Rabbi Moshe Lazerus - Personal Growth in Outreach

there are two areas of personal growth that i would like to speak about one of them is general personal growth that every human being has to try to make and secondly because before you can become a jew you have to become a human being and secondly jewish personal growth how a person can grow in in his yiddish kite how we can help him grow in his irish guide now you the the makarev talking to our participants in the program um you're the makarev the person you're speaking to we call the miscarriage mithkarev sometimes called him balichuva has all kinds of connotations today so um positive and negative ones but i would like to just start by issuing this little um piece of advice i was gonna say warning but it's really a piece of advice you don't have to be perfect and you don't have to complete the job if you're talking to someone you're trying to in the car of him you do the best you can and you leave the rest after college he runs the show he's the pilot when you get on the plane you don't go in there and tell the pilot how to drive it okay so you do the best you can we're going to come up with some ideas that we think might help you do the best you can but don't have the feeling many people who will go into key roof if they're not successful they feel that their failures and they did something wrong and they have all kinds of incriminations you don't have to feel that way you have to try your best just like everything in life so that being said um there's a hulk of a hero requires us to make intelligent plans to accomplish things now the hero is the fact that gurus brahu gave us free will we can choose he gives us the ability to choose so i'm going to make some choices i'm going to choose whether to drop this pen or not now it's not a it's not really a right a good or evil choice but it's a choice i do have the free will to do it now if i let go of this pen hashem can make it stand there but i want to make it fall down here first i hope it doesn't hit the floor it's every year the floor seems to get farther away um so i'm going to demonstrate what the hulk of here is not just bahira who dropped the pen was it me or was it hashem the truth is it was both of us he allowed me to have free will and i decided to do that but he created gravity and that force that he maintains constantly threw the pen down i make another decision i really want to know karla tara kula every single safer that was ever written by kosher people what i really want to know it that's my decision now if someone wants me to know it i'll know it if he doesn't want me to know it i won't know right the hawker book here says it's not enough just to make a decision hashem says i'm going to allow you to go ahead and make a decision and follow through on it of course there are hagbolos there are things there are limitations that he puts in in nature and we have personal limitations that he gives us but aside from those invitations those limitations are of things that we have to learn have to deal with and how to overcome and create a plan the ram call says that this hulk of bahira is the reason that we have to dabble now tefillah is two elements one is the is the the shavikan who deserves every second that we do that we can do that and the second part of tefila is bakusha we're asking for things all the middle 13 middle brothers are all brokers of bakarsha we're asking a kurdish borough who for things now don't you think hashem knows what we want why do we have to even ask he knows what we want he knows what we want he knows what we need even better than we do why do we have to darwin i get this question very often from from some of the new people who come to or samantha why why is it real so long why should an answer so long doesn't hashem know what we want today i only have one or two things that i really want that's what i want to ask him for he's very nice that's also good rambhal says because of this hulk of akhira because i know i can drop this and i know that hashem endowed me with a certain amount of intelligence that if i study and i learn and i'm omil with torah i will accomplish a certain amount of things that i will know and at the end i will sit there and i will think it was me i did it because i worked hard and because i have x amount of iq that's why it was my accomplishment i did it and if it's in business i did it and everything that we do at the autumn das hashem you give men doubts it's true you gave me a certain amount of intelligent intelligence that i'm capable of doing certain things please don't stop says the ramco the thriller is to remind us that everything comes from hashem all the successes that we've had from because of the hoka bahira it all comes from every second of that fila it's for the things that you have already been given and the things that you would like to ask him for because of this era we who are involved in key roof have to come up with an intelligent plan to help people we we who train the uh the mccarvin have to come up with some kind of plan to direct and give advice on how to do kirov and there are certain time tested and proven things that work one of them is the first thing you do when you're speaking to someone who you want to be macquarie make sure the jewish now it may sound funny today but most of the jews that are out there who are not affiliated with that with yiddish guides have they may not be jewish you know um the mothers may not be jewish their fathers may not be jewish if their mother is jewish and their father's jewish they are but you know that's how they're growing up and i'm like that and it's very important for you to know what the status of this person is so that you can direct him properly i i guess about 40 years ago there was a time in the yeshiva who became who became uh very from and he was learning he was like one of the mass media media and he came to a class one of the classes that were given in the afternoon and he learned that if the mother of a of a person is not jewish say he's not jewish he said my mother's not jewish my father's jewish so he said oh don't worry about it we will arrange the garage that means you're you're you could be a rabbit you look like one anyway you're ready he's wearing you know a long coat and a black hat dangerous black hat and and he said wait i want to think about this and he had a choice to make and he made the wrong choice he said i went out and he threw away a big highlight of his own mambo he didn't realize what he did but he said it's too big of a responsibility so you have to know that the person's jewish number one and if there's any gay ruse in the family um it may not be your job to check it out but somebody should make sure that it's it's a crucial one this supplies the ability even people who aren't caring if you're speaking to this people never say any disparaging remark about a non-jew you never know who has a relative that's not jewish and and besides that the truth is there are really a lot of very very nice non-jews and it could be that he has a friend who's not jewish but he's a good friend his best friend and now when you say something you just make the wrong comment you're going to turn him off he's not going to be interested in this bigotry that's called judaism and that's it you lost him it doesn't pay so he pays to say nice things you could try in the beginning to find out what interests him ask him what he what his interests are what does he like to do what does he like to talk about if you can get him to talk about his his hobbies or his professional career goals then um you have to be a good listener and let him talk about it it's very good try to listen as as as an interested listener if it's possible sometimes to talk about something that is his his hobby is something which is totally us or and against the torah so of course you don't encourage him you know you can change the subject but otherwise so you're not interested in immediate evil art you know but you could make a comment like like you know i wish i was at all i wish i had autistic talent you know i really don't but at least he knows you're listening when someone thinks that you're interested in them it makes it much easier for him to open up and talk to you honestly about his his feelings and what he thinks otherwise he's going to be very guarded he's not going to trust you especially if you dress like this the boys that come into derek in the beginning of the year and yeah and are introduced to every lazarus who looks like this and has a discolored beard they're afraid of me i didn't do anything to them yet i will i'd do anything yet you know it takes them a little while to get the courage to come you know and and talk to me even though i'm very friendly i smile at them and i and i like them and if i have a five minute conversation with them i can usually tell them more things about themselves than they can say which brings me to the next point very important point maybe it's one of the most essential points not just in key roof in relationships at all try in your conversations with him to try to come up with identify five positive traits that he has see if you can get him to say five good see if you can see in him five good things if you can you will like him and if you like him there are yellow leif nicholas he will he'll respond he'll he'll feel like you like him it's it it'll put him at ease he won't feel you're trying to trap him until this person really likes me and you will like it's not a game if you really see things good about him that's how you that's how we are making the mitzvah of all mitzvahs and chats mitzvahs all the mitsuis have pratin they are klaulim and they're pratim the klalov of the rehokamoko is the cloud the pratim are how do you do it the gross said that's the most difficult mitzvah in kolotarakula but the way that we do it is by doing this identify positive things in a person even someone who you don't like but if you're gonna if you can see good things in that person you will begin to like them at least they'll feel certainly more positive towards them um this piece of advice by the way is good not just for people who are in kirov this is good for anyone who's alive like if you have a relationship with anybody you should be able to say 10 good things about your wife all you married guys here if you can't say 10 good things about your wife right now you've got work to do okay that's one of the advices i give under the hooper one on the side of conducion i tell each one the husband and the wife you should each be able to say ten good things about each other because life has it has difficulties there are strains there are stresses and when those things come you should be able to rattle off with the snap of a finger all those good things that you know about your wife right and she should be able to do the same thing about her husband because it takes the edge off difficulty and then you appreciate how much why you really married her in the first place when it comes to kirov you have to do the same thing with the person that you are being the kareev you have to generally genuinely like him and the only way to do it is by seeing that you have positive traits that appear in his character if in the course of your speaking to him you detect any kind of emotional problem any kind of emotional disorder if you happen to be professional semi-professional and you can detect these things um you don't have to solve the problem don't try to deal with it if it's out of your league if it's a he's a little sad that's one thing but if you detect that somebody has a serious emotional problem it doesn't mean that you don't have any relationship with anymore but to deal with that problem try to direct him as gently as possible without offending him to see if he can get some kind of professional help to deal with this particular problem today's world is so complex and they're and it's crazy out there i mean we live in a sheltered world we can't even imagine how bad it is even if you think imagine how bad it is it's like you know some of the stories that the boys tell at the end of the year what they went through before they came to derrick they never told us about it before they came it would like you could make your hair stand that you know like even mine it's it's like really frightening so please don't try to do something that's out of your league it would be helpful to you when you talk to him to find out what his relationship with his family is um are his parents alive does he have a good relationship with him what about his siblings um trying to estimate his intelligence is he intelligent is he not intelligent rate him from one to five just get an idea people who are who have less intelligence and intelligence than number five are still good jews you know and they they're good at shamans and we have to work with them but we have to make sure that we don't do things that are beyond their ability to to deal with and understand if he has any learning disabilities so then confer with one of the experts here on how to deal with learning disabilities okay everybody can learn and they you just have to know how to deal with them if he has a secular degree or he went to college or he's in college what's he studying what are his plans what does he want to do does he get along easily with other people that's important to know does he seem to have intellectual honesty because if he does then you can go in for what we call the kill i deny i said this i'll never say i never admit that i said that just now but what i mean is then you could really roll up your sleeves and talk to him doughery about life and yiddish kite and you believe in god and those kind of questions this is just rock shaped rocky i mean there are many many classes during the course of the year that the um that the participants in algola learn uh different techniques for you know for helping people okay so what do we do how do we help him now that we know something about him how do we help him so the first thing and most important thing is and if you want to get them on your side is to deal with the self-esteem issues today in today's world of all people walking around have self-esteem issues because because of the the media because of the the the movies because of of all the supermen and super ladies that they see in the world today they feel like you know they're nothing they become insecure and then when they come to a place like this and they start and and they start learning how to learn uh we had a session a few years ago the summer of internships we have a program of people coming to learn part-time indian and do work part-time and interns and uh at the orientation i asked there were 28 members there uh something that uh dr luba organized this internship program he's done a tremendous job on it and on the uh the initial orientation i said um how many people here don't recognize any of the letters in the hebrew alphabet eight people raised their hand and i said how many people here recognize letters but can't read another eight people raised their hand i said how would you like to learn how to read in a week they got very interested and we did it they were able to read and we you come to a program you're a college you're a college graduate you have a master's degree in whatever it is in psychology and engineering and you come to yeshiva and you you're standing in front of this you know you're sitting with this rabbi who's dressed like this or just you know something shorter than this and he starts teaching you things and then you go away for shabbis and you you learn you learn the look you were able to read a couple of lines of hummish and then there's this five-year-old kid sitting at the table who starts rattling off this stuff and makes you feel like an idiot so you have to realize that these people are not idiots they're very intelligent and they're but they never learned these things before and that can make you very very insecure start with this quiz which is a good quiz for everybody including yourself to ask yourself this question the question i asked before can you say five good things about yourself think take for a second now and just think if you had to say five good things about your character could you do it i never embarrass anybody but i venture to say that most people in this room cannot think of only even five good things to say about themselves and say that only because of experience when um i used to interview the couples for orla gola i would ask the husband after he was we spoke about what our local was about kirov and he wanted why does he want to do this and i would say to him could you tell me five good things about yourself and he would say um i'm friendly that's it that's very good okay humility is the second one modest okay let's count that count that one okay you got two okay three more just three more you must have lots of things and also the wife sitting next to him says i can tell you he's very intelligent he has ambition he can do things he has a will to do the right thing he's gentle he's generous so i turned to the wife and said can you tell me five good things about yourself she goes um and then he says i can tell you she's wonderful she's so caring she's sincere he starts rattling off things i said a couple like this i want to accept another goal because you were big because you have a good marriage and you are the kind of people that when you invite people to their homes for shabbos that's what people should see this kind of you know i have a sheet here that i i then give to people who are being interviewed it has a hundred positive traits on it i have another sheet there's negative traits on you and use that let's use it for myself but for this most people need this most people need this one and that is you have them sit down and just check off all the things that you think apply to you honestly you see they check off 20 30 40 things but you couldn't think of it before why not because you don't have the consciousness of it the self-esteem comes from your ability to be aware of your positive your positive character traits and abilities and not to get carried away with it but you won't become a bulgaria not from that you need this to get this healthy positive feeling for yourself it gives you power gives you the energy to be able to do things it prevents you from being afraid to take chances so that's what we we suggest both to the makarev and the miscarriage that he he does he help him you want to help him first thing is build up a self-esteem and it's just a question of awareness and if you can help him with this you'll make a friend forever he will be grateful may he may not become frugal he never become religious but you did something for him and he'll remember that you were the one you the religious jew we met made him feel like this good about himself and that will make him much more willing to hear something in the future it may get him to continue with you right away you have to express concern for him of course concern has to be real you can't say well i really i'm concerned about you and i really care about you when you don't care about somebody in order to care about them you have to do the other thing think about five good things about them at least and you'll start caring about them once you established a rapport with him then challenging on existential questions you believe in god do you believe in god that's something i remember in america that was like something it's not polite to ask that question but ask it do you believe in god i mean basically there are only two options either there's a god there isn't a god which one you choose you know um if he says yes most people do say yes he says yes so then he says you could ask him what about his relationship with hashem does he do anything does he feel anything would he like to have a relationship with a country foreign maybe he says no so if you're competent enough to be able to um deal with those questions with him and you can give him some evidence as she was said before we don't like to use the word proof because proof has i've explained it a little differently proof is a word that is a very confrontive word and is i have an idea that you don't have and i'm going to cram it down your intellectual throat with my brilliance okay so as soon as you use the word proof and you're gonna prove something to someone who doesn't believe in it right that's it you know the body language will start showing you they're not interested in what you have to say but if you offer evidence then you make the decision so i'm going to offer evidence okay one of the things that we do do in order is that we teach the um the implied evidence for the existence of god evidence for the truth of of uh mohammed hassanay and and once they believe in those two things they're finished if they have an intellectual integrity sometimes askable you believe in torah as you believe in god yeah you believe in the torah was given to hassani yes okay you're finished that's it now it's all up to you it's now it's just whether you're honest or not so do everything you have to how can you not it's your integrity you want to do what's right right you have to be careful when you say that too okay you have to use some judgment if you don't feel competent to deal with the question then we say send him to somebody who can deal would you like to speak to someone who could deal with this question who you know who i i don't really i'm not an expert in this and there's somebody who's better he will appreciate the fact that you don't know something also it'll make him feel you know this guy is not he's on a computer he's on a machine he also doesn't know something okay one of the one of the things that um that i had difficulty i still have difficulty with is dealing with um young people from the age of to 25. i guess because of the culture in the western world immaturity is a tremendous problem people are tremendously immature they don't take on responsibility not for themselves and they don't care they don't even care about themselves so much um about 10 years ago i was at an ajap convention with i went since he's gone there has been no replacement for him and um we were at this convention and michael torski was giving a seminar on kirov and we went to the seminar he was giving he was taking questions from the audience and i raised my hand and there was a little little uh podium that just you stood though and you stood on and you went you asked a question my question was how do you make someone become more mature what do you do how do you do it what do you do so he looked at me he said that's a very good question i said i know i said it so he said so what do you do he said wait a second i'm standing over here you're over there i asked the question you're supposed to answer them he said no seriously you're doing this for 30 years you must have something you must be doing something so i said i am doing something but if if it was good enough i wouldn't be asking the question he said so what do you do so i said i'll tell you what i do i say to a young man who's 17 18 19 20 15 years from now who do you want to be who's the person that you want to be most of the time they can't they didn't think that far it's like wow i said but who do you want to be what kind of person what kind of jew do you want to be don't answer but answer this do you think you'll be married most people say yes i hope so you think you'll have children most people say i hope so yeah i would like to have children i said to them what would you want your son to see when he looks at his father what kind of person that's the person you have to start now becoming don't wait life has a way of forcing you into different situations you finish college you go to work and you get married you just get you don't think about it you don't deal with the personal growth you have to start now especially if you issue in yeshiva start now if you can help him make commitments help him a little bit like a little push you know why don't you wear tissues how hard is it to do that mitzvah you know you come to davening you want me to wake you up in the morning a hard time getting up yeah you'll be against starving invite him for shabbos if you're married invite him for shabbos if it's a big if no one's going to be offended by this if your children behave themselves if the children fight and um and the father's always screaming at the kids or the mother screaming at the kids it does not make a good impression on someone who is going to hear about chavez like experience shamus kodesh and the serenity and the peacefulness and the beauty of the shabbos meal okay most people have beautiful shabbos tables and but in case your children are going through a stage where it's not easy they're still having difficulties having completely been mechanical so avoid inviting guests for shabbos for that okay i know it's fun to have guests but i want to end with this the mikari himself you the makari the young participants who's in the program you have to work on yourself also when you're working with him you have to grow just as much as he does and you have to work on things that are essential to the skype and one of the things you have to work make sure that you have enough time for your your wife and your family and certainly you have to be covered eating you have to make sure you have enough time to learn to continue learning you have to work on avas hashem and yours hashem which really deserve which really i got the hands which really deserve other whole classes on how to do it but every day we say we after a session with at least twice a day three times a day sometimes some people say four times a day what do those words mean you will love the lord your god not resource it's not a mitzvot it's a field that love is an emotion you have to feel something for hashem believe me he's worth it he's lovable and how do we do that you have to look in the torah the torah gives us the personality of hashem as as the boreh he allows us to relate to him he has he has a character he's loving he's kind he said today he's all those things he's humble he's on off the talmud davar explains the humility of hashem is that he's so veiled that he takes he he takes the abuse that we give them the way we make barakas you the professional remember how you taught your children how to make a bracha baruch you say all the words carefully slowly you think about the words remember that's how we should be making breakfast too so this is just some of the um some of the ideas that we tried to deal with in hologalla and next year at shivasa patanos we won't be having this kind of seminar because the sheikh will be here and here you