Iggeres HaGra #3 - The Whole World - It's Nothing

this torah class is brought to you by torahanytime.com okay welcome everyone good evening welcome everyone so good news hashem the safer and hanukkah was just published this afternoon it is now available from our scroll you could go to the rsco website or you could go to torahanytime.com click on go to speakers gladstein and there's a link to order the safer for to have it delivered this evening at 7 45 there is a special shear streaminglive attorney time.com about the release of the safe fire 830 is the regular parashashira okay i want to remind everyone you could catch us here on tony time and also on um podcast and in barcelona we have my good friends from england even though it's late at night but i don't know they don't sleep over there they're very big sadiq okay so the gra says uh in the next paragraph um and he introduces his paragraph with interesting word he says vyadua he says and it is known this whole world is all empty so it's interesting he doesn't just say kala masaha this whole world is empty but he says it's known this whole world is empty so lefkowitz points out that even though we all agree that we all know that it's empty nevertheless it's still an to integrate avoidable into your mind so despite the fact that we know that it's empty nevertheless we don't always accord ourselves with that knowledge so that's interesting point they're all as if they never were in other words you have a good piece of steak okay you ate a bite now what happened to that bite it's gone forever nothing from no pla none of that pleasure does you any good forever and ever in other words it's gone it will not benefit you in any way ever again it's lost forever it's fleeting any pleasure in this world the moment it's over it does not stay with you there's nothing about it that remains with you it's as if it never happened it did so little for you that the moment it's over it's as if it never happened to them woe to those who run after food pleasure and all the other good times because the moment it's done it's done it doesn't do anything for you and this week we said yesterday of alta kani ba ishar do not be jealous about someone else's wealth kiesha oyster label of la raza there is wealth which is guarded for its owner for his evil you think you're jealous about somebody else's possessions the ibanesham did not necessarily give it to the person as akha said it it could have been for his ra and then the guru goes on to quote a number of sukim which soda so to speak our mahaville make trivialize and undermine the value that many people place on physical belongings and physical pleasure and these sukim from shama milk and kahelas and elsewhere trivialize these experiences firstly kasha yatsam mibatan yashev the same way you came into this world with nothing no money right most people on this uh zoom share did not were not born holding an american express card it's a no did you know that that most people didn't were not born holding a credit card most people when they were born did not have any money and that is the way you leave this world you come into the world empty and you leave empty um the way you came that's where you leave well my eastern law is for nothing in other words why toil for anything you can take with you now this is not a hideous we all know that we all know we can take money with us we can't take pleasure with us the only thing the only currency that is effective in the next world is torah mitsvice and we sort of know intellectually so if that's the case if we're here for a short amount of time and eternity is a very long amount of time why be taurea for something we can't take with us we all know that but do we live that way the illusion that's another passing house if you were to live two thousand years when the two thousand years were would be over you'd say whoa boy did the time fly by what happened to it even if a person lived for many years bakula you should rejoice in all of them the iskar as remember the days of darkness there will be many called shabbat whatever comes is empty so this refers to um this is reminiscent of a teaching of rabbenu yana that in a person so to speak later years they should still take advantage of it and try to maximize it and rejoice in it so because if a person is not happy they can't really take advantage of the time but recognize that you should try to maximize the time because the ti the amount of time that we won't be able to accomplish is very great what good is fun times what's that going to do for us for eternity although today you may be smiling during the good times the day will come that you will be crying in other words all the good times of are are of no benefit to one's eternal existence do not be jealous of empty fantasy honor now this is an interesting expression don't be jealous of illusory imaginary honor however there is real honor and that type of honor one should desire what is real honor real honor is knowing the torah the muslim writes in parakiralif true honor enoy ella yadiyas is knowing the torah in truth like it says in perique voice in allah torah like it says so knowledge right like the passage says um [Music] ali is hallel ashiraba only with this should somebody glorify that is knowing hashem the only true kavoid is the knowledge of akalish barhu and the and true kava one should pursue one should desire one should want true kavaid so illusory kaboid empty covoid imaginary covoid the fact that some guy uh gets a hush about leah because he has a lot of money what is that that's not valuable that's not worth anything it doesn't do it do anything for him he's not going to live longer he's not going to be healthier so what do you need it for it doesn't do anything for him and it won't do anything for you but true honor meaning genuine knowledge of akadeshwar which includes knowing knowing gemara knowing musa knowing that is true honor that is something we should desire um oh one second the hazman boy gade time is a traitor time is a traitor which means you think things are going well you think things are working out for you time has a way of being traitorous in other words uh a person can easily quickly swiftly be uh be taken out of a good situation and be in a difficult matter whether financially whether career-wise whether family-wise so time has uh could be traitorous to a person you think time is loyal to you no a person has to look at things as if they're sort of riding a wave things are going well you know you always have to be wary that it may not stay that way the who kim is nayim life is like scales it lifts up the light the yashvilla cover it brings down the heavy i assume part of this means that the more one inflates themselves life has a way of bringing them down and vice versa when somebody feels lowly and uh bishoploss life has a way or the abundance home has a way of raising them up now the next statement is worthy of independent analysis which we will try will try to offer tomorrow this world is like drinking salt water in other words there are things in this world we think we want we need more money we need a nicer car we need a nicer house we need more covloid and the grass saying this world is like salt water we think we need it but when we experience it it only makes us want more in other words it doesn't give us any satiety it only makes us want more but hashem tomorrow we're going to learn the amazing words of the ramban at the end of the varam where the ramban discusses a really a very current and contemporary and unfortunate phenomenon where you have desires that people have in our times that in past decades people were embarrassed to come out with or in past decades or centuries it was much more of a rarity and why is it so much more common today to have um sort of deviant desires and the ramban uses this idea that this world is like salt water in other words when a person indulges in desire it creates in a desire for more to the extent where it creates an illusion that you need something that has not been experienced before and uh which is somewhat of a psychological analysis of uh human taiva which is certainly not accepted by uh psychologists today but this is the reality that ramban tells us that desire is in most ways a figment of one's own created a creation and their imagination cara basically thank you for joining 7 45 there is a share about the new safer on chanukah 8 30 on the power sha tomorrow afternoon 2 30. the new um shimru program of shabbos we're going to start with this matter with malachi's bishop thank you everyone for joining have a great day you've just experienced another torah class brought to you by torahanytime.com