Farbrengen 3 Tammaz part 2, Rabbi Yossi Paltiel - 5786

There are certain I guess ideas or attitudes. Let me make it very clear. Okay, tonight is the Reb is site 32 years which is a very very very long time. So we're going to about the we talk about the reb but as you will know anybody who goes to fab if you ever been to aid gathering you know we talk about everybody and everything but we're really talking about ourselves. The point of a fabbran is not to tell a story. The point of a faban is not to share information. The point of abranion is to be moved and moved in the kind of way that it pushes us lovingly and gently and together in a better direction. That's what fabianans are. They're they're an inefficient but very effective use of time. Fabrinian are like a a a slow cooker. You know, they just they they if you cook things too quickly, they burn or they dry out. If you cook slowly, it marinates. It becomes one. And that's a whole concept of gathering. You get together and you sit together. You sing a song. You say and you think about one another. You give each other. You bless one another. You share you share what's going on in your heart. You know, Americans talk a lot, but never about the things that are important. It's just how it is. on an airplane, a stranger will tell you everything about their lives. Yeah. But fabangans are opportunities for people to be together and to be themselves, if you will. And the the point of a fabian is to create a warm, safe space that translates into becoming better people. I that's how I see it, I guess. And we're going to talk about the reba. But whenever you talk about the Reb, you're really not talking about the deb. You're talking about us because the Reb is a holy man. The deb is good. The deb is good. And uh but the lives that we should be good. You understand the whole point. Why does Hashem put sadikim in the world? Why does God almighty put people into this world who as individuals um seem to have started at the end of the race? They were given all the things that we struggle for, they have naturally all the things that we spend our lifetime achieving. they have an easy time with. They'll tell you that they're also serving God. They'll tell you that they find things that they need to correct and things that they need to improve. Hashem put sadikim in the world for us. Hashem put sadikim in the world that sadikim should really sadic is first and foremost a proof that there is a god. You know the whole world says as long as there's Jews, there's proof there's a god. And Jews say as long as there's sadikim, there's proof that there's Jews. Sadikim, they live so we should live. And if you would ask the that's what he would say. The Reb would say it's never about me. And it wasn't in his mind. It was never about him. It was about the mission. It was about what had to get how to get done. Whether the credit was given to him or not was immaterial. The important thing was that people should hear what they need to hear. And there were things that were extremely important to the Reba and he would talk about them a lot and some of them are practical and some of them are attitudes. And one of the things that was extremely extremely important to the Reb was joy, happiness. I always ask people this pleasure. There's happiness and there's joy. How do you line them up? Where does happiness go? Does happiness belong with pleasure? Does happiness belong with joy? Somehow pleasure is on this end of the spectrum, joy is at this end of the spectrum. Happiness depends how you translate the word. The Reb was extremely obsessed with joy. He himself insisted to always be joyous and uh he expected us expected his all of us to find the strength to find the uh the reservoir the power for being joyous and uh there are some powerful little stories with the Reb you know there was a Jew was very close to the Reb extremely close to the Reba and he did the Reb's work he was a kabad emissary but in the 1960s 60 years ago. I guess that's 60 years ago. Yeah, 60 years ago. More than 60 years ago. And uh he was in a bad mood. And the reason he was in a bad mood because the kabad activities were not doing very well. In other words, he was in a bad mood because he was working for the boss and he wasn't satisfied with what he was delivering to the boss. So he came to see the Reb in a bad mood. He walked into You have to know the man to appreciate the story because if you walked into the Reb, I promise you he wouldn't do this to you. This fellow walked into the Reb in a bad mood and the took a look at him and said, "You're depressed. Get out of my sight." And he don't believe. He said to me, "If you're in a bad mood, you can stay home. When you're around me, you got to be happy." Now, imagine a guy is miserable and has a good reason. And you go to see a rabbi and what does the rabbi say? Excuse me. If you're not in a good mood, I don't want to see you. Thank you very much, RABBI. IT'S EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED TO HEAR. It's exactly what I needed to hear. I'm I'm miserable enough and now what am I getting from you? Huh? I'm I'm disappointing you. Huh? So, I'll be more miserable. It's It was But that's how the Reb was That's what the Reb was. The wanted all of us to be what's interesting is the himself would say about himself the by nature was an introvert and the by nature was a melancholy man. The was a real intellectual in his personality. Intellectuals are are people live in their own heads. Very thoughtful, very deep, not a man of many words. And he wasn't particularly social. The Reb didn't didn't he wasn't the kind of guy who needed to be around people. You know, some people need camaraderie. They need a social group. They almost define themselves by their community. The Reb was in it could be in a room full of people. Even in the photos, look at pictures of the Reb as a young man. He's sitting in a room full of people and he's by himself. You know what's interesting? The Reb's wife was the same way. We don't have a lot of po photos of the Reb's wife, the Rebushkin in a group, but there are some. And you look at the pictures, you'll see that she's standing with her friends in a photo, and she's not in the picture. She's she's physically present, but she's not in the picture. Um, there was a Jew named Zama Jaffy who lived in Manchester, England, who had a very personal friendship with the Rebbitson. And she would he would send her photos first of his children, then of his grandchildren. They're very good friends. And on one of his visits, you have to know him to understand the story. He said to the deb's wife, you know, you have so many photos of our family. We don't have a single photo of you. I want to take a picture of you. And he came with his camera. And the son was a bit taken back. And she said to him, "Not now. Next visit. I'm not sure exactly what's going to happen now the next visit, but she went there a little time." Anyway, the next visit came and he came with his camera and he said to the we agreed that on the next visit I could take your photo and she posed. She posed. He looked through her through his the viewfinder. Remember the old cameras the point and shoots? Remember cameras that actually had film? Remember may all rest in peace. Um she he looked through the viewfinder and he was looking straight at her and she was posing for the picture and she looked absolutely terrible. It was very clear that she didn't want the picture taken. But she made a she agreed. So he didn't take the picture. He didn't take the picture. That's why he was her friend. You understand? He didn't take the picture. Ebanson were both that way. I know a woman who knew her well who recently I went to see her. She said to me that did not need people. She didn't need a social circle. For her socializing was a responsibility. It wasn't a need. And people like that usually are not the effervescent, bubbly type, you know, they're very thoughtful. They're a little bit melancholy, a little bit more uh on the on the earnest side of the spectrum as it were. And the Reb would say about himself, he would say about himself that I had to change my nature completely. First of all, become a social man, to become a leader and a public speaker. Someone just recently told me a story. Oh, I'm not going to do it right. I don't remember it. Someone just recently told me a story where the Reb said to somebody when I took this position, it was extremely hard for me to speak in public. And it's still hard. I haven't gotten c comfortable. It's every time I get to speak, it's hard for me. When you look at him, he seems so at ease. He seems so in his element. But one of the aspects of this public reb was joy that was always happy and he expected us all to be happy. It's not fun to be a reb it's really really not fun to be a it's much more fun to have than to be because is very lonely. It's at the it'sb. But you know what? If God gave you the powers, God gave you the strength. So that's just how it goes. Hashem has to choose somebody, right? Someone's got to be Mosha Rabenu. Someone has to be Moses. And the person who wants least to be Moses is Moses himself. And that's what qualifies him to be to be Moses. But the Reb in our generation wanted everything to be done with joy. Everything. You know, people do chuva. People do chuva. You know what chuva means? Chuva, how do you translate chuva in English? The doesn't like to translate chuva as repentance. He translates chuva as return. You do something wrong and you fix it. That's chuva. You do something wrong and you feel bad about it. That's self-indulgence. You understand? You do something wrong and you correct it. That's chuva. And the simplest definition of correction is that you don't do it anymore. You know, every couple has that, right? I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. So, what does what does the other one say? Stop hurting my feelings and stop apologizing. What happens? They do it again. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. But at SOME POINT IT'S ACTUALLY POSSIBLE TO NOT DO IT AGAIN. One of the great miracles of life is that people do change slowly. But people do change. I had a student once. I had a student once. I I teach I teach. As Rabbi Isapo said, I I really am a teacher. I'm not a public speaker. I am a teacher, but I travel also. Whatever. I I do a lot. Listen people, I'm going to beg you. Visit inside.org. If you don't like it, don't go again. This is where I live. This is my This is I teach I teach I have literally thousands of classes. I would love for you to be a listener of mine. Check me out in I think the menu is clear. Some people tell the menu is terribly unclear, but you'll see what it is. It's it's a calendar. It's the you have the whole all the order of the toy and then you have the calendar. Each one has a subsections with all kinds of stuff. My MMA talks and then I have also a section of special occasions and then I have Q&A and I'm doing now aid glossery which is for the mystics and the scholars. I'm we're we're doing aid glossery. It's we're doing a lot of things and I would love for you to to learn with me if I may say so. But I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher and one of the places I teach is in a school called Mana. Mhana is a balchum school. It's a school for girls who were not raised from not raised religious and in their teens or young young 20s uh decided to go to yeshiva and to see what religion what what mitzvah means but what being a a from Jew an orthodox Jew we don't like the word orthodox right um a a practicing Jew um is and to decide if they want to live that way so it's a it's an environment of people young people who are not afraid to change which is very extraordinary young people who want to consider another way of living. So it's a it's a fascinating place. So anyway, I was sitting in my class. So once in a while I would do this years ago. We do Q&A instead of our regular learning that girls would write some questions and we would talk about it. So one of the questions that one of the girls asked me was was about self-improvement, about growth, about changing. What do they call it? Working on myself, right? Teenagers are all working on themselves. what are they working on themselves? They're feeling bad for the things they don't like and somehow that's supposed to make them better. So, we're having this conversation and um one of the girls raises the question of self-improvement and another girl blurts out right in the middle of the conversation. She says, "Rabbi, I decided that working on myself means wishing I would be better. Rabbi, I decided that working on myself means wishing I would be better. For those who don't understand the gam, I'll tell you that actually. Okay, the commentary on that statement is Rabbi, nobody changes. We just talk about it. We talk about self-improvement. We talk about correcting our measures. And you know what? It was like a punch in the stomach. But she was right. For the most part, that's true. Most people who are talking about self-improvement are doing exactly that talking about it. But people do change slowly incrementally. You know, we all have relationships, right? What's our closest relationship? Our relationship with our spouse. Are our relationships with our spouse perfect? Right? The answer is supposed to be, let's not discuss it. It's a personal question. Of course, it's not. Unless we're Moses, I don't know. The Reba and the Rebbits and most couples have stuff, right? Then the kids know about it, the kids don't know about it, but you know about it. And usually it's the same stuff over and over again. In general, that's how life goes. You know, the things that we like, we like. The things that we don't like don't change. And um but people can change. People, a husband, I'm a man, so I can speak for the man's side of the deal. I can't speak for the women. I told my wife when I married her, "This is going to change." And she said, "Uh-huh. Uh-huh." Anyways, 35 years later, she's not saying uh-huh anymore. Hasn't changed a lot, but it's changed a little. You You can learn how not to say the same stupid man thing that you said for 10 years. Eventually, eventually people do change slowly, incrementally, but the true process, the process of self-improvement, self-correction is painful. It's painful. And when you're dealing with your spouse, it's one thing. You know, you know what's even a more unforgiving relationship? Children. We're parents. Many of us are parents, right? We love our kids. We love our kids. We all love our children. But the one of the oldest rules in the book of life is that the people were most likely to hurt are the people that were closest to. It's a fact. You hurt your wife more than anybody else cuz you're so close to her. You hurt your children more than anybody else cuz you're so close to them. And your wife, it's a different not more forgiving. You have more time. When you married her, she was an adult. Your children, we make mistakes. Can you repair them? Can you fix them? How do you fix them? I'm sorry is very important. I'm sorry is very important. But I'm sorry at some point rings hollow. You know, it's like, you know, stop doing it, stop apologizing or don't apologize. And then there is I'm sorry and I'm going to fix it. That's a very different I'm sorry. That is chuva. That's called chuva. And people can people can people can repair their relationship with their spouse. People can at least from their end attempt to repair their relationship with their children. They can't get their children to forgive them. The children have to do that on their own. But they can repair the bad behavior. They can stop repeating the same mistakes. You know, I'm I'm on one of my rants if you haven't noticed. So, I'll I'll give you the whole rant. I'll give you the whole rant. Um, kids go to school. Kids go to school first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade. They have 20 students in a classroom. Let's just say only 20. And they're together for years. They can go through the whole elementary school together. In some cases, high school. And what happens in every class is everybody fills a role. You know, there's an alpha and there's a beta, there's an omega. And every there's a g the guy who gives the punches and the guy who takes the punches. The guy who makes fun of the there's the bully and there's the bullied. You know, there's all kinds of studies that a bully can't bully unless you allow yourself to be bullied. And if you stop being the bully, the bully, the bully stops bullying. But that's how it happens. So kids go to school. Kids go to school and there's a kid in your class that everybody makes fun of. Why? He's fat, for example, which is which is really so sick. It's another conversation. We'll save that rant for another time. I haven't But that's another story. And then you're like in the seventh grade or the eighth grade and you're 13 and you're 14 and you have a moment where you say to yourself, you know, I've been making fun of that kid since the second grade and everybody laughs. He laughs. IT'S ALL PART OF THE FUN. But you know, it's disgusting. It's really, really disgusting. But this could actually happen. So this kid who's now 14 years old goes over to his friend and says, "You know, we've been in school together since the first grade. And I have been making fun of you." And everybody laughs and even you laugh. I'm not making fun of you anymore. I'm not laughing at you. And the kid says, "Nah, it's all in good fun, right? This is how it is. Everybody has found their role in the dance of life. And the bully has accepted his role as the bully. No, no. I'm telling you I am not going to make fun of you again. And the next day you make fun of him. The next day you make fun of him. The next day you make fun of him. He says, "No." So what's going to change? No. No. I'm telling you I'm I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So the first time you make a mistake and the second eventually you literally condition yourself to stop putting that person down. This it happens. It works. People can do that. You can do that with your spouse. You can do that with your children. It's very hard and it's one one meat at a time, one bad behavior, one bad attitude, one bad response at a time. But people people if they wanted to can change and when they change it's it's incredible. It's it's beautiful. It's called chuv. And according to a chuva is higher than a sadic a person to change a bad behavior. But chuva is painful. It is it's painful. Now talk about religion. Let's not talk about until now we talked about interpersonal relationships. We have our relationship with God and with God it's the same thing. We have the regular bullying. You know there's the stuff we do and the stuff we don't do. The things that we decide are important and the things that we couldn't be bothered with or things that are too difficult for us or the things that we think God made a mistake on those issues. And we have our you know we have the stuff that we like when it comes to everybody has things that they like and stuff that they can handle and stuff that they don't like. That's how it is. And doing cha says this I I haven't been doing this good. I'm going to start doing it good. It's very difficult to change. It's possible but it's difficult. And uh most people when they grow through these exercises of change find themselves very very what's the right word? There there's a lot of pain to correct a bad behavior is wonderful once you correct it but exceedingly difficult as you're correcting it. So if you study classic works of mus classic works of Jewish theology that talk about chuva they talk about the correlary between chuva and sadness. The coral between chuva and bitterness the coral between the chuva and even self-hate if I have to change a behavior I got to find the energy and it's usually it's a negative energy along comes the and the says you want to do chuva you want to change a you want to change an aspect of your relationship between you and God you want to change your relationship an aspect between you and your spouse you do it with chuva chuv the things that I do in myself that I hate and I hate myself for that I wish to improve, I will improve with joy. Now, how does that make sense? If there's something about me that I don't like, and there's something about me that I don't like that I'm focusing on, I'm paying attention to it, and there's something that I don't like so much that I'm going to take whatever effort it is to change it. And you go through the agony of making a mistake and saying, "I'm sorry." Right? Anybody relate to what I'm saying? Huh? Making a mistake and saying I'm sorry. Making a mistake and saying I'm sorry until they say stop SAYING I'M SORRY AND STOP MAKING mistakes and then you make the mistake and you say I'm sorry. Why do you say I'm sorry? You're not just saying I'm sorry so other persons forgive you. You're saying I'm sorry to make yourself aware. Because when you're aware, when you pay attention, you can control yourself. You can mask yourself. When you're aware, when you pay attention, you can actually when you when you see what you're doing, you can stop doing it. When you don't see what you're doing, it happens by itself. This is why this is why the mistakes that we make, we make over and over again because we're not thinking. Anyway, the says you win your change bad behaviors with joy. And there's a simple logic to it. To do anything difficult, you need energy. To do anything difficult, I think it's not and we'll sing. I I have one that I want to sing, but maybe I'll save it for a little bit later. Everybody, it's nice to meet you all. And I'm I'm not saying goodbye yet, but it's nice to meet everybody. I want to thank you all for coming and participating and being a part of this. And we should all be together for good things for many, many years. If you're not going to choose a song, I will. Lie lie lie d lie. Light La I la. I la. La reading there there was a debate a long time ago. I I think at some level the debate still goes on, but there was a debate that says what is the best way for a person to be in charge of himself? What is the best way for a person to discipline himself? And the the philosophical nature of the debate would be this. Is a person most likely to discipline himself if he's absolutely free or is a person most likely to discipline himself if he's absolutely controlled? You understand? Am I going to do the right thing because I'm free or am I going to do the right thing because someone is making me? It's a very interesting question. It's a fascinating question. And uh if you know the history of kid is this is one of the early questions of the kasidic movement the tradition always was that if you want to be very controlled you have to be very rigid. The Balente, the founder of the kidic movement came along and said, "If you want to be very controlled, you have to be very free and the freedom comes from joy." And it was one of the trademarks that separated the from the nonid at that time. Theidum were always happy and the nonassid felt that they were being frivolous and the felt that the happiness gave them energy and this is why joy is so important. You know what the first thing that happens when a person is joyous? The first thing that happens when a person is joyous he forgets about himself. And when you stop thinking about yourself you can start thinking about what you need to do. You know the number one reason people are not joyous because they're stuck inside themselves. And being stuck inside yourself feels busy. It feels extremely extremely busy. But it doesn't grow doesn't go any place. If a person is hitting their head against the wall, they're going to make a hole their head, not a hole in the wall. If a person wishes to grow, the power for that growth comes from freedom. And that freedom comes from joy. What does joy have to do with freedom? Because when you're joyous, you get over yourself. Or to say it backwards, you you can't be joyous unless you get past yourself. So believes the movement going back to the father of the holy believed in joy because he believed that joy gives you the power and the freedom to to do what you need to do. in our generation was was insisted that we should always be happy. There was a a Jew who was a poet, a fellow interesting man. He was he lived in Kanite. He didn't live in Kite. He had a relationship with the Reba. He was a poet and he wrote all these poems about the Reba in Hebrew. He was a brilliant writer. He would write in Hebrew. He would actually write in biblical Hebrew, which is almost a lost language. I I have his biography in my hotel room. Actually, I brought it with me. He was a very interesting man. See, he once wrote a poem about the Reb and the um the poem was a study in contrasts. For example, the Reb has his head in the clouds. Therefore, his feet are planted firmly on the ground. These kinds of things, dichotoies, paradoxes. And one of the paradoxes that he wrote to this poem was that the Reba hears everybody's tus all the bad news in the world comes to the heart and he concluded with and therefore his fountain of joy is indeigable. His fountain of joy is never exhausted. This is what he wrote. All it's it's a fact. People came to with all kinds of garbage. The was a garbage can. You dumped on the life was good you forgot about him. The Reb used to complain that people wouldn't tell him the good news. He used to call him, you know, when stuff is bad, you come running to the Reb, stuff is good. Oh, I forgot to tell you. I forgot to tell you. But that anyway, so so he wrote in this poem that the Reb hears all the in the world and accordingly and therefore his fountain of joy is never exhausted. And the Reb read the poem and he wrote or he told him, it's not so easy. It's not so easy to hear everybody's tus and be up. But the understood for us we have to have sim have to be positive. We have to be joyous. The mistake that people make is people think my life will be good I'll be happy. The truth of the matter is if I'll be happy my life will be good. The joy is not the consequence of life. It's the cause. The joy is an attitude. It's an attitude of goodness of positivity. Life's hard. Let's not kid ourselves. Life's hard. It's not simple. It's not. It's hard. And it doesn't get easier if you're sad. And it doesn't get harder if you're happy. Happiness is hard. It's it's it's difficult for a person with difficulties in life to be joyous. It's difficult. But it's emancipated. When a person has difficulties and he figures out that he needs to be positive, the positivity doesn't take away the difficulties but it gives him the skills to manage it. Gives him the strength to manage it. This is why it's a foundational idea in the teachings of the that we should always be. So we will break and we will dive okay and then we will continue the okay as I think you're pretty much on time. Okay. I want to say again in case you're leaving. It was nice to meet you all.