Get Out Of My Way

Okay. He may have hot muscle. He cooked test above. Middle paragraph. It's important to important to understand that um in the in the in the sulam in the in the ladder of growth of the Can you hear me, Shaya? Ellie, you can hear me? I can't hear myself. That's why I'm in the What? We can't do that to the island. It's supposed to become 90° today. 90°. I actually can't wait. Um But in the sulam in the ladder of growth of the Mesillas Yesharim so the kimat the final one before kedusha, the final one is anavah. Anavah yirah state. And anavah, I think most people look at as a as it's a value to be humble. But we don't look at humility as a necessary Excuse me. A necessary step in the ladder of growth of a person. You know, we like we praise someone. Yeah, he's humble. This person is humble. Well, some people are more humble. Some people are less humble, but apparently when you look at the Mesillas Yesharim, which is something to think about that this madrega of humility it's not like, oh, yeah, like telling the truth. Is telling the truth a value? Yes. Is it one of the madrega in Mesillas Yesharim? No. Because it certainly it is in the sense that when the Mesillas Yesharim talks about doing things right, one of those things would be telling the truth. He does talk in several places about honesty. But that's not one of the steps. It's one of the aspects of one of the steps. You know what I mean? Um Sensitivity. Would you say that sensitivity is an important value? I think anyone would say uh rachmanus for sure is an important value. Is it one of the madregas of the Mesillas Yesharim? No. Is it in there? Of course it's in there. Cuz when a person grows in every way, they grow in that way also. But humility is one of the steps. It's a pretty amazing thing. It's one of the steps in the Mesillas Yesharim. And what that tells me is that a person's ego Excuse blue. What that tells me is that I can't say I wasn't doubting only doubting. What that tells me is that a person's ego is an ego. It gets in the way of a person's ability to grow. And when all a person sees is themselves, it's not just like a side issue. Agav, you have an issue. You're stuck. Humility is the ability that you see the world not from your vantage point. Not from how does this affect me? What does this have to do with me? What's going to be with me? You know, there's a certain humility is a certain sense of that I'm here for something greater. It's an honor to serve. I'm a I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm just My whole pride is that I'm part of Hashem's world. And you find that difference, the way people look at things. It's a It's It's It's interesting because it's a natural thing. A baby is born about gaiva. Do you know that? We don't look at it as gaiva. But a baby is is is is is born of Algaiva. What do I mean by that? What I mean is that when a baby is born, the most important thing in the baby's life is himself. More than his mother. Okay? A 1-year-old, the most important thing in his life is his own physical pleasure. Okay? He'll throw you off a building for a lollipop. Okay? He doesn't care. And that's the way I got to created a person because a person's sense of self, that's the first thing that a person's aware of. Their needs, themselves. As a person grows, part of the expectation of life is that a person starts to be able to see outside of themselves. A person starts to be able to imagine outside of themselves. Sometimes even for us it's not so easy. I have a a plan to go with my family to Eretz Yisrael for 3 weeks this summer. Exciting? What? I'll see you there. And um And and I I did it last summer and it was a very very very important part of my year because it was an ability for me to kind of regroup in myself. I'm very very very very busy and worn out during the year and it was an opportunity my wife did not allow me to um to do any shiurim at all. I gave zero shiurim, zero. Right? Zero shiurim, okay? People that were very close to me, did you even see me once there? You met me a few times, no? You were there, right? The people closest to me did not even see me in Eretz Yisrael. I literally was hiding. Okay? Sometimes there were people I knew in sh- shuls I went into. They would come over, shalom aleichem, good to see you. Oh, maybe we could meet to schmooze. Sorry, not available. Okay? What? It's going to be like that this summer, too. And it w- and it was crazy for me. Because when I got to Eretz Yisrael for about for about 2 days, I didn't know what to do with myself. I was losing my mind cuz I'm so used to always having so many things to do that just not having something to do was was jarring. But after a while, it became a very very very important part of my summer, and it gave me the energy to start the year here properly. So it's your benefit. Why am I bringing this up? Because I don't know if you know that there's a war going on right now. Thankfully, we're in the middle of a cease-fire. My two children are heading to Eretz Yisrael on Sunday morning at the crack of dawn. And um And we hope this we hope the cease-fire holds, right? I have this issue that when I hear war broke out, I think about oh no, I'm not going to be able to go to Israel this summer. And it bothers me. Because I should be thinking about tens of thousands of people who are in the line of fire. Of course I do think about that. But I'm just it's almost an instinctive childish part of me that what comes up for me instantly is oh no, what's going to happen to my Israel plans? I think I don't think I'm the only one in the world like that. But I think that our goal is to become big enough people that oh no, what's going to be with me is not the first thing. You hear that someone was nifter. And there's a levaya. The first thing has to be that person. The second thing is can I make it to the levaya? You know what I mean? But like where I fit in vis-a-vis something going on, that's something that's needs to be worked on. I find in my journeys that the people that have the healthiest childhoods have the easiest time making it not about them. People that have healthy childhoods that they were taken care of and they were the center of attention and they got the love and the and the and the safety. They felt safe and taken care of and it's easier for them to grow to a point that they're not always worrying about themselves. Others who went through difficulties when they were young like myself, there's almost this protectiveness that you're always worrying about me because you kind of had to fend for yourself for so many years. But this is a goal. It's not just a side nyla that we're learning about. The ability to be humble. Do you see the parallel between my eretz Israel example and humility? I know it's not about, "Hey, I'm great." But it is in a certain sense of humility not to make it everything about me. That's a humility, it's a more sensitive version of humility. That it's not always about me. I have seen people change the schedules of an entire Yeshiva to convenience themselves. Is something guy ever about that? No, do you agree? Even if they're powerful enough to do it, but why are they the guy there? Why is it about them? That should not be the thought process. The thought process is my responsibility to the t-bird. My responsibility to our sham. My responsibility to my mishpacha. And this gets into the core even in a marriage. We've talked about this many times. But when a person gets married, present company included, when a person gets married, a a selfish person, a person who's um who hasn't dealt properly with their ego, even in their own marriage, and you see this all the time, they come first. It's about me. My wife is second, I'm first. I'm thinking about me. That's a very very important thing, and it's a little bit of a of a And I'm not telling you, um this is not marriage advice. It's also marriage advice. But it's not marriage advice. This is is my ego in the way of everything? Is it all always about me? You know, you can have like a wife, for example, in enormous pain. I've seen this. She's in enormous pain. She's uh maybe she's in labor. Okay? Men can't imagine that kind of pain. Okay? She starts berating her husband. I'm not saying she should do that, but that's what she did. Okay? The husband was like, "I'm not going to be able to take you to the hospital if you're going to talk to me like that." You know? About him. It's not about you. The ability to break others first. The ability to think about others first. The ability to put myself second. To put myself aside. Not to make the center of my universe myself. One of the things that we do is interesting. One of the things that we do when we're treating addiction is that we teach the person who's struggling with addiction to be to do acts of service. It's one of the 12 steps. To do acts of service. To serve. To give. To share. It's not just because we think it's a source if you do chesed that you won't uh succumb to the addiction. That's not what it is. It's that an addict is constantly trying to feed himself. There's a black hole inside of himself. And he's constantly trying to make himself feel comfortable. Himself feel good. Not because he's a bad person, but because he's in pain. It's constant. But if we could change the focus and it's not about me. It's about you. It's about giving. It's about sharing. It's about producing. It's about serving. It's not just that he's helping the people around him. It changes his brain. And his brain becomes less about self-satisfying and more about serving. And that becomes healthy for him and happier for him. It's an incredible thing. And you find this, the selfish people who can't look past their ego are not the happy people in this world. They spend their whole life serving themselves and they're the least happy. You would think if someone spends Someone's life mission is to make themselves happy, they'd probably be pretty happy. But it's not true because we're not programmed that way. If my life mission is to make myself happy, it's almost a guarantee to not be happy. If your life's mission is to make someone else happy, that's when you start to feel happiness. Happiness is not something you get, it's something that happens when you give. It's an important thing. My brother always makes fun of the guy who's having a conversation and he says, "Okay, okay, okay. Enough about me. Let's talk about you. What do you think of me?" But it's not a joke. There are people like that. Everything Every conversation somehow has to turn back and be about them. Somehow. You say, um Let's say I'm I'm dating. I'm getting engaged soon. When you tell that to a friend, you want the friend to say, "That's amazing." You don't want the friend to say, "I'm also dating." It's not a sensitivity. You You know what I mean? You don't want the conversation You know the what I'm talking about? That sometimes you speak to people, somehow the conversation ends up in the end being about them. Somehow Somehow, however it is, somehow it ends up being about them. I've seen chasanim and aveilim have to worry about someone else's attendance at their wedding or at a funeral. You know what I mean? Because there are people that will even take someone else's simcha or someone else's sorrow and make it about them. A classic example of the people that are Get ready for this. A classic example of the people that get insulted about when you chose to tell them that your wife is expecting. Like here you are dealing with this major, major, major moment. I just want to tell you besha'a tovah and muzal tov, my wife is expecting. Now you tell me? This wasn't about you. I was giving you news. This whole story is not about when I tell you. It's my news. Get over yourself. But people have a hard time getting over themselves. And we have to have compassion for those people, but we have to take the mussar out of ourselves. It's not about us. It's about the ability to give and to share. That's anavah. So anavah is certainly not thinking too highly of ourselves, but it has a very subtle and practical application in terms of who is the center of my world. Are the people in my life the center of my world or is it all about me? A rebbe walks into a shiur room. A teacher walks into a classroom. What's the bottom bottom line? Is the bottom line Are my talmidim closer to Hashem today than they were yesterday? Are they more knowledgeable in Torah today than they were yesterday? Or is the bottom line, are my talmidim more impressed with me today than they were yesterday? Now, nobody thinks explicitly that way. But it's a mindset. And the ability >> [clears throat] >> for someone who's teaching or giving over to be versatile in a classroom, to be able to deal with things as they come up, is to the extent that they can move their ego out of the room and be able to deal with people instead of this big thing called their ego. I was telling someone yesterday about some incidents that have happened to me over the years of giving shiurim. And sometimes it can be challenging. Like there was a There was a when I came here the first year. So, right away became COVID. So, we were doing like partial Zoom, partial in person. It was like a hybrid thing. Some people were in person, some people were on Zoom. Okay? So, those days when I gave shiur, nowadays, so in a 40-45 minute shiur, I'll schmooze for 5 minutes, sometimes for 10 minutes, just to get the guys into it or to Whatever, because cuz I love the guys, so I schmooze with them. Those days I would schmooze for 20-25 minutes. The reason was, remember Zoom? How old were you for Zoom? What grade? 9th grade? Nightmare, no? You know? So, nobody was listening, nobody was there. I mean, you know the guys here, like I would be watching the screen and watching people's dogs walk over their desks and like it was just like And I'm I have guys in the classroom and I have guys on the screen. It was very difficult. So my derech was to schmooze and to connect and to call guys out by name and then to try to teach some Torah. And one time I'm in the middle of this whole thing, this hybrid Zoom and the guy's like Rebbi, I think this is bittul Torah how much you're schmoozing. Get out. He was on the screen. Turn off. I felt my heart beating. What do you do? You're the Rebbi, what do you do? I think I did something like just say how impressed I am that this guy is so worried about bittul Torah. I did tell him afterwards that if he comes to my shiur, I'm the posek on the bittul Torah. You know, I did say that. But at least at the time I kept my cool. What? No. I have gotten upset in shiur probably two or three times in the last five years. Has happened, but very weird. It's very weird. You could try to get me upset if you want. Try, see what happens. What? You're not going to feel good. You succeed. Also, I'm a nice guy. When I get sharp watch out. Um one time I was giving a ladies shiur. I was talking about something. Middle of the shiur, one of the ladies like, "Rav, I think that's lashon hara. Um You have to be careful when you giving a class to be ready to step aside from your ego, you know? Be able to be honest. It was very tough. That was very, very tough because I was in the middle of something. I said I was I I spoke very softly but I said um I said part of going to a shear is trusting the rav to pass judgment on what's lashon hara and what's not. Do you agree? But you know, you get challenged sometimes, you know? You get challenged. But it's more than that, you know? In our shear, right? So, guys have a big eight czars because they have phones on them. So, you know that you know that you know that babies think when they cover their eyes, nobody can see them? You know that babies think that? You know that, right? What? Okay. Yeah, exactly. So, that's what they feel that's what they And babies really think that. A baby sometimes babies hide, they just go like this. They don't have, okay? Um it's it's part of the stage of growth of a human being to realize that when your eyes are closed, the world still exists even though you can't see it. That's why a kid will go crazy when a parent walks out of the room because they think the parent's gone. Okay, the idea that something exists that I can't see. But sometimes guys in our shear also think that if if they don't see me, I don't see them. So, a guy will hide behind another thing like that, something like that. I watch it happen all the time. The guys are on their phones or talking to each other. And it's hard for me. Sometimes it's just distracting. But sometimes it triggers my ego like What do you What do you What do you You don't see me? I'm right here. I'm a human being. I'm here. I'm talking to you. It takes strength. I mean it seriously. It takes strength. Yeah, but let's not confuse ego with kavod haTorah, okay? When I'm feeling upset about it, a lot of times it's because I'm like What's the matter with you? It's worse to me than when someone falls asleep. Someone falls asleep like, you know, un-psycho- shaina, what are you going to do, you know? But when when a person when a person is is doing is on the phone taking notes, you know. So I have to work on myself. Sometimes I say something or indicate something or pick up my hand or pause for a second. I have to work on myself. I mean it seriously to make sure I'm doing that for the right reason. Because the defense of my ego is not the right reason. Even if you're right that maybe it's kavod haTorah, but I have to do it for the right reason. So having a certain decorum is important. Teaching a certain level of derech eretz is important. It depends I think that depends. But with a rebbe in the front of a classroom, it's much more easy to call for it to for it to touch that. You know, like that like part of you that's not necessarily the healthiest part. Okay? I hear what you're saying, but but still you know, and certainly because I think that you'll agree that there's not one guy in in a shul room that's on his phone or talking to another guy that's intention is to disrespect the rebbe. Any rebbe that thinks that is missing the boat. Maybe he's not thinking straight. The most that I would say is the guy's not thinking. But I you think a guy sitting in this room saying, "I think I want to disrespect you every day."