Transcript
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Panic is spreading through the small
city. People are rushing through the
streets spreading the news. Did you
hear? The enemy has besieged the walls
led by this great king and nobody knows
what to do. There's a wonderful king in
charge of this small city and he doesn't
have an army strong enough to fight
back. Do they have enough food to last
the siege? Can people escape?
[music]
Nobody knows what to do. And there's
this old wise man, an unfortunate
character.
Nobody ever goes to him. Nobody ever
goes and seeks out his advice. He
trudges his way through the street.
And eventually, [music]
when there's nobody else to turn to, the
king says, "Maybe that man has got
something [music] to tell me."
So he goes to the wise man, this
unfortunate wise man. And the wise
[music] man with his wisdom solves
everything.
Now that story is [music] a parable that
the wisest of all men, King Solomon
gives and our sages explain that this
parable is actually description for
ourselves.
We are the small city
and there is a great king, a powerful
king that is besieged against us and
that is our yates, our evil inclination,
the drive to do something wrong
and it looks to us as if there's no
hope.
We're definitely going to fall. There's
no escape from the siege.
But then eventually we turn to this
unfortunate character. Unfortunate
because people hardly ever go to him for
advice. The yates to the the
inclination, the drive to do good. And
he in his wisdom solves the problem for
us [music] and finds the solution. That
is the story, the parable and the
explanation. But there's a problem here.
What what's the wisdom? What what is the
solution? King Solomon doesn't tell us.
He just says this wise man in his wisdom
solves THE PROBLEM. BUT WHAT IS THE
SOLUTION? Don't we want to know?
This question was asked by the great
[music] head of the mere yeshiva, Rabbi
Schmouvitz. And he answers with
something truly brilliant.
He explains
the wisdom
is that it's not real. He doesn't need
to give a [music] solution.
It looks like a siege. It looks like
there's this very strong enemy king, but
you know what happens at the end of the
day? At the end of the [music] day, the
actors pack up, they wheel away the
props, and suddenly you realize that
none of [music] it was real.
Look, I want to tell you something about
myself. People [music] who know that I
have been teaching about good and bad
speech for the last 11, 12 years. People
who know that [music] I've written a
book about speech, they probably think,
well,
this comes [music] naturally to him.
But if you knew me 15 or 20 years ago,
you would have found out that actually I
had a big problem in this area. [music]
Look, I'm British. That means
automatically [music] I love sarcasm.
I love ironic humor. If any of you have
ever seen grittish humor, it normally
involves ripping somebody apart and then
laughing at the pieces on the floor. I
love that. And I love a [music] good
gossip. I love lash and horror. From the
depths of my being, it drives me. More
than that, you know the best type of
lash and horror that I love from lash
and horror. Lash and horror within the
religious community. Did you hear what
that rabbi said about that rabbi? Did
you hear what happened in that religious
community last night? Oh wow, I [music]
love that sort of lash and har.
And it got to a stage where a good
friend of mine turned [music] to me and
said, "Manak,
you need to learn the laws [music] of
lashar." I said, "I don't want to." He
said, "No, no, you you need to learn
these laws." So I sat down with him and
I learned them for two years.
And after those two years where [music]
I began to change a little bit, he then
told me, you got to start teaching
because when you teach, it forces you to
change more. And at the beginning,
I always would think to myself, how is
it possible to change? [music] This is
who I am. I am a ba lashhara. I am a
lashhara speaker.
It's too difficult. What do you want
from me?
This mitzvah of doing tshoua, of
returning to the correct path, it's not
baffling, nor is it far away. It's not
up in the heavens that I need to say to
somebody, who's going to go up there and
get it from me? It's not ON THE OTHER
SIDE OF THE SEA THAT I had to say, who's
going to cross that sea and bring it
back to me? No. Because the matter is
close to you in [music] your mouth and
in your heart to do it.
This is the trick [music] of our evil
inclination.
He makes it seem like it's impossible.
I've got to climb a mountain. I've got
to cross the sea. You know what I
thought to myself? How could I ever
possibly be better at speech? I'm a
normal human being. I have friends. I
have family. I've [music] got work
colleagues. The only possible way I can
achieve this is to go and live in a
cave. I'm not going to go and live in a
cave. I'm normal.
The Sahara says, you know, you got to go
and live in a cave.
But none of it's real.
None of it's true. It's all acting. And
the wise, unfortunate man who nobody
ever goes to for advice says, "No, no,
you don't understand. It's all a trick."
that [music] great king. He says to you,
the great powerful king of the evil
inclination, he says to you, the only
way you're ever going to be worth
anything is when you're perfect.
And you'll never be perfect.
So what's the point [music] of trying?
But the wise, unfortunate voice says,
"Nuh-uh.
You don't need to be perfect. Nobody's
asking you to be perfect.
The only thing that's being asked of you
right now is to take that tiny step
forward. Can you take one step forward?
One step.
You don't need to be the person who
stops speaking badly about people
completely.
Can you [music] take one tiny step? One
tiny short amount of time that you're
not going to do it. One particular
person you're not going to speak badly
about.
We need to know it's in your mouth and
in your heart to do it. You can find it
in your heart over [music] time. Small
steps to start seeing the good in
people, feeling that. And you can
[music] have it inside your ability
slowly. Small steps to start speaking
nicely about people [music] and not
speaking badly because that small step
that's [music] always always in your
reach. This week's episode has been
graciously sponsored [music] as a merit
for referring recovery for Barak Bendit
Bened.
Thank you so much for joining us. If you
would like to share any ideas, ask any
questions, perhaps we can visit them on
a future episode, please put a comment
down below or you can reach out to me
personally at my email man@journey to
betterspech.com. It's written down
below. And of course, if you would like
to um sponsor a future episode, send me
a message and like, share, and subscri
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