Don't Trust Yourself - Rabbi Moshe Don Kestenbaum

we probably are all familiar with the famous ghazal why is parishes next to parshas nazar to teach us kala raya saita because anyone who sees the sota the woman in her embarrassing state yazer atsam and he should make a vow not to drink wine a person sees the sota that her embarrassment and the way she conducted herself he should learn from her and make another make a vow not to jig wine lest he fall into such a state and the obvious obvious question is the famous question is that i don't understand if the person sees the sota sees how she's embarrassed humiliated for what she's done wrong that would be the greatest lesson possible you wouldn't need to take on extra precautions to make a vow not to drink wine that could lead to frivolity it's the people that didn't see the sota those are the people that should have to take a vow not to drink wine why would the person who saw the saita who learned to lessen why would he need to make a vow why would she need to make a vow not to drink wine and one beautiful answer i've heard is the following it's teaching us something very powerful when we see someone do something wrong what's our reaction so very often our reaction is uh how could the person do such a thing it's terrible it's disgusting i would never do such a thing and hopefully we wouldn't but that's not 100 the way we're supposed to react we're supposed to understand that if somebody else did something wrong that means no matter how low it was that means casual shalom a person a human being myself can be capable of doing something wrong when i see the other person fall that should shake me up that should scare me another person a human being could fall so low i'm nervous what's going to be with me not to be about god but not to be a arrogant person i would never do such a thing i'm above my atara on the contrary a person should be humble and be scared be nervous colorado said someone who sees the sultan a devastated devastating state an embarrassing state the person should say oh i'm scared a person could fall so low i'm worried about myself so i better take a precaution i better take upon myself i should never ever get near such a terrible state it's a great lesson for us in general the mission says in prayer don't trust yourself until the day you die when a person looks down on someone else and says oh they're look what they're doing what does that mean that means the person is saying i'm above this right we don't judge other people we don't look down on other people when we ourselves have the same problem the same shortcoming when we judge other people that's because we feel we're above this i would never do such a thing yet the mishna tells us don't trust yourself until the day you die don't be so sure that you're never you could never fall you can never stumble you can never fall from where you are don't be above guy but don't be arrogant call raya say to be cool yaza at the end if we see other people fall we should be nervous we should take on ourselves to grow to be more careful you know our vote is hashem [Music]