A Living Dog or a Dead Lion: Shaarei Teshuva 2:24-25 with Rabbi Aaron Poston

[Music] everybody welcome back to the shari truvahbora we're approaching rosh hashanah wow the days of awe we're in the middle of ello and the truth is just you should know we're taking a little break until after the game so this will be the last class for you guys on skype or whatever zoom wherever we are and for those who are watching i guess wherever we are on youtube okay so we are in the second char paragraphs 24 and 25. before we begin i want to mention the refusal mamash to all those who are sick but especially ropinto yoshiyahu joseph and zachary so this best hashem have refused leima and elias nashamas to all those are on our list as well and we are dealing with two very short but important paragraphs as i mentioned okay for those who are using our book you can see it over here on my left shoulder and that would make it page 198. so paragraphs 24 and bizarronta shem 25 as i mentioned they're very short so but they're very fundamental so hopefully this will will be able to make a real kenyan we'll be able to make a real acquisition on this wisdom today as we approach rosh hashanah okay we have a mishna that discusses both this world and the world to come they both have their advantages and they actually echo what king solomon had said in cohes king solomon in ecclesiastes right that's cohesive ecclesiastes yeah ecclesiastes he says now this is a very strange verse right for he who is attached to all the living has hope ready okay that part makes a lot of sense as long as you're alive there's hope hope for what hope for change hope for something better right that's great listen to the latter part of the verse very very strange what does it mean that a live dog a dog that's alive is better than a dead lion i mean come on what is going on here so we have to investigate what this means but let me just explain first of all we spoke about a perky avat a mishna that is describing there's advantages to both worlds i'll i'll just take you to perkiavo chapter four mishnah i'm not sure if it's 16 or 17 let's say it's 17. it all depends on which copy you have so rabiaco would say a single moment of repentance of chuba and maaseem tovin and good good deeds in this world are better than all the world to come and we all know why because once we go into the world to come there's nothing more to be done you have finished your mission so to speak here in this world so a single moment of any kind of action any kind of doing it that's why we have to cherish those moments of doing these things in this world it's greater than all the whatever is to come whereas on the other hand a moment of bliss in the world to come meaning we'll call it the vegas with the shrina the real true um pleasure ultimate pleasure that will that one will experience in the world to come one moment one slice of time is greater than you know then will be greater than all of the pleasures that one can get from time immemorial meaning from the time you were born to the time you die if you add it all up it doesn't compare to that one slice of time in the world to come that's what he means when he mentions that um similar to this idea of the mishnah this passage this verse now what does it mean he says perush this comes to teach you what is it teaching you right king solomon praised life in this world regarding doing shiva as well as performing mitzvahs in terms of attaining spiritual virtues that's what we have in this world this world has a worthwhile it's worthwhile right it's where this what what is the point of this world as the villenegon says it's to do ticon amidos and how do we do that through the misses to fix our character traits and we do that through god's command now the hope is available only only to one who's attached to what we call life to the living itself meaning whoever is still alive and that's why when the verse says that a a living dog is better than a dead lion so when the parish says the meaning of the phrase because a live dog is better than a dead lion that when a man is in a in let's say even the lowliest person means the inferior ones even people who are inferior they're not on the highest level they could be compared to a dog so to speak but but they're still alive and that's why it's better than the deadline they can attain such additional spiritual virtues which even the greatest sage and even the greatest righteous person it would be impossible for them to reach to do anything once they are dead now in the arts grow edition of cohes there is a comment i wanted to read because it does refer to i think this is where i saw it ah now i saw it in rashi let's go to rashi first rashi on that verse mentions made the main point here that as long as the person's alive even if they're wicked and is joined by the wicked but guess what perhaps the person will repent before his death that's going to be the main point here and then when king solomon refers to a live dog is better than a dead lion he's referring to two evil people even though they were evil now the names are not that easy to pronounce right one was like the head of bubble and the other one was like a servant to him so one was not as evil as the other so the one who was the slave he was less wicked and he was like i'll just read it like this even though they were both wicked it was better for nebu sudaran who was who was a wicked slave and converted to judaism in the end he converted to judaism okay and the death did not overtake him early so it would be better to be like him than to be like nebuchadnezzar who was the per this guy's master he was considered a lion as jeremiah himself called in jeremiah chapter 4 verse 7 when it refers to a lion had come up from the thicket that's the verse over there because he died while he was in his wickedness and he ended up in gehenna and while his own slave his own you know uh lower ling he ended up in the garden of eden so it's interesting that in halacha right a lot of these ideas overlap there is a halacha about a dead dog that um you're allowed to cut cut up a dead dog to serve your dogs i mean i'm if they eat dog meat if you tell them it's you know your third cousin they're not gonna eat it but um it's not muksa right you can feed your dogs the ones that are by you all the time you can take care of them or perhaps other animals so you're allowed to butcher up your carcass for dogs any carcass let's say for dogs but a human course a corpse that's muksa the only way there's only a special way to move it right like actually king solomon actually developed this whole idea of how to move his own father king david out of the sun king david died on shabbos his body was muksa so he put a a a loaf of bread on top of the carcass and then you can move it out of the sun anyway that isn't so for those people who don't understand the laws of muksa there is a much locus whether some aspects are actually from the torah but we do possibly majority of them are madurabanan and king solomon already knew some aspects were from the torah and he was involved in adding some of the rabbinic laws of muxon anyway let's move on that's a side point in um in this safer of cohes we see the verse um and then there's a comment so he says for he was attached to all the living has hope meaning as long as he lives there is hope that even the sinner will repent the event ezra comments that this verse is a citation of the common rationale of mankind while there is life there is hope people say that and that's true to all the living even if he attaches himself to the wicked there is still hope of eventual repentance that's in the matutus dovid for once he dies all hope has ended as it's written in ezekiel about the dry bones it says in ezekiel 37 verse 11 our bones are dried our hope is lost now the written text um i'm not going to go into that okay what does it mean a live dog being better than a dead lion so scripture the dog when we use the word dog in scripture it's usually a term of contempt right it's like a lowly thing well a lion is well the king of the the king of the animal right animal kingdom so a lion is the mightiest of the beasts nevertheless nevertheless the despised dog who is alive is better than a mighty lion that is dead okay so there is another comment i was looking for i don't see it here okay we'll go on um we are now back in the the charity martial now interestingly enough there's another place the king solomon speaks about this like like the word the um i'll say it like this it means like disparaging or belittled right this world he didn't look so highly at this world in terms of because what is this world for it's right it's in terms of getting a sagat vodo it's all about pleasures and honor and of course that's vanity of vanities according to king solomon nevertheless he writes in um where does he write this in cohes chapter 1 verse 3. what prophet does a man have for all of his labor labor that he toils beneath the sun now interesting the word sun s-u-n is talking about light so we're talking about under the torah good good question what does that mean but it also means this world the sun is what is above us in this world and the ode he also said in chapter four verse two again we're in koheles he says the shabbai ani i'm going to praise the mason i mean this is king solomon he's praising those who are dead already they've already died they're already they're better than the living how can that be so we have a few comments i want to read and basically it's like this king solomon means that the dead who reside in hola maba and enjoy its reward are better off than the living who pursue enjoyments of this world which obviously they pale in comparison to the delights of the next world thus our verse reflects the second teaching of that mission in percyavos which we read that one moment of pleasure in the world to come is greater than all the pleasures of this world okay now that was we finished paragraph 24. so how does this change our life right look we all we know god created us as pleasure seekers we just have to figure out how to do it in a kosher way right we should definitely be enjoying the relationships that we have the time that we spend with our families right even sitting and relaxing on a beach but how do we do it why are we doing it we're doing it so we can be proper of their shams we can serve a sham with with joy sometimes people need down time a refresher uh what do you call recharging the batteries right if it's for the sake of pleasure itself and that's the goal then it's wrong right kvod run away from honor but you know what there are times that you just have to step up to the plate and do it so you're not doing it for honor but you're getting honoring those who run away from honor honor will chase them okay so this already gives you an inkling of what your real motive should be your real motive should be to serve hashem and and you will enjoy there are fruits of your labor that you will enjoy in this world but there are the crumbs it's not the karen it's not the main part of the you know if you're not diminishing your reward in the world to come you're just getting some of the reward now but it's not diminishing for eternity okay let's go to paragraph 25. the tell us in perculvo's three one which we didn't read yet okay so perkianvo's chapter three basically it says you should look for three things now it's very interesting because it says ena tabboli de avere you're not going to come to sin it didn't say you're not going to sin and uh over here okay that's how he translates it well it means you're not going to approach sin in the same way right if you're not going to come in hebrew bo the hebrew says bull you're not going to boldly day of the era so we have to discuss in other words is there anything that's perfect that is not you're not going to sin probably not but it's a pro prophylactic it's going to prevent you from going in that direction okay okay so let's hear it what do you do you should look from where you came in and where you're going did i skip something yeah okay from where did you come you came from a tip men and women everybody who's on the planet right came from a future drop it's not just the men okay everybody came so where did you come from you came from a putrid drop and that's going to help in your god forbidden your heartiness because you know we'll talk about it shortly actually let's talk about just mentions here in the comment man's physical existence begins in the form of a lowly drop of seed and tahoe where are you going guess where we're all going to the same place basically physically remove you're going to eventually end up in a place of dust worms and maggots sounds very delicious but anyway the ultimate destination of one's physical body is the grave only the soul endures the body goes and that's it now the truth is we do have a concept called resurrection of the dead but don't worry about that that's not your that's not your issue how you gonna dress how you're gonna look the truth is it's very interesting i think i mentioned this before there are right 365 adults in the torah and 248 positive dues every time we do a mitzvah we're how do i describe this we're energizing we're placing light energy into those limbs so to speak so that there will be a life force in which to resurrect at the time of the resurrection of the dead and at the time of the resurrection of the dead those of us who failed to do misses properly or failed to do them all together will have either missing limbs or blemished limbs but otherwise if we do mitzvahs we'll have a totally healthy body okay so for all those who are experiencing physical challenges in this world you'll be able to run a 14 minute mile right a 14 minute while that's what they say in the world to come don't worry you'll be so healthy all will be good i got a few claps over there okay um now the last thing was what about the future so where you came from right and where you're going and what about the future lifting miata should i skip something and the left name you should also in other words these are the three things you should contemplate in order not to bring you towards sin no before whom you are going to stand for judgment a final judgment for your deeds and who's that lyft named melech the king of kings the holy one blessed be he now i want to read this comment i think we didn't really read that yet bira davar the explanation is as follows so let's read the comment right since the mishnah says you will not come to sin it doesn't say you will not sin i pointed that out ramirez understands that considering these three these three things will put one in a frame of mind that makes sin unapproachable like you'll you'll weigh your your decision but in a much more heavier way a much more serious sober way he therefore shows how these three considerations that the mishna prescribes close off three major pathways to sin now what are they in other words haughtiness right no from where you came you came from a a tipa a disgusting drop the lure of worldly pleasures you know where you're going to go you're going six feet under and they still bury people six feet under but that's anyway that was the phrase right and what about the denver bone the the seriousness the soberness of your final uh judgment that should help you stay away from a lighthearted attitude towards life take life a little bit more seriously right and then the uh the radio rabino yona goes on we're by the way we're on the bottom of page 199 um just as you consider where you came from we mentioned this will help you be humble because the word tachni and nafshika means you'll subdue your soul here he says you'll humble yourself vittis naga you'll actually despise you'll come to hate um haughtiness that trait of hardiness and i i think this comment is worth reading this thought will not only remove any trace of haughtiness but will even cause a person to despise such feelings you don't want to feel this way because you will actually come to realize how absurd they are so rooting out this negative trait is an important moral safeguard because haughtiness there's different ques there's a discussion what actually causes one to sin and we know ego really that's going to be it right so haughtiness is another term or a description or it's uh a result of the ego doesn't have to be right we all have an ego and there's nothing wrong with the ego the question is is it in check are you using your ego properly so rooting out this negative trait is an important moral safeguard because heartiness leads to many other sins as we already spoke about in the first chapter paragraph 27. um the cashier tusco la ana tahoe now when you remember and recall where you're going to eventually end up six feet under with all the worms and maggots so tis the you're basically showing contempt for this world the taker ki mutaro iron and you'll think of all those physical luxuries all those extras how does he translate it here indulgences are like completely worthless they're really not worth all that effort and number five in the comment mentions money and worldly goods become insignificant when one realizes that after his temporary sojourn on earth he cannot take them along to the next world by the way the word gere doesn't only mean stranger it also means a wanderer and that god tells our forefathers to be aguer vittosha but to be again i want you to be a gear i want you to feel that this world is temporary you're just wandering through this world do not become a toshav only do not make this world permanent i discussed this in terms of jacob yaakov yaakov when did when did joseph get sold i mean when did joseph get kidnapped and sold when was he disappeared all the horrible feelings that came up to jacob's life came as a result of himself asking for some peace and tranquility don't ask for peace and tranquility take what you have and we all would like some and we will have it in the world to come but this world is a world of challenges there's nothing you can do about it um you can make it easier and i'll tell you how character development toy mitzvos that's that's it that's that's all i can tell you that will um i don't mean to cushion the blow but it means that this is this is how you're gonna make it in this world right and let's go on the lotus assay zulati la vodas brah what you should only only purpose of life is ultimately to when you do engage in worldly matters keep in mind the only reason you engage in worldly matters is for the purpose of serving hashem you need a house of course i need a house i have to work so i can put a museum on my house i have children i have a wife i have to put a roof over their head i have to feed them i'm responsible for them right why do i have a car a nice car to get from point a to point b so i can do misses of course if i'm doing something else okay now that i got the car i can do other things but the main point of having the car was so i can drive to the minion or i can pick up people and help them with their luggage or their their their groceries right i want to do be able to do the mixes it's not about looking good and driving comfy right is the vehicle is it you can i utilize it for mitzvahs or not and that should be the main idea he mentions over here no we're not there yet um and the last point right that if you place upon your heart and contemplate before you were standing that eventually you're going to give then the bone a reckoning to then the fear of heaven should be upon you which is ultimately the the one of the highest levels of of life this will protect you from a frivolous and light-headed light-headed state of mind so we know that um carlos roche lighthead in this leads to leads immorality in other words to frivolousness and uh what comes out of that okay now another source for the importance of remembering is one's mortality not the other word was immorality this is mortality this is the fact that you know that you're not gonna live forever as a means of avoiding sin so the sages tell us in genesis 131 actually sorry it's breishit rabbah it's actually the um the medrush so i actually have it here and it just makes one mention of the the the the passage in genesis chapter 1 verse 31 where god said he saw everything they are elohim as ko everything that he had made the heene tov mode and behold it was very good now he didn't say it was very good every single day okay so here he says it was good mankind had been made okay now we're actually supposed to serve hashem right with our soul right with our hearts with our soul and with our resources modeka what we are supposed to serve hashem with was even with our yates or we even with our evil inclination we're supposed to serve hashem okay i can discuss this in a minute but here ma'od here means death just keep in mind the the the satan what we call satan is the yates it's the evil inclination he's also the angel of death so in a certain sense i see this um it's all fitting together here god saw all that he had made and behold it was very good the rebellion is telling us this is referring to death even death is very good and how as we've been talking about when you realize one day you're going to be buried right one day you're going to have a denver that it's going to serve you for what purpose to take life a little bit more seriously with sobriety so here is the medrasraba i'll quote it in english ruby nachman said in rabbi samuel's name behold as the verse says behold it was good refers to a good desire as i said we have two hearts we used to serve him with both but the very fact it says and behold it was very good so in other words when god says behold it's good that's talking about your good desire but here in our verse in genesis 131 where it says very good that's talking about the evil desire as i here he quotes it omi says very good after man was created with both the good and bad inclinations in all other cases it only says god saw that it was good okay can one second what are you asking here can the evil desire be considered good i mean this is one of the main focuses when i deal with christians it like blows them out of the water how can we say that the evil inclination which we call the satan is actually good he's actually he should be your best friend he actually is your best friend you don't really notice it though you don't know that you don't know that he is causing you to grow right how think about god wants to give you the ultimate good this is the idea of free will if god wants to give the ultimate good how are you supposed to get it so if you don't earn it i know this goes against all of christianity and a lot of islam as well if you don't earn that good it's not worth as much to you right have you ever been given a gift i don't know i can't even imagine but okay let's say you were given the gift how much is it worth you didn't work for it i guess it depends how old you are and how you know you've been praying for this gift but when you let's when you work hard let's say for years or whatever it is and you're able to finally afford something you're going to take very good care of it and someone gives you something i don't know whatever when they say easy come easy go whatever it is i'm using this like more of an example but god wants to give you the ultimate good and he doesn't want to give you what we call the bread of shame bread of shame is like undeserved i'm a little embarrassed that i got this but when you work hard it's your own so god allows you he wants you to make those choices i put before you life and death he says i put you before you good and evil choose good choose life shoot right choose life he wants you to choose life that's what he wants you to do choose good this way the ultimate good he wants to give you is going to be to you more valuable right that's the whole idea it's going to be more valuable to you so now you understand why the satan which is your evil inclination is actually your best friend first of all he's 13 he's been with you 13 or 12 years for women before your good inclination comes he's like your older brother i mean he's like he's been around for a long time anyway you you he he loves to play games and you have to figure out how to scheme against him you can learn a lot from him from this time okay i hope i gave that explanation over it well so we basically have this idea kigam hamad is taught that even death is good it actually causes you to be humble it causes a humble spirit to to come to you i'll just read the comment here number eight thus curing them of horniness which leads to sin remembering from where one came also helps in this regard so basically you don't want to come to sin so remembering where you're going to be eventually and then the yonah goes on elohim that this idea of death will help instill the fear of hashem in your hearts in people's hearts and uh and it would help you realize that the main world is not this world the main world is the world to come right because you know eventually you will die so death can be your best friend or a good friend tov mode what god created was very good and so the last point i just want to mention it would negate the tendency to make this world into the primary focus of one's life and the comment down below would be turning them away from the pursuit of worldly pleasures and luxuries right you realize life is right is a lot more than just the newest lamborghini or plasma tv or whatever it is okay all this serves to protect people from sin and helps them focus on the real purpose of life which is what serving hashem now robena yonah warns of the consequences of those who do not reflect on one's mortality i can imagine there must be people who think they're going to live forever the asian hashim no neem pannai lenapsham they don't give any time there are people that don't give any time to this concept and they um they don't take it seriously that one day they're going to live and they're going to face the the ultimate judgment and they don't fix for themselves times to to study torah to make a fresh bone and nephesh to think about life to ponder about what's going to happen in their life's end well what's my eulogy going to be what is the eulogy that's an english word right the hespin what are they going to say at my funeral you know why they don't think about it because all they're doing all day long is shopping all they're doing all day long is trying to make more money all they're doing all day long is trying to get more kavod in this world because they're preoccupied with attaining worldly possessions and as a result they have no preparation they're not at all prepared for the world to come and we see this in job chapter 4 verse 21. he says behold their excesses within them departs meaning when they die all those luxuries they've acquired is gone and they die without any wisdom right because they spent their whole life just acquiring these luxuries pirous what does this mean hello nisa yitra momona mayhem right there that their excess wealth their excessive wealth departs from them when they take leave of this world that wealth did not serve them in any way at least in any long lasting way although ebay mayhem tovahar bay but you know what happened they lost so much they wasted so much time and it basically deprived them of all that goodness as the verse says it basically caused them to die without wisdom they were so busy acquiring all these things they were not wise enough to ponder their life's end i mean i meet some people i'll tell you i'm involved with one person he is convinced that he's the wisest man in the planet he says he has such a high level iq there's only x amount of people in the world that are higher iq than him first of all i he's a very troubled person but he's far from wise he's very far from wise first of all everybody who's in his position should realize if you're so wise that not everyone took an iq test so who are you comparing yourself you're only comparing yourself to the fools that took the iq test i shouldn't say fools but i didn't take the iq test so i don't even know what my iq is but i tell him and i drove and says well you're smarter than me you're not going to listen to me but he's one of my students he's trying to listen but anyway it's a very interesting idea i don't know how somebody could think that he's one of the top one percent of the world when you know okay anyway so what happens is these people are not working and they're not pondering about their life's end but rather will attacking what should they be doing but they're not they should be considering the need to perfect their souls and to prepare we have a long journey ahead of us why don't you pack your bags now we have this idea shabbos shabbos shabbos it's like it takes the world to come you know there's a famous expression if you don't cook on friday you have nothing to eat on shabbos right if you're going away yeah we're going to go camping on shabbos i don't know i'll pick berry we can't pick berries you have to bake your challah you have to pack your food you have to make you know bring your blankets you have to bring maybe a string to make an arrow you got to prepare you want to go anywhere in this world but think about forever here you're going to have time to prepare that's what this world is for prepare preparation for the world to come so what's the preparation we just talked about these things to be serious know that you're going to eventually pass on to the next world now is the time to acquire through torah and mitzvahs we call tm tm torrent mitzvos not transcendental meditation no tm torah and mitzvahs and we're going to end off with this verse in deuteronomy chapter 32 verse 29 lu were they wise they would understand this they would ponder their end this is moshe rabeno giving us before himself passes on right people who think about where they're going to be forever right in that location location location the real estate the real estate you're going to have for a long long time and you better think about it now who who's going to think about it only the wise right be amongst the wise choose to be wise they would understand this they would ponder their end and that's where will end i wish everybody a hashanatova really contemplate because we're not just judged maybe we're not even judged at all about our past we're judged about where we're at and where we want to be okay i'm not going to say we're not judged about the past i won't go that far but think about where you want to be because this is and i'm talking about in this world how many misses you want to accomplish how many relationships you want to repair how many character traits you want to try to work on you know make attempts with you know in the smallest of increments whatever and maybe big increments and your hopes and desires and that's what we should be contemplating on and bizrat hashem will pass through not just pass through but use every moment and experience such delight in serving hashem and the whole world right the whole world is being judged and uh we'll see you on the other side meaning after circus okay so israel hashem everyone will have a shana tovah and uplifting and exalting experience and we'll see you in a few weeks i think like uh forget exactly the date but after circus sometime in october okay so signing out have a great life you two guys all the best [Music]