Impulsiveness - Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky

The topic for this evening is impulsiveness. Yeah? A lot of people planned on coming tonight and then suddenly they decide to do something else and the problem with the topic when you're dealing with impulsive people. Impulsiveness is a difficult thing. It's a very difficult thing. They did a famous study, a famous study, psychological study, where they took children and they put a marshmallow in front of them and they said you can eat that marshmallow right now, but if you wait 5 minutes I'll give you another marshmallow. And they found that the people who waited the 5 minutes to get the second marshmallow, they followed them through life. They had more stable marriages and relationships. They were more successful in business, successful in everything. Because impulsiveness is unfortunately something that tears us apart, stops us from being successful. Now, my Rebbe Rebbe Auerbach and a lot of people today say my Rebbe Rebbe Auerbach, but he was my biggest Rebbe and Chofetz Chaim in 1975. So, he was actually my Rebbe. He was the one who when I had hepatitis bullied me into using the pigeons. If you are not familiar with this, this is one of those great cultural experiences. I encourage you not to get hepatitis, but if you can find someone who's got it to watch them cuz it's a lot of fun. Yeah? Um my I had very high hepatitis. Uh my SGOTs and SGPTs, which are supposed to be around 50, were about 2,000. If I concentrated very hard, I could move my head from one side of the pillow to the other. And I was I was a wreck, you know? And um Rebbe Auerbach said to me, "You're going to do the pigeons." And I said, "Excuse me." So, he says, "Time I'm in Hogum." It says that if you have hepatitis, you get male pigeons for male, female pigeons for a female, and you clean them out well, then place their bottom on your belly button and it sucks out the poison. And I said, "There is not a chance in God's good earth that I'm going to do that. This is just I I'm so many levels that's just wrong. It's just It's not going to happen." And Rebbe Auerbach started screaming at me and he said, "You know, you have a refuah and you're not using it. You're going to be chayiv on all the bitul Torah that you're doing." And I was really not in a position to fight. I said, "Fine." I said, "Who does this?" The pigeon man. There's I don't know who it has it today. At the time there was a man. I don't know, I forgot his name, but he was known as the pigeon man. They sent someone to the Arab shook. They were only able to find eight pigeons cuz it wasn't the season. I didn't even know there was a season for pigeons, but and they bring them back and uh and uh to cover the cost I charged admission. A lot of people came in, it was very exciting. And uh he cleans them out, baruch Hashem. And the first one died in 30 seconds, you know? The last one it took almost a minute and a half. And he told me afterwards I could have killed the whole flock. Anyway, it wasn't very scientific cuz they should have done a blood test at the beginning at the end. They did it once a week, but my next blood test, my SGOTs and SGPTs went down from 2,000 to 200. The doctor called it a remarkable recovery. So, I have Rebbe Auerbach to thank for that story. And uh which has nothing to do with what we're talking about. But um it's such a cool story, what do you do with that? You know, you got to work it in somehow. So, um uh So, but he said to me once, he says, "You're not a Rabbi unless whatever you say, you tie into the parsha." So, before we start, I have to tie it into the parsha. Right? Impulsiveness. So, I'm jumping ahead to parshas Mattos. Uh the truth of the matter is it's a parsha, doesn't have to be this parsha. Parshas Mattos, which uh I I don't know if I should really say I'm jumping ahead or I'm jumping backwards, you know, because I think it's closer behind than it is here. Anyway, and it tells us the following story. Uh perek lamed beis pasuk aleph. U'mikneh rav hayah livnei Reuven u'livnei Gad atzum me'od, etc. etc. And they come and they say, "Look, we got a lot of cows and this is cow country." Pasuk hey. Vayomru, im matzanu chein be'einecha, "If we have found favor in your eyes, yutan et ha'aretz hazot la'avadecha le'achuzah, give us this land on Ever Yarden as an inheritance. Al ta'avirainu et ha'Yarden, we will not pass over the Jordan." Okay, that's that's what they say. We'll take this. On this, the Yalkut Shimoni says the following. Quotes the famous pasuk. Chanoch lana'ar al pi darko. Teach a child when he's young and he will never forget it even as he gets old. And it quotes a pasuk. And the pasuk it quotes is from this week's parsha. And the story goes like this. Bereishis perek lamed pasuk yud daled. Vayeilech Reuven bimegzeres chitim. And Reuven went out during the time of the wheat harvest. Vayim Vayimtzah dudaim basadeh, and he found mandrakes growing in the field. Vayavo otam el Leah imo. He brought it to Leah his mother. Vatomer Rachel Leah, "Teni na li midudaei vneich." Give me these dudaim and the whole story with the dudaim takes place. The pasuk is it says, "Chanoch lana'ar al pi darko." Vayeilech Reuven bimegzeres chitim. Da da da. What's the connection? Reuven goes out and picks flowers for his mother because they were good help you to be able to give birth. And says the Medrash, and that's why hundreds of years later shevet Reuven decides to give up Eretz Yisrael because they have a lot of cows and stay in Ever Yarden. What's the connection? So, I heard from my Rebbe, Rebbe Moshe Cheit, uh fascinating insight. And one that I mean, I heard this over 40 years ago. And it made made such an impression on me. He said, "Reuven is going out during yemei ktsir chitim. You're going out to harvest the wheat. What's your job? I want to harvest the wheat. And I see these mandrakes by the side of the road. And I say, 'You know, this would be great for my mom.' And I pick the mandrakes and I bring them to my mom. Not a bad thing to do. But you had a mission. You were going out to harvest the wheat. What are you doing picking flowers? You had a job to do. That action multiplied over the generations to the point that when all of shevet Reuven came to Ever Yarden, they said, 'Yeah, this is good enough. We'll take this.' You haven't even seen Eretz Yisrael. You don't even know what's there. You gave up your cheilek in Eretz Yisrael because you took the first thing you saw. When Yaakov is giving out the brachas and these aren't what I would call brachas. Yeah? Brachas like when you go to Rebbe Chaim Kanievsky, yeah, bracha vehatzlacha. Bracha vehatzlacha. Be successful. That's a good bracha. Now, he is getting old, got too many people. He doesn't say it anymore. He goes, "Buah." Bracha vehatzlacha, Rebbe Shaya gives "Buah." He has a lot of stuckers that he collects for. Somebody brought him a large sum of money. He asked him for a bracha. So, he says, "Buah." So, he says, "You know, I brought the Rebbe a lot of money, you know, and I was looking for a longer bracha." So, Rebbe Chaim goes, "Buah." Bracha vehatzlacha. Like, what what what is he looking for? That's a bracha. So, Yaakov gives his children brachas. Shimon and Levi, you guys have a serious anger problem. Reuven, pachaz kamayim. Yeah? Now, that's not what I would call a bracha. Well, but it's the best of brachas. Cuz it's only the person who cares about you the most who will tell you that there's a piece of toilet paper stuck to your foot when you're coming out of the bathroom. You know what I'm saying? It's only your your closest friends who will make an intervention. It's only the people who really care about you who are going to who are going to tell you, "Listen, you know?" People who don't care about you say, "Yeah, it's fine. Fine, whatever you do." People who care about you? Yeah? This is something that unfortunately many children will never get today because I got this when I was growing up. If you were acting like an idiot, your Rebbe would say, "Stop acting like an idiot." And you did. You can't do that today because you'll destroy someone's self-esteem. When I was going to school, they hadn't discovered self-esteem yet. They didn't know it existed. So, if you act like an idiot, they would say, "Stop acting like an idiot." And you did. Today you can't say that. You could say, "You know, maybe you'll be a little less of an idiot tomorrow. Maybe, you know?" It's very nice, you know, you came to the twice this week and maybe next week you'll come three times. By the time you're 60, you'll come every day and that's very good. You know, you slowly you build up. You know what I mean? Like you know So, we're afraid to tell people. We're afraid to point out when people have shortcomings. Yeah? It's a It's a pity because, you know, if nobody points out when you have a problem, there's no way for you to be able to solve it. I don't know if anybody This is This is This is a problem. I have I I just told a joke, you know, earlier, you know, about uh Sears. I said, "I better get these jokes in fast cuz they won't be around anymore, you know?" So, uh but there's uh there's uh there used to be these um lightbulb jokes. You know? How many this does it take to change a lightbulb? How many that does it take to change a lightbulb? Different jokes like that, you know? Uh they were ethnic jokes and totally inappropriate. And when they turn off the camera, I'll tell you. But, um no, just as a study to appreciate the history of humor. Anyway, so um So, uh they used to have these lightbulb jokes, you know? And then eventually, of course, they got to the Jewish community. You know? How many Jewish grandmothers does it take to change a lightbulb? None. No sitting in the dark, you know? That kind of thing, you know? Um but uh but they they had one that I thought was profound. How many psychologists does it take to change a lightbulb? One. But, only if the lightbulb wants to change. So, if you If somebody Nobody wants to hear In the old days, you used to pay someone to give you musar. Cuz uh I need to hear the musar. You know, I'll grow. I'll become a better person. I want I want to hear it. Yeah? So, he says to his son, "Reuven Pachaz kamayim. You are unstable as water." Now, we know that there are what are called the four yesodot. Yeah? The four yesodot. The four primal forces. Earth, air, fire, and um water. And there are different attributes that a person has that's coming from one of these primal matters. I.e., if you're angry, that's coming from fire. If you're lazy, that's coming from dirt. That's because you're dirt. And certain people are stronger in some of these things. You know? And you can those, you know, who follow the zodiac. In Judaism, we had the mazalot. We had the idea of the zodiac. Certain signs are water signs, fire signs. You know you have a particular entity. So, you might know you have a tendency towards laziness or tendency towards anger, you know? Those of us who are a combination, baruch Hashem, we manage to be lazy and angry and, you know, we get all of it all in together, you know? Water is what? That's the impulsiveness. That's the That's the ability not to be able to think. I I act. And I think about it later. That's impulsiveness. I'm not even I'm not even considering it because pachaz kamayim. Why is mayim? Cuz mayim has no shape. It has no, as we say, chomer. It has no chomer. Put it in a long, thin glass, it'll be long and thin. Put it in a low, shallow bowl, it'll be low and shallow. It takes on whatever form you put it in. It doesn't take any form of its own. It doesn't have any permanence. It's something that's you know, that's unstable. Pachaz kamayim, he says to Reuven. Yaakov recognized this trait. And Rebbe wanted to say that was the That was the insight that he got from from the dudaim. Right? From that midrash. You see already that Reuven So, the real source of this was Maaseh Billah where he got angry and he did something without thinking that had cosmic consequences. But, people do things. Now, here's very interesting. When it comes to setting up the machaneh. So, you know, on the east goes Yehudah, Yissachar, and Zevulun. On the west go the Bnei Rachel, Ephraim, Menashe, and Binyamin. In the north goes Dan, Naftali, and Asher. In the south goes Reuven, Shimon, and Gad. And the Ramban, at the beginning of Bamidbar, explains why it was set up this way. And it says the best exposure is south. South will get the most sun. Yeah? East will get it in the morning, west will get it at night. North is the darkest exposure and south is the best exposure to have. Bear this in mind when you're buying an apartment, yeah? So, in Eretz Yisrael, b'ezrat Hashem. So, the south The south is the place where it gets the most sun. And it says Reuven goes in the south because Reuven is middos ha-teshuvah. He's middos ha-teshuvah. Why? Because middos ha-teshuvah is the result of somebody who's impulsive. Yeah? Mark Twain once said, "Keep your words soft and sweet. It'll be easier when you have to eat them later." It was an amazing thing. I I I remember reading this decades ago in How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. He told the following story. He said, "A little history for you. Um the Civil War ripped apart the United States. Now, in 1861, the south seceded. And the north said, 'No, you can't secede.' And they had a war, civil war. And the south lost. But, at terrible, terrible cost. Terrible cost. The southerners had all the good generals. Lee was was a master. They just didn't have enough um materials to keep the war going. And um in the Battle of the Wilderness, basically Grant wore them down with Battle of Attrition. But, they they At the beginning of the war, the Confederates were winning one battle after another and another and they finally reached the high water mark, which was in a little town called Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. And they were actually going there to get shoes. There was a shoe factory. And they went to get shoes and they met up with the Union Army who weren't supposed to be there. And this was a battle that wasn't supposed to take place. Three days. July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. On July 4th, um Abraham Lincoln gave uh the Gettysburg Address. But, but this battle was one of the worst battles of the whole Civil War. 50,000 casualties. People killed or wounded. It was It was devastating. And at the end of the war at the end of the battle, Lee was basically beaten. And he was taking what was left of his army and retreating south. But, it had rained and the river was flooded and he couldn't get across. If Meade, General Meade, had pulled together his army and chased General Lee, he would have defeated him. And that would have been the end of the Civil War. As it is, it went on for another 2 years and tens of thousands of lives were lost. And Abraham Lincoln was very upset and he wrote a very angry letter to General Meade. "You could have ended this war. We wouldn't have had all this bloodshed. What a terrible thing would have happened." He says, "History does not record General Meade's reaction to it because Abraham Lincoln never sent the letter." He had a policy whenever he wrote a letter to put it in his drawer and wait 48 hours and look at it again. And 48 hours later, he decided, "I wasn't there. I don't know what Meade went through. Look at the losses that he suffered. Look how difficult it is. So, it's easy for me to say, 'Grab your army and go and chase him.' But, maybe they weren't in a shape to go and fight." Only after Lincoln was dead, they found this letter in his desk. And he never sent it. I adopted that policy. I was running a Jewish organization. I would write a letter and if particularly if it was a charif letter, I would put it in my drawer and I would wait 2 days before I sent it. But, uh I often sent it. But, you know, but at least I stopped and thought about it, you know? Today, nobody stops and thinks. If you don't believe me, there's a man who's extremely powerful who has a Twitter account. And he shoots off whatever he wants. Shoots off whatever he wants. He's not the only one. There are any number of people whose careers have been destroyed by Twitter. Because you just send it out and you don't stop to think. It's not only Twitter. It's email. You type anything on email, people don't even have time for punctuation and and grammar. You know? They put the letter R and the letter U. You know what I mean? It's like E.E. Cummings poem, you know? It's like And they just And they push the send button. And then afterwards, you're left thinking, "Did I want to say that? Should I have said that?" It's the perfect Email, Twitter, you know, these things, they're the perfect vehicle if you want to be impulsive. Cuz there's no wait time. Let me tell you something better cuz most of us don't even appreciate this. Yeah? Until the 1960s, all pens were were fountain pens. Fountain pens were already a big step forward. You took a quill or you took, you know, a metal pen whatever it was, you dipped it in an inkwell and you wrote with it. And then you had to like blot it cuz otherwise it would smear etc. That's how you wrote. You know how long it took Lincoln just even write that letter? And then he first put it in his drawer for 2 days? And we just sit down at the at the computer, we type it out, boom, it's done. It's out. And it's out there. Did we mean to say that? Do we want to say that? But we're impulsive. We're impulsive. We don't stop to think. I I saw him at Reich in Eretz Yisrael, fellow learning in Kollel. And I saw him just standing like this. I said to him, "What are you doing?" He says, "I'm thinking." I said, "About what?" He says, "That's not important." He says, "I watched these two old talmidei chachamim in my shul where I learn Kollel. And one of them asked the other one a question and they would just stop for 10 minutes, both of them, and think." They wouldn't even have to They wouldn't say anything. They were thinking. They were thinking. I do questions and answers, one of the programs that I do. And people are asking questions and forming the question as they're talking. And they start asking a question and halfway through the question they realize they don't even understand what their question is. Forget about my question. Forget about me answering it. In fact, I always teach people, I teach rabbis how to answer basic questions. And what I tell them, "Here is the best phrase. What do you mean?" Most time people have no idea what they mean. I was at a Shabbat Olamit, Gavna Olamit, have what they call Shabbat Olamit. It's Shabbos all around the world, particularly in college campuses. It's very big in Europe. The biggest one is in Leeds University. I remember this was 1995. Because Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks was supposed to be the scholar in residence at Leeds University. It was the largest event. And the Queen asked instead if he would go to the 50th anniversary of VE Day. Today was the 100th anniversary of the end of uh, World War I. That was the 50th anniversary of VE Day, Victory in Europe. And so he canceled on Leeds University. So at the last minute, they were scrambling for somebody of that caliber. Luckily, I was available. And they called me up and they asked me, "Will you come to Leeds University?" So I said, "I thought the Chief Rabbi was supposed to come." So he says he canceled you know, to go with the Queen. I said, "Okay, give me a second. I have to call the Queen and send my apologies. I won't be able to make it and I will come to Leeds instead." And I went to Leeds University. I remember by Shabbos lunch, a guy comes over to me and says, "You know the Chief Rabbi was supposed to be here." And I said, "Yes, I know." He says, "If the Chief Rabbi came, I wouldn't have come." And I said, "Why is that?" He says, "Because the Chief Rabbi doesn't like progressive Jews and I'm a progressive Jew." Now, here's another thing I teach people when it comes to answering questions. Only answer questions, not statements. When it's a statement, the correct response is, "Oh." So he says to me, "He doesn't like progressive Jews." And I said, "Oh." And then he said, "What do you think about progressive Jews?" So I said, "I don't know. I'm from America. We don't have progressive jewelry." "Is it like reform?" "No, it's not like reform." "Is it like conservative?" "No, it's not like conservative." "What is it?" It took us 10 minutes to come to several conclusions. One is he doesn't know what progressive Judaism is. He knows he is a progressive Jew. He knows he doesn't like the Chief Rabbi cuz he doesn't like progressive Judaism. And he's going to start keeping Shabbos. I I don't know exactly how we did that in 10 minutes, but, you know, but he had already decided. Already decided. Even though he had no idea what he was talking about. Because people um, I'm a professional speaker. I know it I do this for a living. And um, and uh, they there's certain there is some chochma to this. It's not just because I'm incredibly knowledgeable and charismatic. That too, but that's not the only thing. There's actually some chochma to it. And one of the things they teach you is you have the first 2 minutes to be able to convince the audience, this is fancy group dynamics talk, to sign a social contract with you. That we agree to be your audience and that you will be the speaker. Because I got 2 minutes and if in 2 minutes I decide, "Oh, this guy is this guy's a waste of time, you know, he's boring, he doesn't know anything, you know, he's a you know, that's why many rabbis have this gift to be able to lose an audience in the first 2 minutes. It's a gift. They've mastered it, you know, because they insist on telling a joke and I'm talking about people who wouldn't know a joke if it bit them. You know what I mean? This rabbi says to me, "I just told this joke and I didn't get a laugh and I can't figure out why." I said, "Tell me the joke." He tells me the joke and I said, "You told it wrong." He says, "Well, how is it supposed to go?" Here's how the joke is supposed to go. Three people are on top of a building and one of them says to the other one, "These two buildings are so close together they form an air pocket and if you were to fall off, you wouldn't even fall because the air is so tight it would carry you up." The second guy says, "That's ridiculous." The first guy says, "I'll show you." He jumps. He's falling, he's falling and whoosh, he comes back up. The second guy says, "That's amazing." He jumps, he falls, he dies. The third guy says, "You know, you've got a sixth sense of humor, Superman." That's the joke. The rabbi told the joke, "Superman is on top of a building with two people." You know, why? Because maybe the person is worth listening to. Maybe he's worth listening to. You know, Rav Hutner, I heard this from somebody who used to go to his shiurim. You know, he used to give a shiur and he gave it in a very small room and he didn't use a microphone and it was hard to hear him and you had to struggle. I heard this actually from Rabbi Meir Fund who was the founder of Hank. And he said, "And I said to somebody once, one of the organizers, why don't we move this into the auditorium? Give him a microphone and it will be so much easier." He says, "Because Rav Hutner holds beshita that you should work to hear the person who's speaking." It shouldn't be it shouldn't be so easy. You have to sometimes struggle. You know, there there were there were people who were gedolim who had speech impediments who gave shiurim and you had to struggle to understand what they were saying. It was hard to hear. But if you think that it's worthwhile, I'm willing to invest in it. But that's not how group dynamics works. You got 2 minutes for people to decide whether I should listen to you or not. If not, eh. Eh. And that's how you write a news story. The first paragraph, you have to put in all that information in the first paragraph. Yeah? Or to quote the president, you've got one paragraph for fake news and then all you all the way at the bottom you might be able to tell the truth. You know what I'm saying? So um, uh, it's it's an amazing thing. You know, people decide. When I was going to school, I started going to school. They told teachers uh, they had to make their classes in 8-minute segments. Because kids could not concentrate for more than 8 minutes. Why? Cuz that was the time in between commercials. And people trained themselves to think in only 8-minute intervals. And you had to keep changing every 8 minutes. Rabbi Dr. Gottlieb, David Gottlieb, told me that when he used to go to South Africa, they didn't have television. They didn't allow in television. Yeah? He says you could not compare a South African student to an American student. They were so far ahead intellectually, able to concentrate. He says within a few years of introducing television, they went back to where they were. That's when there was television. That's when there was television. Now, you know, you know that uh, uh, you you get a cable channel, you get a cable, you know, 800 channels. You don't watch anything. You flip channels. So you're watching three movies, two TV shows, you know, uh, sporting event and a Japanese cooking show and you're going back and forth between them. That's why most kids can't concentrate at all. The number one answer to every question in high school is, "What?" Doesn't matter what you ask them. "I'm sorry, what?" I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm what? And some of you try to learn Gemara with people, you know, try to learn something inside Chumash, whatever it is, and you see that their mind just they can't concentrate. It's "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, what were you saying? I just I I I I'm sorry." I'm thinking I'm I'm I'm I'm and it's gone. So I remember reading this in the New York Times 20 years ago that when they make commercials now, they have to make it with fast cuts cuz no one has patience to watch a whole commercial. It's got to be fast and going here and going there and yeah. People can't concentrate. We we just take the next thing. Yeah? One of the many things that Chazak does is they They they make videos. But, you know, it's an art form to make a video to be able to catch people's attention right away because otherwise I have to forget it. I'll click another click. I'll click off someplace else. You know. Because to be able to stop and concentrate and think, is this what I should do or not? So, the problem is clear. What is the solution? Now, the result is clear. The result is chuva. Ruvein becomes me to such you. Why? Because if you're always messing up, you know, then you have to keep apologizing, you know, and you have to make up for what you did, and you have to fix the damage that you did, you know, and you say something impulsively, you do something impulsively, and then you have to Because I remember seeing a sign once that was so brilliant that says, "How come there's never enough time to do something right, but there's always enough time to do it over?" So, what for example, you want to get something in the back of the refrigerator. Now, what did your mom teach you? Take out everything and put it down on the table or the counter. But, nobody will listen to that. So, you take out the chicken soup and you put it on the refrigerator door. You take the salad and you're holding it in this hand, you take the milk, you're holding it like this, and you're trying to reach for the thing and it all falls. God help anyone who's in the room at that time. "Why didn't you come and help me? Didn't you see?" Because otherwise I have to stand up and say, "Now, I I Why why didn't you put everything there?" I didn't have enough time. You have enough time now to clean it all up. You have enough time to fix it up. You know, and people make impulsive decisions and they don't realize, you know, the consequences. The consequences that are going to happen. And that's why you end up doing chuva. You have no choice. You just keep messing up. So, how do we avoid this? So, the Mesillas Yesharim has a section that he calls Zehirus. Now, one of the big problems with Mesillas Yesharim is that it is so difficult to translate. If you have the old translation, then Zehirus is watchfulness. I can honestly tell you that except for the old English translation of Mesillas Yesharim, I have never seen the word watchfulness ever. Not in print, not in conversation, nobody ever told me, "I really need to develop my sense of watchfulness." You know, nobody says that. So, they came out with the new translation and they call it vigilance. Which is another word that nobody uses. It's It's a unused word. The only one I know who ever used it was Mad Eye Moody, constant vigilance. And it wasn't even him, it was Body Crash. Anyway, but otherwise nobody uses the word vigilance. Yeah? So, that's the problem. So, I've always been looking for different translations of Zehirus. And finally, baruch Hashem, psychology caught up to us. I have the what I believe to be the best translation for Zehirus, mindfulness. Mindfulness means that you stop and think before you do something, and that and and you you appreciate it. It's exactly designed to to defeat this, you know, tendency to just do things without stopping to think. Yeah? So, uh He defines what that means. What is What is Zehirus? First, um don't do anything without thinking whether or not this is right or wrong. That's it. Figure out, is this right? Is this wrong? Should I do it? Should I not? That is the definition of Zehirus. When he gets to how to do Zehirus, in perek gimmel, he describes it for you. Two steps. With with an A and a B. Yeah? Step number one is define true good and this true and define true bad. First, you have definitions. You know how hard this is? This is the hardest part. People say to me, "I want to be a good person." The most important thing is to be a good person. What's a good person? You know. Someone who does good things. Like what? Doesn't kill, doesn't steal. That's not a good person, that's a person in a coma. You know what I'm saying? Doesn't kill, doesn't steal. And And that's only a good person? You know, what if there's somebody on top of a building shooting down into the crowd? The only way to stop him is to kill him. Are you a bad person if you kill him? You know, if definition of a good person is someone who doesn't kill? It's tricky. What's a good person? I I I I really want to have a good marriage. What is a good marriage? I don't know. All right, you know. I'll know it when I see it, like fine art, you know. I want my kids to turn out good. What are good kids? What are good kids? You know, people don't even stop to think about it. You know, we don't have any definitions. So, when you sit down and you say, "What's good and what's bad?" A person has to sit down and and the devil's in the details. Or in this case, the angels. Yeah? You have to sit down and decide, what does that mean? What should I do in this situation or not? What is a good person? I wish I could tell you it was an easy thing to do. It's a very hard thing to do. And it's constantly defining it. You know, sometimes decisions are easy. You know. I have two things. I have a brand cookie and I have a ridiculously fatty, high sugar content dessert. Which one should I eat? Now, even though this should be an easy decision of good or bad, it's not. You see people at the Shabbos table and dessert comes around thinking, Sometimes they even say, "I'll hate myself tomorrow." Why would you eat something that will fill you with self-loathing? You know, why? Cuz I don't want to think. I don't want to think. I look at that. And that piece of cake speaks to me with a voice. "I will make you happier than you have ever been." And you think to yourself, "Well, piece of cake wouldn't lie to me, you know." Must be true. And you eat it. And it's not the most delicious thing in the world. So, you think, "I didn't give it a chance. I have to eat more to really get to appreciate it." And you see this all the time. All the time. I am diabetic, type two diabetic. Type one is where you're born with it, type two is you work very hard to develop it. It took me years. Took me years to develop it to its to its state that it's at today. Hashem. In case anybody ever says, "Did you ever accomplish anything with your life?" Yes, I did. Anyway, So, I know when I'm when I'm good, and my nutritionist always says you're not supposed to say good or bad, you know what I mean? But, between me and you, either good or you're bad, yeah? When I'm good and I'm not eating any of that stuff I'm not supposed to eat, people say, "Oh, would you like a piece of cake?" You know. And I said, "Is it worth dying for?" I don't I don't know if it's worth dying for. I mean, it's very good, you know. It's like, yeah. And sometimes they say to me, "Yes, it's worth dying for." I said, "Well, then I have to taste it." And only once were they right. I would have died for that piece of cake. But, anyway, actually, I I I'm sorry that it's not around anymore for the benefit of other people, but, you know, the reason that they went out of business, there was a bakery called Lowen's Bakery. They used to make cream puffs. This was a little bit of heaven that came down into Earth. This was probably what the mun originally was, you know. It was so soft and the cream was so good. And you just put in your mouth and it disappeared. You didn't even have to chew it. It just It was gone. You could eat an entire box of them without even realizing it, you know. No question that if Lowen's was still in business, I'd be dead today. There's no question about it. They were just unbelievable, you know? But, you know, you sit down and you say, "Is this good or is this bad? Should I do this? Should I not do this?" You know. And people people have to And if you don't have any definitions, how are you supposed to make a decision? So, instead, we do how we feel. I feel like doing this. I feel like "Why did you say that?" I don't know, I just felt like saying it. "Did you stop to think first if I should say it?" "Why did you do that?" I don't know, I just felt like doing it. You know. And then afterwards you have to pick up the pieces. So, it says Mesillas Yesharim, first thing is get your definitions, and this is for sure the hardest part. Or as somebody once said, "The time to decide whether you trust a particular hashgacha is not when you're sitting in the restaurant." You should check it out beforehand. I went to a a family simcha and I went to the mashgiach and I said, "You know, uh I eat only mehadrin." He says, "Well, the bread is mehadrin." And the dips are all mehadrin. And the salads all mehadrin. I checked the vegetables, they're kash ketif, you know, and the the salads you can eat. That's about it. I said, "The fish?" No. "Chicken?" No. "Okay, fine." So, I came to the simcha and I washed, you know, and I had dips, I had salad. The next table I see chasidim. They're eating the fish, they're eating the chicken. I said, "I should have asked their rabbi." I went to the wrong guy. So, at the end I went over to them and I said, "Wow, you know, what did the mashgiach tell you?" He goes, "No, no, no, we saw you eating." I said, "I only ate the dips and the salad cuz I spoke to the mashgiach." They're like, "Oh, you're right." Let's stay for dessert. But, anyway, you know, because I want to tell you about a scandal history. I'm going back to the 1980s, ancient times. Yeah, before before there was cell phones and internet, you know? So, there was a major scandal, one of the big hashgachas that everybody trusts, you know, was giving hashgacha on vinegar that it turned out was no good. Why? Cuz you know, kashrus and that's for sure and these guys don't know what from anything. They check out everything themselves and they found out that it was totally unreliable. Even though everybody was using it. So, they had the vinegar scandal, the OU set up a hotline, they call up, see if there's vinegar, see what you can use, and a whole thing. And I remember talking to the mashgiach at Marina Del Rey that week. And he said, "You know why the vinegar took place? The vinegar scandal? Cuz no one in America is hungry. They're starving. They're starving." A kid comes home from school, "Mom, I'm starving." They throw open the the refrigerator, it's packed, and things are falling out as you open the door. "There's nothing to eat." I see one of my kids, you know, "There's nothing to eat." I said, "Why don't you make yourself microwave popcorn?" "Takes too long." I said, "You know, we used to just like take a pan of oil and you had to put it in and it popped all over the kitchen, you know, and you had to get it, you know? Jiffy Pop, that was like a major technological advance, you know what I mean? Cuz they had a little piece of foil so it wouldn't bounce all over the place, you know? I don't tell me about cavemen, you know what I'm saying? I don't mean about ancient times, you know? But that's what it is today. Halitaneena, man, I don't know what I'm talking about. Put it down my throat, you know? I I I got to have it." There was this product I I assume it's still around called Cracker Jacks. Yeah? Candy coated popcorn, peanuts, and a prize, right? So, they had a jingle. You know, it says there are four types of talmidim. One is a mishmaris. Mishmaris is all the wine drips out and only the dregs remain. That's for sure me. You know, any nonsense I can remember it forever. So, I remember the jingle. "What do you want when you got to eat something and it's got to be sweet and it's got to be a lot and you got to have it now." I think that sums up a whole generation. It's got to be sweet and it's got to be a lot and I got to have it now. So, people don't have patience. Don't take this the wrong way. Chas v'shalom for me to employ anything. I'm just bringing this as an example, right? I know people who have finished shas with the Artscroll Gemara and I see that they have things underlined in the footnotes, etc. But when I was going, we didn't have the Artscroll Gemara, we had the Sanhedrin. And it was easier to learn Aramaic than to figure out what the Sanhedrin Gemara was saying cuz half of it was Latin, you know what I mean? So, then they would tell you, "Okay, get a Jastrow dictionary." There is not one word in the Gemara that's in Jastrow, you know what I'm saying? Unless you know how to conjugate Aramaic, in which case, frankly, I don't need your dictionary if I could conjugate it, you know what I'm saying? So, you know, you're you're sitting here looking at this. It was it was very difficult to be able to learn how to like you know. And I'll be perfectly honest, sometimes there's I got to tell something, I look it up in the Artscroll Gemara. You can't stop. You know, you just look up one thing and you're turning the page, turning the page, turning the page. I'm at base. Turning the page, turning the page, and it's just it's just so user-friendly, you know? Gemara was never user-friendly, you know? I still resent the fact that my talmidim have the Divrei Masco and Rashi in bold, you know what I mean? We had to try to search it on the page, you know? Cuz they make things so easy because people I don't have patience. I don't have patience to work at it. To do something good takes effort, takes time. When I went to Eretz Yisrael, if you wanted to be in contact with your parents, so you wrote them a letter. Yeah? Took 2 weeks to get there, 2 weeks to get to get an answer. When you read the answer, you don't even remember what they were responding to. It was a month later, you know? Gave you a chance to develop independence. Now people go to Israel, they they call or text their parents three times a day. And if they don't answer right away, they write them back in capitals. That's really bad. Why aren't you answering me? And I was like It was like like there's this immediacy. I have to know now. I know now. You know? In The Fire Within, the book about Mussar, so he tells the story how he took his talmidim through a brook. It was a famous baal mussar. He gave a sichat mussar. And at the end he said, "Are there any questions?" And someone asked a question. He said, "Very good question. Any other questions?" Two or three other questions. And he goes, "No. Not every question has an answer." And they were like, "Okay, that's cute. What's the answer?" And he just sat there until they realized like that was it. And they were so upset. Why wouldn't he answer our questions? You know? And he realized he was trying to teach them a lesson. You know, there's a question there's an answer. There's a question and an answer. And there's no there's no time to think about our questions. Yeah, there's no time to to chat. I once heard of Rabbi Gottlieb, you know, he was in the middle of a class and someone asked him something about the Holocaust and he always I saw him do this more than once. He'd say, "I will not abuse the memory of the 6 million Jews who were killed by making the Holocaust a throwaway question." Oh, by the way, Rabbi Shapiro used to tell the story. I heard it from him twice. But he used to tell it all the time. He says, "I was walking down the block and someone came to me and said, 'Could I share your umbrella to the end of the block?'" He said, "Sure." And as we're walking, he said, "Why was there a Holocaust?" I said, "I don't know." And when he told this to his wife in shul, he says, "I don't know. I don't know how to explain it from here to the end of the block. If that's as much time as you're giving me." But people want the answer fast. They want it now. Nobody wants to work at something. Nobody wants to to do it. So, first I need my definitions. What's good and what's bad? And then it says, "In every action you do, stop and think. Stop and think. Does this fit into my definitions of good or bad?" Just stop and think. Take a moment to think. People say to me, "Oh, then you'll become obsessive. You got No. Just don't do things automatically without thinking. I I I had a rabbi who once said to me, 'Everyone has a purpose in this world. Yours is to be a bad example.'" And I've tried to live up to that, you know? I can't speak for anybody else, but I'll tell you that there are mornings where I make myself a cup of coffee and at some point I look at the cup and it's empty and I don't remember drinking it. I must have drunk it at some point, but I just don't even remember it. Cuz I'm so mindless. Cuz people just do things without thinking why I'm doing it, you know? So, you do an action. Now, I brought an example. I went to camp in Israel. And whenever there's a tikkun by law, you have to have one of these enormously large boxes of tasteless cookies. They come in four shapes. They're all the same. They taste like nothing. You bite into them, they turn into powder in your mouth. They're they're they're terrible. The only thing known to man that can wash it down is Petel. Yeah? So, that's why the Israelis have the Petel. Just to get those cookies down, you know? Anyway, a person walks around with a big box of cookies and says to everybody, "Want a cookie?" Sure. Sure. Some of them take a handful. Cuz it's for free. You know what I mean? They say cookies, they say cookies. The guy comes to me, says, "You want a cookie?" I said, "No." He did not even have the tools to deal with that response. He paused and he said again, "Want a cookie?" And I said, "No." And he says, "Everybody takes a cookie." I said, "I don't like them. They're tasteless. They turn into powder in your mouth. I choke on them. They're terrible." And as I'm saying this, the people around me are nodding. Yeah, he's right. And the guy says, "All right." Turns to the next person. "Want a cookie?" Sure. And they all took cookies. Because I should stop and think. It means all it's saying is before you do something, stop and think. Should I do this or not? Maybe the maybe it's something, you know, simple. Maybe I should maybe I shouldn't. Sometimes you'll be surprised by your own response. It was one summer when I got up in the morning and somebody was asking me something and I said, "I can't talk to you once I I can't talk to you yet. I haven't had a coffee." And I can't function in the morning without a coffee. And I and I thought about that and I said, "I don't like the way that sounds." Cuz sometimes you'll find yourself in situations in life where there are no coffee. There's no coffee. What are you supposed to do now? So, I knew this guy used to come to my shabbatonim. He was a rav. He would take coffee and cold water, spin it around with his finger, and drink it down, you know? Cuz he had to have coffee. So, I said, "I don't like the way that sounds." So, my kabbalah, I took an lol is I'm not drinking any coffee until after sukkos. I actually went a little longer, you know? Cuz I I like the idea of saying, "If I want a cup of coffee, I'll have it. But I have to have a cup of coffee? I can't function without a cup of coffee?" But we don't even realize what we say. We say things without even realizing it. Good morning. What's good about it? We don't even stop to think. I had a heart attack and a bypass operation. Two Two doctors told me I was supposed to be dead. Ken ayin hara, they were wrong. I I met many people. I was before years this January. I met many people who said, "We davened for you." I said, "It worked." Cuz I'm still here and the doctor said I shouldn't be, you know? But at the end of that year, before Rosh Hashanah, someone says to me, "So, what do you want this year?" I said, "Just a better year than this past year." And they said to me, "You ain't great. Two doctors said you were supposed to be dead. God miraculously kept you alive, and all you can do is complain? I said, "You're right. I want a year just like this year." We don't even stop to think. We just We just say things and do things, and then we suddenly find ourselves in situations, which Is this what I really want? Is this who I want to be? Is this where I want to go? So, he says, "There's two things you have to do. The first one is you have to define what's good what's bad. The second thing is you have to decide, and that's broken into two parts. One is besha'as maiseh. Right now, I have to make a decision. Right now, I have to make a decision. And then shelo besha'as maiseh is I look over my entire day and I say, "My sum total of decisions, did they get me where I wanted to go?" Even though I I justified why I did each thing along the way, at the end of the day, did I get Did I accomplish what I wanted to accomplish? Or did I not accomplish what I wanted to accomplish? So, I had something I really had to do today, but I did this, and I did this, and I did this, and everything led me away. It pulled me away. You know, you end up you end up not accomplishing what you wanted to do. The sum total of your decisions didn't take you where you want to be. Didn't make you the person you want to be. Means I block in the time for Torah learning, because otherwise, you know, when I have time, I'll learn. Maybe I won't. Because events control us. We let events control us. We decide. Let's face it. Most people don't live the life they want. They live the life that happens. And they make one decision, and another decision, and another decision, and at some point they end up someplace. But is this where you wanted to be? Now, most people never even thought about it. They don't know where they want to go. Most people don't know what their meaningful life would have been. As one person said to me so painfully, "I don't know what a meaningful life is, but this isn't it." Because I didn't live the life I wanted. I lived the life that happened. I chose, and I chose, and I chose, and I just ended up someplace. And to be able to sit down and think, "Is this what I want? Should I do this?" So, the the practice that we have to incorporate is Before I do anything, stop. Just for Just for a few seconds, I think, "Do I want to do this? Do I want to go there? Should I go there? Is this what I want?" And if we think it's esoteric, you know, it doesn't make a difference, you know, you know, what does it matter what I heard? So, whatever. You know. So, I give the example, you know, you you go to a wedding, they offer you a schnitzel, they offer you roast chicken, and they offer you turkey, and they offer you salmon. So, you look at it and you say, "Well, the turkey's in a sweet glaze. Probably not so good cuz of the sugar. You know, the schnitzel's fried in oil. Probably not so good. The chicken's not bad. It's roast chicken. The fish is probably okay. So, I could choose either one of those two." Which one? I don't care which one you choose, but at least you stopped to think about it. You didn't just take the first thing that came along. I invite this family for Shabbos. Now, baruch Hashem, I have been practicing this in my own life. Because if I ate the first thing that came along, what would I do for the next 12 things that they brought out? You understand? More and more dishes, and more dishes, and more dishes. You know what I mean? And each thing I I don't know how it works by your communities, but Syrians are very emotional. This is a custom. You have to eat this. This is called something in Arabic. This is called something in Syrian. This is You have to eat this. "Yes, sir," I said. I have to do my duty to the my people. You understand? Now that I know I'm part of the Spanish Portuguese community. You understand? You know, but if I if I you just take the first thing that comes along, you don't stop to think what's going to come next, what's going to happen, where's it going to be? You know. We We are impulsive. I knew a friend who was from England, and if you England's different today, but I remember when I first started going there 30 years ago, it was like a small out-of-town community. There was a few kosher shops. There was very little there kosher. You know, so he says he would fly around the country, and anytime he would find a kosher shop, he would stop and then eat. Because he didn't know the next time he'd have it. And one time his company sent him to the Five Towns. And he works down Central Avenue. And he says, "Oh, a kosher shop." And he stops and eats something. And two stores later, he says, "Oh, a kosher shop." And he stops and eats something. He said, "By the end of the block, I was sick." You know? Because, you know, who could anticipate this? Who could anticipate? Who knows what's going to happen? You know, if we stop and think it out, as opposed to just doing the next thing. Just taking the next thing. You ever see people go out to a fancy restaurant, and they're waiting for their steak, or they're waiting for whatever the dish, and they're hungry, so they fill up on the dinner rolls, and they can't eat anything else? And that became your I was I'm stuffed now. What am I supposed to do? You know. But you didn't stop and think. Like the little kid with the marshmallows. You know, maybe I'll have a better life if I wait. Let's see what happens. Let's anticipate a little bit. And people don't know how to anticipate. They don't know how to wait. So, impulsiveness is for sure going to make us the person we don't want to be. We're going to be We're going to have the life that happens. We're just going to do the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing. And often times, it'll be the opposite of what we want. Not only not what we want, the exact opposite of what we want. That leads to teshuvah. Because we have charatah. We feel bad. We stopped and thought about it. And if it becomes part of your personality, so you're going off to harvest the wheat, and I see flowers for my mother. That's nice. Harvest the wheat. Get the flowers on the way back. Remember where you're going. Remember what you're supposed to be doing. And I'm not thinking about people in my age group. You know, I thought I was the only one, but I mean many people in my age group. They walk into a room and they say, "Why am I here?" You open the refrigerator and you're saying, "I know I was looking for something." You know, and your memory just goes. Most of the people that you know in your life, their name is uh uh uh uh uh uh um the guy with the thing, you know, it's great. Whenever you try to tell a story, it turns into a game of charades. You know what I mean? Like, you know, cuz yeah, I'm not thinking about that. I'm talking about where you stop and think, "Do I want to do this or not?" There's nothing sadder than people who look back at a life that happened. Yeah. We have an opportunity to stop and think, "Define. What's the best I can be?" And then it doesn't matter how much time it takes, or how much effort it takes to make that happen. You're going to make that happen. Because I don't want my life just to happen. I'm not going to just take the next thing that comes along. I'm going to think, "What's the best that I can do?" And how do I get there? You want to play the piano? Takes a lot of time. You want to play a CD? Goes very fast. Stick it in the machine, music will come out. But if you want to master that, that takes a lot of effort. It's a lot of effort. And anything good takes a lot of effort. You know. And anything I remember seeing a quote once. It said, "Anything not worth doing is not worth doing well." You know, it doesn't make a difference anyway. Who cares? You know. But But a person who who has the ability to stop and think and work at it and develop, then we can become the people we want to be and live the lives we want to be. Pachaz kamayim. Unstable. We We make decisions just just off the off the cuff. And then afterwards, we have to face the consequences of those decisions. And if we master what we call zehirus, which I would call mindfulness, of getting definitions of what the best life is that you can lead, and taking the steps to fulfilling it, then the end we can look back and say, "I lived the life that I wanted, and not the life that happened." Thank you very much.