Toldos - The Secret of Motivation

you're listening to the weekly partial podcast with ari goldwag recorded with hashem's neverending assistance in ramaphishima israel 5782 2021. this week's parashat is pasha's toldos and in our parsha we have the beginning of the story of yaakov and asaf twins two brothers one more spiritual who would end up being the forbearer of the entire jewish people asap who had the potential to also be a forebear of the jewish people but chose instead not to be that and i'd like to share with you i one of the most profound ideas perhaps that i've ever shared um something that it's not gonna sound brand new to you because it combines other concepts that you've heard from me from others but it's a very clear when you when you understand something you distill it down to a very clear core so you can use it and apply it in many different ways and i want to share with you a piece from the alter of novartic madrigus adam which i've been listening to for my rash yeshiva repair over the last few weeks months and i'd like to share with you a thought that has to do with motivation and motivation is so important to us to every single person because we need to know why we're motivated if we want to accomplish anything in life we have to motivate ourselves and the question is how do we motivate ourselves i don't feel like doing it i'm not really so interested in that thing it's boring these are common things that i hear my children say and these are common things that i hear myself say and the question is how do we get motivated for something can we only be motivated by something which has a high payoff i'm being paid a lot of money for i'm going to get a lot of honor prestige for it i'm going to feel really good about myself for doing that is that the only motivation or is there a deeper motivation and in the madregas autumn although in the verdict one of the pillars the cornerstones of the shita of nevada was spoken about at length the concept of trusting in god but another of the pillars and foundations is the concept of and lashma means doing it for its own sake really it means doing it for god's sake doing for hashem not because i'm going to get any honor not because i'm going to receive any accolades not because i'm going to make a lot of money but doing something for its own sake doing it for god's sake doing it because it's right now the problem the difficulty is how do i motivate myself to do something that doesn't have a strong motivation i'm gonna be honored so that's a big motivation i'm gonna be paid a lot of money that's a big motivation how do i get myself to be motivated by something that doesn't motivate that's the question that i want to talk about and before we get into the simple really simple i and i ask you i don't usually say this but stay till the end all the way to the end because if you do you're going to receive something which for me i think you know for me i believe it's something that's transformational just it's so clear it's so simple and applicable we can apply it right away this idea but before we get to the idea i want to share with you where we see this idea and are very parsha and i don't think it's a coincidence that hashem having been desired to this idea in this week's parsha the torah tells us the story of yitzchak and how he wants to give the breakfast he wants to give the blessings to asap and now yaakov takes the blessings ha yaakov buys the bachelor of the firstborn rights from asov what i'd like to focus in on what the altar focuses in on is the fact that asa is called adam i'd like to read this to you he's called adam which means the red one where does he get this name from so many of us know because he said give me some of that red stuff he came in he was hungry he was starving he said give me some of that red stuff in this bunion says the altar of navardic amazing thing is what is the essence of asav asaf is the character in the torah of somebody who completely gives in to his own desires and who's not interested in spirituality he gives up his portion in the jewish people he could have been as we said one of the forefathers of the jewish people instead he threw it all away for involvement in this world but if we look at what is the essence of asa we see that the torah says after he said feed me some of this red stuff he wanted some of that lentil soup which was red he said give me the red stuff that's why he was called adam that's why he was called the red one he was red he had red hair he had a ruddy complexion but because of this story he said give me the red stuff from that day on he was called edon which means the red one kashavin says the alternative is very difficult to understand allah we find that that very day asap had transgressed all the schweins rabbits in the madrid he had transgressed all of the different avairas the the three hamurais gilearized srikhas dhamma awaitazari had he had been involved with a married woman he had served idolatry he had murdered somebody why we calling him red because of the red stuff that he asked for hello i used to speak from the correlation murderer call him uh uh somebody who serves idolatry kiba hadith you feed me that red stuff that's just something that's a negative character inside of himself the fact that he's he runs after eating he's attribute so talk about the fact that he's a murderer he's also causing the death of somebody else he's not just uh causing detriment to himself since the outer we must understand if the torah is choosing the language of adam means the red one it must mean like this was the foundational thing that he was missing this was his this is his biggest problem this is the reason why everything else that he did happened it was because of the red character of of asov then came royal lavar lord of the virus so we need to understand the root of this if we understand the root of who is asaf what is this negativity how did he lose himself completely he lost his his portion in the jewish people in eternity all he is for us is a lesson in negativity so we need to understand who he is because we don't want to make his mistake okay he asks a few other questions i'm not going to get into all of these questions one question i will read kasia it says that after he sold the firstborn rights to yaakov ace of vaivaz he looked down upon he belittled the firstborn rights now understand what are the firstborn rights what is this discussion about the firstborn rights means who's the spiritual one who's the one that's going to bring the sacrifices to god when it's appropriate who is the one who's going to lead the spiritual side of the family that's what the firstborn rights means so not only did he sell his rights to yaakov but he made he made light of them he belittled them the verse tells us that he he belittled the service of god the kasha says the alternative a very important question it's very difficult to understand he said what is he asked yaakov he said you want to buy the bahrain from he said what's the baha'i about what is what's involved what's involved in being the firstborn come over and told him what's involved etc and he said okay it's not for me you see that he had a he was weighing the matter whether he should sell this should give it up or not so if this is something that he already understood something important and we see he doesn't say this but we see later on he wants the blessings which are involved that are connected to the bracha and the same letters the blessing and the firstborn rights so if it's important to him so then why does he put it down why does he belittle it afterwards if his half a la casa does he go from one extreme to the other so he lays down an amazing idea and listen to this carefully because it's it's really foundational so important in order to be mocking something in order to distinguish things if a person has a healthy his senses are in proper working order in love those by understanding the difference between things if i can tell the difference between black and white different colors so it shows that i can see you can call it if everything is black or everything is white for him so i see kiwisuma so this is a sign that he's blind his his sense of sight is not functioning i have the one called adam the call behemoth person can hear the difference between the sound of a person or the sound of an animal this is a sign that his hearing is functioning called shoving light if all he hears is one long sound or they all sound the same to him goes on through the different senses if a person is able to distinguish things with his senses that shows that the sense is functioning properly [Music] he says when it comes to the sense of knowledge a person's ability to understand and and intellectually approach things it depends on his ability to see to distinguish things the sages say the reason that we say abdullah is we say that there because as to do it we're separating between shabbos and the weak in order to do that so you have to have the ability to distinguish that requires understanding what is it that distinguishes if everything looks the same versus everything there there's increments and there's different shades so to speak it has to do with true and false being lara distinguishing distinguishing between good and bad i mean when a person doesn't understand the difference between something that's true and something which is a forgery let me see between reality and sleight of hand the person can't figure out he can't intuitively understand that this is real and this is not real that this is true and this is fake so then they're missing something in their intellectual capacity if a person just judges things in a superficial way always whatever it looks like that's what he assumes it all of the is all of the khusham all of a person's senses and what they see and how they experience life the interpretation of those things depends on how i understand it the person's knowledge understand this is good and sweet something that the intellect says this is not good for me it's very bitter it's good it's it's negative it's bad rodriguez so this is a very important you say foundational idea i can't take things on face value and it goes through a person you know you see a guy not going to read it inside you see a guy he has he has a coin he puts it in his hand and then all of a sudden he opens up his hand and he has two coins in his hand right so wow it's magic he made two a second coin appear but if you know a little bit about sleight of hand you know that he had a coin in his sleeve and the coin dropped in but if you take things on face value you're gonna you're gonna misunderstand and you're gonna misinterpret that which is going on so if you came in when a person is a is an intellectual person an honest person intellectually honest person which means i know it's really true i'm not just looking at things on face value it's such an important idea today because our society is so entrenched in superficial understandings and understandings of things without that distinction so a person who has proper understanding ain't a spelman of musculation he's not he's not blown away by the first thing that he sees oh my how is that real my daughter was just telling me she's taking a class in film she was telling me how she they showed her this entire video where this you see someone coming through a whole railway system and there's tons of people around and there's a train and everything and etc and she said how they should explain to her and showed her how everything was green screen it wasn't really there nothing was there none of the people the train wasn't there but it looked so real right so today we're at a time which there's so much false information being presented as real but it's so important to be able to distinguish between what's real and false okay i'm sorry about that already the anime musical region a person who's intelligent is not just doesn't just look at the outer aspect of things but somebody who looks at things with a superficial glance with a superficial look with an imagination of what it is oh wow it's so beautiful you know you see a beautiful person that person must be that's what i need that's what i want what's what i want to be connected to or famous person whatever it is and then when you get another person a little bit and you find out they're they're tremendously haughty they have terrible need this they're not a good person they do terrible actions they take you know i'm saying you find out the truth after a little bit of exploration you realize this is not a person that i want to be connected to takes it takes time to recognize the truth but if you look at things in a superficial way so then you get thrown about like leaves in the wind whoever the wind blows is running oh wow look over there there's something i want oh that looks like good food oh look this is what i need i need money i need this all the different types all the different desires okay now i'm gonna stop reading inside because i want to get to my point which is really important but he says that asaph was a person who saw things in a superficial way that's all he saw he only if he saw something it was give me that rest of i'm so hungry give me that food it smells good that was the essence of who he was he did things that had a big draw that had a big pull toward that thing why do you have to why i have to be with a nation's each why do you have to have a right why do you have to be over that right why do i need to kill somebody why do you have to he's drawn after after i'm so angry i want to kill him he kills him oh wow he sees a beautiful woman who cares if she's married he must have her it's being pulled after the big meaty things the words that he use the words that he the word that he uses here is bulmus which means in hebrew ravenous hunger tremendous lust tremendous desire asev was called edom he was called the red one because the essence of who he was was somebody who was only motivated by powerful motivations like powerful desires he would do something if he was going to make a ton of money he would kill somebody to get all the money he would you know i'm saying he would do whatever it took to get that big payoff the big payoff back to my question it sounds familiar you know i'm motivated by certain things i put out this partial podcast every single week for 14 years i can't let myself down i i can't let my you know or hashem many people watch this podcast that's a big motivator could i do it without that motivation could i do it with a very little motivation could i could i have a conversation with could i give a shirt to two people could i give a to one person am i motivated to learn to study to understand without being able to share with anybody am i motivated to sing a song only if it's gonna get a million views on a video am i motivated to sing a song even if nobody hears it i can make up a song right now no we'll know no we'll ever hear we'll stay inside of my ipod you know i'll record it no one will ever hear it am i able to do that can i be motivated or only if there's a big payoff that's the question how do i connect the opposite of asev because yaakov is somebody who's ishita yeshiva holland he's sitting and studying he's learning torah he's content without the big payoff he's content to do what's right because it's right he didn't you think he wanted to run in there and steal the brothers from asap it was forced by his mother that's not a big motivation i mean you give it away you gotta listen to your mother but saying he didn't want to do that he wouldn't have done it on his own yakov and the jewish people the essence of who we are is those who are willing to do something that doesn't have the biggest motivation so here's the question how do i motivate myself well you know when i take a cup of coffee i feel much more awake i feel much more morbid i'm ready to move can i motivate myself without a cup of coffee was that a stimulant to to make it more sweet the thing that i don't want to do can i do something that's not so sweet can i eat a vegetable you know i love candy let's say i'm not a big candy eater i love candy i love sweets i love chocolate i'll eat that i have kids like this i'll eat that but i won't eat a nutritious delicious dinner it's not sweet enough for me it's not the food that i want it's not the thing that i asked for i only eat in restaurants will i eat the vegetable which has a slightly sweet taste it does tomato has a slightly sweet taste a cucumber is a slightly sweet taste how do i get myself to eat the vegetables of life which are those things which are good for me but don't have the biggest pull you know when i learn gemara which bar hashem thank god i do every day and i learn gomorrah it's not as fun as talking about a magician or about a pussock it's giving a partial podcast how do i motivate myself and here's here's how we get to the secret the big secret the big secret i have a choice every single day to reinforce the habit of only doing things with big motivation i only do things if it's i'm making a million dollars a thousand dollars whatever each person in there i will only do it or i'm going to do it for free i'm willing to do it i'm willing to every time this is how i will say it every time i allow myself the privilege of doing something that has a lower motivation it gets sweeter and when you eat cucumbers they're actually sweet every time i choose to do something that doesn't have a strong motivation i reinforce within myself the willingness to do something that is not so strong i'm i want to check my email a thousand times i want to look at my facebook i want to look at my whatsapp i want to look at all these things are strong motivations am i willing to give to dhaka it's hard to give i worked hard for this chat this money i'm going to give it to that guy that beggar he didn't he's not working he's doesn't work why isn't coming around every day asking me for money get a job am i willing it's a low motivation in fact if anything it's the opposite side you have extremes you have the things that are very strong things pulling you in that direction it the things that are slight motivating a little bit of a pull your things that go in the opposite direction that you don't want to do when you do the things that are in the opposite direction and here's the secret these this is the foundation when i do those things that are in the opposite direction i don't want to do i get a a good hit a spiritual that's called the shema it's called doing it for the right reason when i do it because it's right then now look at the difference of what happens when i do the thing i look at my email all day i set my facebook i waste my time it feels good in the moment but it feels terrible after when i do the thing i don't want to do i don't feel such a pull towards or i i feel a pull not to do when i it's called cheverus i mean this when i do that thing anyway i i reinforce within myself the ability to do things that don't have such a powerful pull again another time give another shekel to take another dollar to charity do another thing that i'm not strongly motivated by close my computer turn it off i don't need to look at facebook now i don't need to check the news again i'm going to listen to that quiet voice of my conscience see the more i reinforce within myself that's the word reinforced within myself because i have both abilities to be drawn after powerful motivations or to be to be willing to do something and to do it even though it's not a powerful motivation every time i do that thing i take that step i clean that dish i take some junk off of my table and i throw it in the garbage every time i do that i reinforce within myself the ability to do things without a strong motivation you know what happens i become a better person and i look for opportunities to do things that i don't necessarily want to do i don't i don't like to take out the garbage until it's full i don't want to waste garbage bags i also don't like to take out the garbage when it's overflowing so take out the garbage right away before it hits overflowing do something and again do it again we develop the habit and we feel good when we do that when we do the action which is bad which has a strong motivation we feel good in the moment and then we feel bad afterwards when we do the action that has a light motivation or a negative motivation i don't want to do it i don't want to embarrass myself i don't want to pull out my wallet and find that i only had 10 agu wrote in a dime i'm embarrassed but when i do that anyway afterwards i feel good that i feel good i was miss gobber i was i'm a human being i'm a person not drawn after whatever fat motivation i can do things that have light motivation now i'm going to ask you one last thing before i give you a break and ask you to give me that blessing try it try it this week try it every day this week and maybe send an email to me at the ahri goldberg gmail.com i know it's not so easy to do it's an it's an exercise in doing something that doesn't have a lot of motivation and tell me what you did and how it changed how you felt and with your permission maybe we'll read it next week and we'll see what we are able to accomplish together i bless you and ask you to bless me hashem should help us to be able to recognize and understands what we're being motivated by to be able to do those things that don't have such a strong motivation to recognize that the misses much nother is themselves helping us to reinforce within ourselves the ability to not be drawn after the heavy motivations but to be able to do those things that aren't as motivating thank you so much for listening have a wonderful shamas this podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners like you for more podcasts like this please visit www.ariegoldwag.com or search on itunes ari goldwag [Music]