has another meaning. The word נפש does not always mean Soul, it could also mean Your Will. When Avraham Avinu tells the בני חת, when he's looking for a burial plot for Sara, he says, which Rashi says, Do you have a desire? Do you have a will? So מסירות נפש means to give up your will. How do we fulfill that? Whenever we desire or will something, and don't do it, we're giving it up. The question is: Who are you giving it to? And the שפת אמת explains something very interesting. He says: When a person breaks their desire, they're actually giving a gift to God. They're giving up that desire to God.

Jump to a moment

1. 0:04We're all familiar with the concept of מסירות נפש, which literally means to give up your…
2. 0:34he says, which Rashi says, Do you have a desire? Do you have a will? So…
3. 1:05And when you give God a gift, he gives it back to you. The example he…
4. 1:35everything came, because what he gave up. When you give a gift to God, you get…
5. 2:06He was once walking and he saw a boy, לא עלינו, smoking on Shabbat. And this…
6. 2:38you're giving a gift to God. So realize that every time you have a situation where…

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