Am I Living a Long Life Or Dying a Slow Death? - Rabbi Yitzchak Botton

how do i know if i'm living a long life or simply dying a slow death another question is who are you or more precisely what are you and i think how we define that answer will help us go back and solve the riddle that we presented is am i living or dying essentially and that is are you a body or a soul what are you if you watched a pinball game from top side view you watch this pinball is going going places it's going all over the place and fast but what's where's it really going that pinball in that game is not in control of one move it makes it's being moved from place to place it's not moving and that's an important question also we have to ask ourselves are we controlling the direction that we go in life are we in charge of are we moving or are we being moved that's another question we have to clarify so let's let's start now we said that talk to body and soul so interesting we we know when we see a person die that there's a body there but it's not alive so what what happened what changed that that person is now dead and we could even go further and ask was he ever really alive so if we're looking at the body the body is not alive because once the soul leaves it there is there is no life in the body so ask was that body ever intrinsically alive in and of itself so i think we would all appreciate it and agree with the answer be no what caused that body to have the power and ability to move around was the soul that was invested in it that then animated it and gave it life so the body is not a living being the soul is by definition a living being the soul is alive in essence and the partnership the combination of body and soul affords now of the body to live a life but they have to appreciate where is that life really coming from and what's being accomplished with it so the partnership of partnership of body and soul is an interesting partnership clearly we see without question the body is definitely benefiting from this partnership right let's imagine you have a millionaire billionaire that has all this money and there's a poor person and he says you know what i'm going to have i have a good partnership i want to make with you i'm going to give you a certain amount of money that's going to be yours for this scenario it has to be his and you're going to share with me the profit you generate from that from the money i give you now clearly the recipient of that money is is gaining he has all the gain as his if he loses the money he hasn't lost his own money and if he gains so he keeps a big part of what he gained and just has to share it with the this the rich man so that's a way to appreciate the real relationship and real connection between body and soul the body is full of life but i'm sorry the soul is full of life but it has really no nothing to do with the life it can't live that life it has no way to express that life in this physical world that we live in and so the soul kind of comes with this this option this deal i have life i'll share it with you let's be partners now what in many cases if you look around out there what ends up happening what ends up happening is the body is a little bit of a slickster so he answers great i'll take the life you have to give me but then tries to give nothing back in return and what is essentially that's called is the body steals its life away from the soul because if you take the life that you've been given and you don't fulfill the deal if it's only beneficial to you then that's selfish that's just taking and not giving and the soul gets nothing in return so that's that's that's one one thing we can see out there we see a lot of people serving themself filling themselves with everything they can have to gain from to benefit from to have pleasure from not considering ultimately where is all this going what's going to be there in the end so i would suggest that a perfect life lived together body and soul is one where both body and soul benefit if body and soul are not benefiting then it's not it's not really it's not really it's not good for everyone involved now this gets even more uh powerful when i share with you this new revelation and if you haven't heard it before is in the end of the day you're not your body you're actually your soul so who's the one getting robbed in this deal who's the one to be taken advantage of it's you yourself you're in the end taking advantage of you of yourself it's not the other way around it's not that we're the swindler we're the slickster and we're taking advantage of some soul that's not ours and we stole this life and had a great time no you're the soul and when life is stolen away from you means you have nothing in the end and that brings us back to our original you know question we're trying to figure out am i living a life or am i just you know walking around empty and just dying slowly so the answer is what will you have in the end so again if we live a life where the soul benefits from the life you live then you have something at the end then you've lived you've lived as long as hashem gave you to live but if in the end it's a life where the body just takes and uses it for itself and the soul gets nothing then actually it's worse than than dying a slow death the soul has never had a chance to really live so it's coming into this world has been for absolutely nothing and that's that's a real tragedy now how many people out there if they would stop and think about these things and ask themselves am i that pinball in the machine or not and if they would think hard enough how many lives should change when they get the real answer many i would think my pursuits in life you know the things i'm trying to accomplish if we really want to be honest what i'm really saying is my addictions and my habits that i can't break because ultimately we're habitual creatures and our life for the most part becomes lived on a level of programmed and it becomes what i need because i created those needs and what i'm busy with because i'm addicted and these are my habits that i cannot break so the question is are my addictions and habits are they giving me something or are they taking for example if i have a strong desire for money and i'm going to go out like a workhorse and just work work work because i want more and more money and that money is going to again it's going to give me a pleasure to be wealthy or to feel like i'm accomplished but at the end of the day did i give more than i got or did i gain more than i more than i gave and here's the point money is a tool god really put this money in the world don't think we created money and god wasn't involved the torah talks about money there's even a lesson for money in jacob's dream this special dream where he was in the place of the basa mignash and he dreamed of a ladder connecting heaven and earth ap according to jewish mysticism that latter represents the concept of money and so money is a part of the life that god wants us to be involved in as well when we do it the right way and so the question we have to ask ourselves is is the money i'm i'm working for and getting am i using it to help service my life is it making my life better or was it really stealing me away from my life am i a slave to that money because when you become a slave to anything that means you've given you're giving up your life for it so if you're a slave to the money then you're not living life you're living for the money and that's an example of your life being stolen from you and other things that we can plug in is again an example of the the idea of your life being taken away from you and you and you're losing that opportunity to live it this is similar to the idea of the whole jewish story rather your story really builds on this theme in that we were slaves to power we physically were forced to work for power in egypt when god came and said i'm taking you out of this slavery i'm going to save you from this life what did he offer us unbelievable offer he said i'm offering you to be slaves to someone else how is that better we were slaves to power and our ship said okay you know what don't be a slave to power that's terrible that's a waste of your life be my slave that how is that the solution how would a foot just let's be free so the answer is there is no free the fact that you live in a body means you're going to have to live for things you're going to need things you're going to want things you're going to pursue things you're going to develop habits so the question is what are they ultimately leading to what are they ultimately for will define whether your life is worth something or not so hashem is saying to us if you're going to be slaves which you have to be slaves the other day for something to something we have to live for something you know so live for me if you live for me you're going to have something at the end of it being a slave to power ends up empty but being a slave to hashem means we're connecting with the creator connecting with the source of life and when we worship and serve god and make our life connected to the idea of serving hashem and having a god part of our life then that type of servitude and subjugation brings us to the ultimate true gift of life god is the giver of life the ultimate life that he wants to give us requires our participation to join him in that gift of life then we have life without hashem we don't really have life ultimately life equals time that's life i'm alive and i'm living my life moment by moment so the the some value of my life is going to be what have i done with those moments ultimately what i've done with my time that god allotted me will define whether i lived a good life or not and so what am i doing with that time where is that time going we don't usually look at time as a physical commodity something that we can actually grasp in something tangible because it comes and goes but it is because really when we talk about creation in a more deeper spiritual sense god created three dimensions to this world there are three dimensions to the world we live in there's the spiritual dimension which is connected to our soul there's the physical dimension which is the physical world and all the physical things we see and there is time you need all three for this game to work if you're missing one of the three it's not called life these three things can be expressed also in terms of time space and and man and that's exactly the safer yet syrah this book of creation secrets of creation and and everything that we we all of the cabal is based on is coming and saying that ultimately life and and existence is divided into three main categories time space and man which i we said also is soul time and physical matter that we see around us so let's appreciate now jacob was given a life what did he do with that life what did he do with the time that he was given so he as the center figure in in the world because the world revolves around us human beings are the pinnacle of creation and all of life is really there for us to utilize the right way so jacob with the soul used the physical things around him and the time god gave him to produce a life that's considered a real life that is eternal and that's because he invested each of those moments and assets that he was given into life into truth which is eternal a truth will never die and real life is is not something that comes and goes god is it it is alive in essence god's life is not something that comes and goes and the life that god wants to really give us and initially gave us was an eternal life mankind was not built with it with a but with the off button originally we were going to live forever this idea that we die is only a temporary problem a sickness a result of sin but ultimately we will transcend and reach a level of existence where death will will be will be banished there will be no more death and so if there's a level of existence that exists beyond the idea of death then there's also a way to tap into that level of existence in our life right now and that's the idea of jacob and his life and the life of torah and of connection to god and purpose and spirituality that equals the idea of living a real life which never ends and will never be erased so since jacob accomplished that he planted he invested his energy into life and truth and eternality and therefore he is represents his concept of living eternally and everyone has a chance at that we are all bene israel we are all the children of jacob and really ultimately anyone who chooses to live a life of truth and to subjugate themselves on a level to god as the creator has this portion in the eternal world to come the rambam and the talmud mentioned that this idea of living eternally is not exclusive to the jewish people it says the righteous from the nations as well have a portion in the world to come if they connect with truth and eternality and subjugate their will and their desires to conform with what god wants from them and the way god intended them to be and they also married an eternal life we all have a chance to merit this eternal life if we give that type of life that is that's worthy of living eternally in movie talk i think you could say it like this you know in hollywood once you you have these auditions i'm sure they still do they're probably much shorter than it used to be but you know you have an audition there's this movie you want to be in so you gotta you got five minutes or today maybe two minutes to come in and do your thing and impress the people deciding whether they're going to give you the part or not well that's what these 70 80 years in this world are they're like a nice little audition hashem says i'll give you a chance go into the world and let's see what you could do if you prove yourself to be worthy you get the part you win if not then you get nothing but in this case what's the part that we win if we come to this world and prove ourselves worthy then we earn the right to truly live and that life is forever so you have five minutes or whatever you want to call it your 78 years which is like five minutes to make something of your life the op the upside is that you can make that that time into an eternity of true life or you can waste it and come up at the end with nothing nothing to show for it and that's the difference between truth and sheker a lie a lie it's interesting when you when someone gets away with lying what is he really doing so if i can convince you to believe something i'm saying and you believe it for now but at the end you you realize it's a lie so when did it stop becoming true answers was never true if a person lives a life of lies an empty life a life with no purpose a life that ends up giving him no profit no no positive result at the end and it's not that he died and oh his life is now over and he doesn't get to live eternally when you look back you realize that you never lived so the difference between living and and dying is really more the difference between living and never living that's what really comes out this way if you use the life hashem gave you if you partner a body and soul to do god's will to let the body be a vessel for the soul to also express itself in this world then you get eternal life and of course the life you live you're alive in this world and you're alive in the next world but if you take the life of the soul and just use it to feed the animal to feed the body empty baseless pursuits like that pinball just being bounced around and at the end you have nothing it's not that in the end you don't get more it's when you go back you never had anything you never really lived so this was a life that never was so the answer to the question that we started with is am i living a long life or dying a slow death is really not relevant there is no such thing as dying a slow death it's are you living or not that's the real question and let's hope the answer is yes [Music] you