It's Your Choice - The 11th Principle of Faith - Rabbi Lazer Brody

[music and singing] [music] [music and singing] [music] >> With Hashem's loving grace, welcome to Emunah hour number 211. Tonight, with Hashem's help, we're learning the 11th principle of Emunah. This is the principle we called "It's Your Choice." This is reward and punishment and free choice. Principle 11, as Maimonides teaches us, I believe with complete belief that the creator, blessed be his name, rewards those who observe his commandments and punishes those who transgress his commandments. Which means we have to take responsibility for actions. We can't blame anyone else. It's all up to us. And so, what's up to us? Everything comes from Hashem. We learned the first principle of Emunah. Uh yes, but the Gemara clarifies that everything comes from Hashem except for the reverence of Hashem. Fearing Hashem, honoring Hashem, this is up to us. So, whether we're going to honor Hashem's Torah and the mitzvahs or not, this is up to each one of us. We have to take responsibility. Because Hashem grants us the free will to do good or the otherwise. And what the Ramchal explains is there's no concept of reward and punishment outside the context of free will, free choice. Therefore, there can't be the slightest coercion in any direction. So, simply speaking, it's our choice. So, what do we do? We We want to build the world or destroy the world? Build our own lives or destroy our own lives? Some people do things very silly for a moment or two of physical pleasure and they destroy their lives, they destroy their careers. You see leaders of countries that do scandalous things. They went Why do they do things like that? They just don't think. So, back to the Ramchal's teaching. This is a cardinal teaching of the Ramchal. He's one of our greatest Sephardi thinkers ever. Uh Talmudist and a Kabbalist. The revealed aspect of Torah, the inner aspect of Torah. And the Ramchal wrote books both on uh uh Torah ethics and on Kabbalah. So, the Ramchal teaches us one of the classic teachings that there can be no reward or punishment outside the context of free choice. So, since the Torah is based on reward and punishment, it has to be based on free choice. Otherwise, it doesn't work. Because there's free choice on every single spiritual level. For example, the free choice of a simple person to eat healthy. Okay, it's free choice. But, you talk about the free choice of an athlete to eat healthy. When that athlete has to run the Olympic finals in the 100-meter dash or swim the Olympic finals in 400-meter butterfly tomorrow, that has got to be careful about every calorie, every morsel uh he or she puts in their mouths. Okay, so it's It's a choice gets become more uh sublime, more finite as we get higher and higher spiritual level. So, it doesn't matter. Everyone is competing against themselves only. You're not competing against the great sages. You can say, "Why could I ever be one of these great righteous people?" No, you're competing against yourself. Every person It's like uh you have in in in the ring, the two contestants, they're weighed before they They have to be in the same weight class. If one is too heavy, then it's disqualified. They can't have the the They can't have the competition. Not a fair competition. Because it's got an unfair weight advantage. So, you have to be the same thing spiritually. We're weighed against our own evil inclination. Now, understand that Hashem wants to make us great. Our evil inclination is an angel. We're We We're half mammal and half angel. Our bodies are animal with animal urges. And our soul is that of angel. So, as we will learn later, we're going to review spiritual anatomy. We have to review spiritual anatomy to learn uh the 11th principle. Uh we have to be have an effort. Hashem makes it that the angelic part, the evil inclination Evil inclination is is a It's from the dark side, but it's an angel. It does it An angel in Hebrew is malach. Malach is the same word for messenger. So, intrinsically, when we talk about an angel, we're talking about Hashem's messenger. An angel equals messenger. And that's the way it is in holy tongue. So, the the that evil inclination is doing Hashem's will to test us and to make us higher. Because if you don't take They say like in the the euphemism, we we pick up the bar. We make the bar higher. Put a notch higher. That means we have to go a little bit higher in whatever we're doing, whatever endeavor. And that means that our effort has to be a little bit higher. And Hashem does all the time that the evil inclination is a little bit stronger than we are. So, we have to do our best and do our hardest to overcome that evil inclination. And that's what builds our spiritual muscles. That's what gives us our spiritual level. And it gets us to go higher. And we can't do this by sitting on the beach. It's nice to sit on the beach. We can't do it by sitting on the beach and certainly not by sitting on the bed. Okay, we have to do work. So, in the Ramchal's classic book on Kabbalah, which is called Kelach Pitchei Chochmah, it's 138 Gates of Wisdom. 138 Gates of Wisdom that it He writes this an introduction to Kabbalah. This is something that one has to understand for Kabbalah. He refers to observing a commandment as a tikkun. He says every that's not just simply observing a commandment, it's a tikkun. A tikkun is a correction, a soul correction. So, what the Ramchal is telling us, and it It's really an eye-opening explanation, is that every time we observe a commandment We observe a commandment of Torah, it is a rectification of the soul. On the other side, every time somebody, heaven forbid, transgresses Torah, it's the opposite. If you do If If observing the Torah is a rectification of the soul, that soul that tiny part of Hashem, remember, then if someone goes against that, that's like going against the manufacturer's manual, the owner's manual, that is a ruination of the soul. And it weakens a person. So, when we look at this really enlightening principle, we can see that a person that observes a commandment both builds himself and rectifies the world. Where a transgressor destroys himself, it's a self-destruct mode, and destroys the world. For example, you see a person that takes up the bad substances, a person that's heaven forbid a drug addict, destroys himself or herself. And they destroy the They They destroy the world, too. They destroy their families, they destroy their their their surroundings. So, we can see this uh tangibly when we look at this. Okay, so in light of the Ramchal's teaching, a soul is sent down here to the world to perform a task. It's not happenstance. People say, "I don't know what I'm doing in the world." People don't know what they're doing in the world. They have to stop and think what you're doing. And for people that they say they don't know what they're doing in the world, the first thing, take this grab a little booklet. It's called Path to Your Peak. The Path to Your Peak explains who the real you are. People think Modern society tells them they're body. Not just a body, there's a soul. And you have to understand your own components, who you really are. Wait a second. Am I the Helena Rubinstein or the Gillette part of me? Or the six-pack abs part of me? Or the size four or the bikini part of me? No. Okay, if If that's person person is sad, if that then after after age 25, maximum 30, then the body starts degenerating, then that means the person starts degenerating at age 30. But, when you look at the soul, the soul continues maturing and getting sweeter like fine wine. The older the soul is, and the people that are soul-oriented and that are wisdom-oriented, at that 85 and 90 and 95, they look at our our great spiritual leaders. They're well into their 90s and lucid and clear-headed and with tremendous insight. That's why they're They're our leaders. They just keep getting better and better like fine wine. So, they rectify and they build the world. And they have certainly built themselves. So, it's easy to understand that the creator's Torah, that the road It's like It's a creator's blueprint for the world. Not only a blueprint for the world, it's the owner's manual. Hashem created the soul. And according to get the best out of our soul, the best mileage out of our soul, then we have to go according to the creator's manual. But, this is also the the the manual that Hashem himself used to build the world. That That This is You see the He's the architect and the chief engineer. This is his plan. These are his blueprints for the world. So, why do we explain that? Now, we can understand since the Torah is the blueprint for the world and the blueprint for the proper operation of the world, proper functioning of the world, then by observing the Torah, a person is making a rectification of himself or herself and the entire world, making the world run in the best possible way. So, the world is meant to function according to laws of Torah. And therefore, when a soul transgresses the laws of Torah, something in the world breaks down. Something in the world man malfunctions. So, the Torah creates a killkul, which is a ruination. A transgression creates a killkul, a ruination, which is the opposite of the tikkun or a soul correction. Now, we can understand why our ancient sages, they didn't want to accept the Book of Ecclesiastes that King Solomon, the wisest of all men, wrote. Because right in the beginning, King Solomon called the world "vanity of vanities." And they said, "What is he? Heaven forbid, he's a heretic?" Hashem wrote in Genesis, "Here is my world. It is very good." He made it all good. It's very good. And comes along this upstart king. Okay, he was a son of King David. And sure, the the the Mel Gibson The Sa- Samuel probably tells the King Sa- King was the wisest person that ever walked the the face of the earth. So, where do I guess it? Where where does he come off saying that the world is is vain of vanities? Vanity of vanities. Well, be easy to explain. Easy to explain. The military rabbi explained this to me and he said that what the what Breishit the Genesis talking about is the way Hashem created the world. Hashem created the world to be a wonderful place and Hashem gave us a Torah that if we observe it to our wonderful place. King Solomon in Ecclesiastes, he was taking a photograph taking a very perfect photograph of the world what human beings are doing with the world. And we saw what human beings are doing in the world he says vanity of vanities. They're turning the world to vanity. So, we see where Hashem wrote in the Torah that's where Hashem created the world and what King Solomon was right this is the ruination exactly what the Ramchal is talking about. So, let's talk about reward and punishment. So, every tikkun, every correction of the soul comes with a reward and every killkul, every ruination, it comes with a punishment. Well, that's easy to understand that your child takes a the the car on his or her initiative and they come in with the keys and they say, "Mom, Dad, look outside. I washed the car." So, what the car you know was dirty and dusty from the end of the summer and here it's shining clean. Woohoo! You're going to reward that child something did so happy. And then when the child takes the kid child's got his driver's license already and above the age of 16 or 18 or whatever driver's license is takes the car without permission and comes home with a bender up for number one without permission, number two doing damage. They're not going to You're not going to smile about that. Look at it's easy to understand reward and punishment. We see this this all the time. This happens everywhere we go in society at the place of employment there's reward and punishment. In the family there's reward and punishment. So, we certainly we see this this is this and and up with a Torah because it's understandable. Anyone who builds or maintains or contributes or enhances the creator's universe deserves a reward and anyone that destroys it is got liability. Has to carry liability. Has got to be responsible for that. So, we talk about Rabbi Elyashiv. He was the great-grandfather of Rabbi Elyashiv of the previous generation who was one of our our greatest poskim, our greatest religion rabbinical law givers. His grandfather was a kabbalist. His grandfather was the one of the prime Ashkenazi kabbalists of the generation. He lived from 1841 to to 1926. He's known as Baal HaSulam because he wrote a book of Kabbalah called Leshem Shvua v'Achlama. And the Baal HaSulam he writes that punishment is not vengeance. When Hashem punishes it's not vindictiveness and not vengeance but it's a cleansing of the soul. The punishment cleansing of the soul for example, imagine that you dressed your little five-year-old in his Lord Fauntleroy suit and it's half hour before going to synagogue services on Friday night and the little tyke goes out after the summer rain and starts jumping in the puddles and comes home muddy. And here it is it's only 22 minutes before synagogue service and you're not going to ruin your name taking your little kid with his his white and blue little Lord Fauntleroy suit to the to the synagogue and all muddy. So, you throw in a bathtub and you take scrub you scrub him and he's screaming bloody murder you think what with this stiff soap. So, it's Mommy and Daddy are not punishing. They're cleaning him up cleaning him up fast cuz he's got to get ready for Shabbat. So, some people think that that the you call it retribution that the reaction is really cause and effect as we'll soon learn that the retribution of a transgression is a punishment is Hashem punishing them. Hashem doesn't punish. Hashem is a loving parent who cleans us up. And people erroneously think that either Hashem forgot about their transgressions that they could get away with everything because when they do something wrong they don't see a bolt of lightning coming out of the sky and hitting them on the head. They say, "Hashem's not paying attention. Hashem's got more things to pay attention whether I I did this something." The person thinks something is insignificant. Don't think Hashem forgets anything. Hashem sees everything. And despite their evil doings uh they they don't get punished on the same but the Torah is not Pavlov's dog. The Torah is not little bell and the dog gets a a biscuit. As there's a condition. The Torah doesn't condition us. Okay, it says it doesn't not instant reward and not instant punishment. Once again, what I just said the Gemara in tractate Bava Kamma says anyone who thinks that Hashem has forgotten about their wrongdoings can forget about their life. You think Hashem forgot about your wrongdoings? Forget about the life. It's it's it's not a good thing. The only thing that can wipe a person's slate clean is teshuvah. And that's why with Hashem's divine direction we're talking about the 11th principle of emunah in the month of Elul when we're preparing ourselves for Rosh Hashanah because there's really no better preparation for Rosh Hashanah than enhancing our belief in this specific tenant of our 13 principles of faith. The principle 11. So, we know that by teshuvah that's rectifying. That's cleaning our We're taking our brush and cleaning ourselves and it's not saying, "Okay, I'll do a misdeed and I'll take care of it tomorrow." No, we're doing it right now. Let's compare what we believe in to what other people believe in, what other religions believe in. Okay. They say that, "Ah, forget it. Do what you want. Have a good time. You don't have to worry about it. You've got this flesh and blood savior that atones for everything. You can get drunk and put broken glass on the floor and the flesh blood savior is going to pick up the damage and and then pat you on the head and say you just believe in me and hold my hand and I'm going to walk you right into the heavenly portals." Okay, that doesn't work in Judaism. And in chapter four of Path of the Righteous again that's another one of the Ramchal's books, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, the acronym Ramchal we call him. Uh the path of the path of the justice, Mesillat Yesharim. It's one of our classic ethics books. He reminds us that Hashem judges every act that a person does in absolute justice. A person is liable for everything he or she does and there is no surrogates when it comes to punishment. You can't say, "Okay, Hashem, the take this person and punish him instead of me." No, doesn't work that way. Each one of us has to carry his or her own individual responsibility. So, person might ask Well, we're again we go back to the question we asked in the beginning of the lesson. Why do I have to be held responsible? We learned the first principle that Hashem alone did, does, and will do everything. So, according to that Hashem made me sin or Hashem made me do something good. Well, if we open up the Chofetz Chaim in his classic book Ahavat Chesed, the love of compassion, he talks about all the especially it's all about loaning money and doing charitable deeds for people. He says that the outcome of a deed is up to Hashem. In other words, whether he succeeds or not that's up to Hashem. We don't know the outcome. We know we go to work in the morning. We know we make a business deal but we don't know what the outcome is at. The outcome is up to Hashem. So, constantly Consequently, a person is rewarded for good desires or for bad desires. In other words, person had a good desire and wanted to do something good but it was coerced and he couldn't do that good thing. But Hashem it's as if he did it cuz that was in his soul in his heart and it's a good book to Hashem. He wanted to he wanted to to help a person. The person pushed his help away. Didn't want to let him help. Okay. That He came with a wonderful intent. That's it. So, reward and punishment once again, it's not Pavlov's dog. It's not instant gratification for the reward and it's not the bolt of lightning for the punishment. It doesn't happen instantly because if it were uh we'd be like white mice in laboratory. We'd be conditioned and condition is not reverence of Hashem. It's not fear of Hashem. Uh and so anybody that says the one that's hungry for a chunk of cheese then do something that a white mouse would do and we walk through the labyrinth and get our chunk of cheese. So, walk through a Torah labyrinth what Torah says do something we do it very readily to get our chunk of cheese. That's not why we observe the Torah. Nevertheless, righteous deeds do have an immediate effect. In fact, in the fact that when someone does something righteous, the moment you put your hand in your pocket and take that one coin of charity and even you're on the way to put it in the charity box. You're on the way to put it in the needy person's hand that is already benefiting your soul. And the final the hug and kiss to the soul is putting that that that coin in in the charity. Giving that coin charity. But it begins the minute a person begins to do the mitzvah even before the person does the mitzvah. Person is thinking, "Oh, here they the caretaker of the synagogue is walking around with a with a charity plate. Okay, I want to put a dollar in that plate." Okay, it's a you the moment you told yourself that you want to put a dollar in the plate or half a dollar in the in the in the coin box, it's already begins the rectification of soul. You're doing great for the soul. And that's the And this is Imagine a a spiritual pill you take that works immediately. So, that's the the cause and effect. So, it enhances the health and the opposite is an immediate immediate uh damage. And it begins it begins at different levels because it damages the soul. So, in fact, cause and effect uh it's not reward and punishment is not correct. It's really cause and effect because the Torah says that the Torah says in in uh the parsha 2 weeks ago that look, did you you do the good, you get the reward. And do the opposite, you get the punishment. So, compare the Torah with the owner's manual of a new car. Okay, and then you comes you buy your new car and in the glove compartment you have your new owner's manual that says how to maintain your particular model, that model that you just purchased. It tells what type of fuel to use and what type of viscosity of oil to lubricate the engine with and how much to fill the tires, what the tire pressure should be. It says how often you have to change the oil, you need to change the spark plugs in order to maintain your 5-year warranty, whatever it is. And have to go and get checked out by an authorized garage that uh knows how to maintain that car. So, the manufacturer always specifies that the new car warranty depends on proper maintenance and upkeep of that maintenance. That's why the mechanic has to sign the book wherever you do this is 5,000 mi maintenance, 10,000 mi maintenance. They have to sign and this is this keeps uh the owner's warranty, the guarantee and it's valid. Okay, it's a validity. And who what happened What what's that owner? That owner's manual was carefully written by the designer of the car, by the chief engineer. Now, imagine that a new car owner he wants to save money. He thinks he knows more than the owner's manual. So, instead of using good quality 40-weight oil that would cost maybe $6 a quart, he tries to lubricate his car with a quart of vegetable oil that's on sale in the supermarket for a quarter of the price, $1.25. All right, so he thinks vegetable oil instead of the high viscosity uh $6 quart oil. Does the same thing with the fuel. He says, "Why should they have high octane gasoline? Hmm, what do I need this high octane gasoline for?" He says he says he says diesel fuel costs half the price. But it won't be long. >> [snorts] >> Put diesel fuel and vegetable in that car, that car is going to be towed to the garage cuz the inane owner will not have a legitimate claim that the car doesn't function. And then they see what he did to the car, he's going to lose all his warranty privileges and they won't be they'll take responsibility. Not that the manufacturer doesn't take responsibility for a person who destroys the car. So, let's think for a moment that this is a simple child's parable. It's straight out of the Torah. And the passage I alluded to in A, "Behold, I place before you today a blessing and a curse. The blessing if you shall heed the commandments of Hashem your God which I command you today. And the curse if you shall not heed the commandments of Hashem your God and stray from the path which I command you today." That's chapter 11 Deuteronomy verses 26, 27, 28. So, those three passages they're especially significant in the way they make a simple statement. It's cause and effect. Do this and this will happen and do this and this will happen. It's like a chemist in lab. Put these two chemicals together, put nitric acid and glycerin together, look out. Look out, you're going to explode. It's it's So, oh, it exploded. We know this. We know this. This is predictable. And chemistry tells us if we put two particular chemicals together, what the reaction is going to be. Or you put two chemicals together, it's going to cause heat, tremendous heat. But we know what what the reaction is going to be. So, Rabbeinu Bachya, he writes in his elaboration of Torah There's two Rabbeinu Bachyas. There's Rabbeinu Bachya of Duties of the Heart, that's Rabbeinu that Chovot Halevavot, that's Rabbeinu Bachya ben Yisrael ibn Pekuda. And Rabbeinu Bachya that uh comments on the Torah, that's Rabbeinu Bachya ben Asher. Rabbeinu Bachya Asher explains where heeding a commandment invokes a blessing. Not only is it a rectification of your soul as we learned earlier, it invokes a blessing for you. Transgressing a commandment invokes a curse. Not only does it destroy a person's soul, it invokes a curse. So, again, here you are, to begin with yourself. That we take responsibility ourselves and so many people complain that their lives are difficult, let's stop and think. After assess themselves, what did I do to enhance my life? What did I do to destroy my life? And stop and think, "Well, did I maybe go against Torah and say something bad about someone? Did I maybe touch uh a dollar or a quid that's unauthorized, that I don't have a right to touch that? Maybe I I didn't I went against Torah in some way that Okay, you have to check and this is why we do daily self-assessment to keep ourselves happy and healthy. So, Rabbeinu Bachya says that it's cause and effect. Reward and punishment you choose between a blessing and a curse. The Torah says this explicitly and it's simple to understand because if a person puts their hand in ice water, then the hand is going to feel a sensation of cold. You see a bucket of water filled with ice, you expect to be to feel cold. And if a person foolishly puts their hand in a bucket of boiling water, it's going to have a serious burn, God forbid. So, we know this, we can expect this like in a chemical lab. We have anticipated uh effect what is going to happen. Now, in the time of Torah and the time of the Holy Temple, when Hashem's presence is right here with us, we have the divine presence revealed, then it's more immediate. If there's someone in the Holy Temple that would speak lashon hara, that would speak evil tongue, boom, leprosy right on the spot. And they have to go again, they have to be segregated for for a whole week and then have to be cleaned up for another week and and have to be they don't go to the doctor, you go to the high priest. And the high priest sees if a person made shuvah or not. And then he has to bring a ritual sacrifice. The ritual sacrifice is a couple of expensive uh you're talking about $800 worth of animals at least that that be sacrificed to this to to atone for a person. So, we see there it's much more immediate. So, our teachers our sages teach throughout the Talmud that coercion exempts a person from punishment and coercion but the against a reward, person doesn't do a reward. So, one doesn't deserve to be punished for a transgression they were forced to commit. God forbid, God forbid uh person is a captive in Gaza and they're forced it to stay alive to to eat something not kosher. Uh it's not going to be punished, no way. No way does So, coercion there's no free choice there. And likewise, a person doesn't deserve a reward if someone would put a gun in his head and say put your hand in the pocket and give a a dollar to charity, person doesn't need to do a reward for the charity because he was conferred if he was it was coerced, coercion. So, reward and punishment only make sense in the context of absolute free choice, a perfect 50/50, perfect balance and that's why Hashem maintains a perfect balance of good and evil in the world. People say, "What are you talking about? Look at all the evil in the world. Look at all the evil in the world." Let me tell you something very encouraging. People are so down on us this and that. Let's look at our group. Look at our group. How many groups like this are in the world? Not many. So, it means that look how much evil there is, p- a million times more. It just shows that the power of those who are doing good are thousands of times stronger than those who are doing evil. So, the the chef it it it's obvious that Hashem won't let our group grow too big because otherwise it's upsetting the balance of power in the world. So, happy people that that are group that are trying to get close to Hashem and learning a moral. This is this see this, you give yourself a lot of credit, encourage that encourage ourselves not to be down on ourselves, encourage ourselves in positive reinforcement that we're doing Sure, it's hard and sure we have difficult and you look down the list every every one of us, people person contact with me and and the tests we're going through, whether it's income tests, whether it's health tests, whether it is uh with a family family tests, all kinds of things. Why? Because trying to get close to Hashem. And this is the evil inclination is a little bit stronger and Hashem picks the bar up to make us to make us stronger. So, once again, so in order to fully understand We learned this twice already in our introduction to the 13 principles. We learned this several weeks ago of spiritual anatomy. You have to go through this again and it's good to review this because you really have to know this to understand yourself and to understand the dynamics of what is going inside of us, how we make this free choice and the struggle inside of us because each one of us, if we're here, each one of us has the 50% side of good and the 50% side of evil and we have to overcome This is each one of us is a Jacob fighting Esau's angel. This is a proverb that surface value but the inner meaning is the spiritual struggle that every one of us is fighting. Now, the difference between people in our group and other people is we know that we're fighting the battle. We know that there's a battle going on. The people don't understand what's happening cuz they're going through spaced out completely spaced out that Lucy in the sky with diamonds. They don't know what's going on with them. Okay, so in order to understand reward and punishment, we have to understand the dynamics of this battle and how body and soul interact with one another and this interaction determines free choice. That's why we understand why we're going to review the spiritual anatomy. So, once again, there's three levels of the soul. Three levels of the soul, okay, this is the third time we're learning this but every time we learn it every time I don't know how many every time I learn it helps me internalize it and I've learned it lots of times and taught it lots of times but still more happy to do it because take this to myself. Uh there are three levels of the soul that correspond to the three levels of the body and although three levels of body and soul are vital, we view them vertically from top to bottom. That's how we're built. Okay, so the top level the top level of the body that's the head and top level that is the brain. The top level of the spiritual level is the neshama. The neshama is the divine soul that we talk about that spark of godliness which is in every one of us. Okay, so here up here is a person's powers of cognizance and understanding. The middle level of the soul that is the heart the ruach the spirit corresponds to the middle level of the body which is the torso the center of which is the heart. And in the ruach one's powers of speech This says the animal doesn't have ruach doesn't have spirit cuz the animal can't speak. A bark or a neigh is not speech. Speech is our speech with verbal speech. Which this separates us from the animal kingdom and a person's and also here in the heart is a person's desires and this includes our emotions like love and hate and one's preferences and one's aspirations and hopes. Now, the bottom level of the soul that we're going further down we're going to the digestive organs and further self that is in the soul that's the nefesh. The nefesh is the basic animal soul. Every animal every every creation has nefesh. It all has a basic soul. An animal's a basic soul. Even a plant has nefesh basic plant soul. That's why when you talk to your plants nicely they'll grow nicely because they they have the there's been research on them people that not spiritual at all. And you talk to a glass of water and then freeze it you can see if you talk to a glass of water nicely and you freeze it the crystals will be very beautiful and very symmetric and if you yell at the glass of water then the crystals are going to be look under microscope they're very jagged. You can see we can see the level a person can see how a person can uh people say how can you prove the spirituality? We can see that's not people that did did not even spiritual not even Jewish Japanese Japanese researchers they they were the ones that made these experiments. They were the ones that made these experiments talking to the plants talking to the glass of water and they don't spend their time we spend our time learning we don't talk to glasses of water. Do do talk to plants sure. I did talk to plants and used to compliment my when I was a farmer I'd compliment my trees say trees you guys are beautiful and going to make you more beautiful especially after pruning it admire them and the trees and they they'd be happy they give they give a nice fruit. Okay, okay, so My esteemed rabbi the military rabbi may God bless him. He explains a teaching from the Zohar in parshat Pinchas and it teaches us a profound secret about the interaction of these three levels of the soul. And this is the key to understanding the notion of free choice and also explains how a person makes his or her own decisions that there are two types of flow that the flow the noble flow which is top to bottom or the ignoble flow which is bottom to top. Okay, so the noble flow goes like this. Uh it's a person's decision process. Now, when the soul governs the body and the divine soul governs the animal soul then the brain clarifies the truth up here with the divine soul is. So, say divine soul what's truth and divine soul will call up what the Torah says this and does that and here's what we do and this is the ethical way. Ramchal says this and Hafetz Chaim says this and we this is true this is what we have to do. The truth is that we refrain from saying this certain thing because it could be could be uh insulting it could be slander don't say a word. Okay, so don't say a word. So, all the animal urges they fall aside because the divine the divine soul is telling the heart what to desire. He said this is really good. This is really good and and going against it is really bad so the heart hears this heart accepts this wisdom and the heart internalizes now the heart creates this desire and the brain down to the heart they govern in liver where the animal soul is that it it falls into place. Okay, so from the message from the neshama goes down to the ruach the spirit in the right side of the heart that in this case it's the right side of the heart and the decision that was made up here by the divine soul is converted into an upright desire in the heart. This filters down here this becomes an upright desire. I want to give this coin to charity. Okay, this is a that's it that's it the the soul says the neshama says the divine soul says it's really a great thing to give charity. It's really going to help this poor person and help me pretty you don't know you help this poor person and you're helping generations to come. Who knows that this may be the the the five quid that separates between him and starvation that they don't have anything to put the milk and bread on the table. Okay, so sure so so now the heart says oh yeah I want that. I want that to save the people's lives it gets a message from him and then they give the message down to the nefesh the animal soul in the liver and it tell the animal soul in liver put your hand in the pocket and take out the five quid take out the five dollar bill and give it to the poor person. Where the if it were the other way around then the animal soul would say yo yeah I'll put the five dollars and I'll buy myself a six pack of beer or whatever I'll buy myself a beer or or some kind of caffeine drink no do something for myself. No. You do that because the downward flow that that divine soul in the brain dictated the upright desire in the heart where together they tamed the horse. This is the wild horse that they these tamed. So, they get on his back and they ride. So, of course the divine soul cannot do perform the mitzvah cuz it doesn't have a hand it doesn't have a pocket and the heart can't perform the mitzvah but the animal soul that's the body. He controls the body. The body is put your hand in the pocket take the bill give it to charity instead of buying yourself a beer. Okay, that's it. That is the dynamics of the noble flow from top to bottom. Now, in the noble flow when it goes that your divine soul dictates to your desire it makes it an upright desire and this upright desire sends down a or ordinance to the body and the body falls into place then it's spiritual nobility. In other words, you've become right away one of the princes or princesses of humanity because that's is the outcome when the brain dictates the heart and the heart's desires and aspirations they likes and dislikes they develop in according to the dot the spiritual cognizance that you got from the brain and together this in the downward flow down to the body the influence from top to bottom enables a person to emulate the creator and in a such a fact that the divine soul overcomes this a great big animal body. It's like a lighting tiny little princess taming this fire eating dragon. That's the proportion where the drag tremendous brontosaurus size dragon that spits fire and has a little tiny princess she controls him and this is a fantastic thing that makes this is noble. Of course, she's a princess she's noble she's nobility. So, the Torah says explicitly even if though a telegraphic manner when it says in Deuteronomy chapter 4 39 and you shall know this day and internalize in your heart that Hashem is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath there is none else. So, what do we learn by that passage? First we learn that this knowledge the knowledge of emunah that it comes in our brain it's not enough that it stays in our brain we have to bring it down to our heart. And it's not enough that we have to bring it down to our heart we have to bring it down to the body. So, people say oh no don't I don't need to do these things I'm I'm a good person in heart or I'm a good person. It's not enough that we have to do to do our correction. That's say, do think Hashem gave us hands and and feet and legs? It's because they all have to join in the party. Well, they have to they have to be subservient to Hashem. Rabbi Nachman of Breslov says that a person isn't a servant of Hashem until every drop of blood in his or her body is engaged in performing a mitzvah. Now, that's something difficult for someone to understand until they learn the 11th principle of Muna. Once we learn the 11th principle, we can understand the principle of Rabbi Nachman. So, the above dynamics, we talk about from top to bottom, they enable a human to attain the highest order of nobility and human dignity. You understand, when a person has that high order of human dignity and nobility, it's a no-brainer that when he sheds he or she sheds their body after 120th birthday, then they walk right in to the place of nobility. That's their befitting place. And if they don't have this place of nobility, they have to go to the They have a dry cleaner, and it's a very hot dry cleaner. And they get the dry cleaner to clean up the the the the the the soil the the soil the soul the soiled soul. Okay. So, that This is the top-to-bottom flow, the noble flow, trains a person being nobility. And that's what once again from the neshama in the brain down to ruach, the spirit in the heart, down to nefesh, which is the animal soul in in the liver. Okay. Now, there's the opposite, the ignoble flow. The ignoble flow, look what happens when the reverse goes. That's the it's reversed. The nefesh, the basic animal soul, it's a big 2,000-lb bull, 2,400-lb bull. And again, the divine soul is a little princess. What can she do against this big bull? Unless she influence the heart, the right side of the heart, and together they train an animal. Because even look at an animal trainer, a person that take a a a young girl, she's an expert horse trainer, and she weighs 105 lbs, but she takes this wild stallion and and she trains him. She gets him back and rides him. She very petite, dainty little girl. And then you you can see that's how it works. It doesn't matter what her physical strength is because she doesn't use physical strength to train that horse. She uses her acumen, uses her skill to train that horse. And same thing with a a dog trainer. You take a a fierce dog, a fierce German Shepherd, and if the the German Shepherd would attack the the dog trainer, be in bad shape. Unless he could be in bad shape. But the dog trainer, he knows how to take that animal desire and to channel it. So, we can understand what the divine soul was capable of doing when we look at animal trainer. It's a basically the same thing. And Hashem gives us these physical metaphors, these examples in our lives. As again, Rabbi Nachman teaches us in the very first teaching in Likutei Moharan. He says it in in the first section, Torah Aleph, that uh that the person has to look at the wisdom of all of creation. So, what do I learn when I look at an animal trainer? I look at wait a second, this is the way I need to train my animal soul. In other words, my divine soul my They they're trainers. They have to train this wild horse or this weird wild bull and train it so that it doesn't become a wild bull, but it could pull a plow and and in a most difficult most difficult field. So, what that doesn't happen in the ignoble flow cuz that big bull, he runs the show, and the bull demands physical pleasures, certain foods, they're palatable foods, and your food refuses to be controlled, and he doesn't care whether those foods are healthy or unhealthy or kosher or not kosher. You understand, people go to a physician, and the physician looks at their blood test, and says, "My friend, your sugar's really high. We're going to take you off sugar." And then he goes home and eats sugary things. What, he's committing suicide? Doctor said you're on borderline diabetes, and if you don't fall in line, you're going to need insulin very fast. And they go right back to it. Or people that have liver problem, they continue drinking all types of different things because their body is acting like a wild horse and refuses to be controlled. So, the palate deserves it certain things, and just we're talking the palate, we're talking nicely. What about when the reproductive organs that have two commandments of the Torah, one is to be fruitful and multiply, that's for reproduction, and the other is marital gratification, that for the husband and wife to gratify one another. That's it. That's what we use the reproductive apparatus for, for doing mitzvahs. Because there's 613 mitzvahs compared to 613 parts of the body. It's not a game. It's not playing What do What do they call it? The pickleball? You know, the the Well, the game It's not It's not tennis. It's not handball. But no, when that in that upward flow, and excuse me, the ignoble flow, the ignoble flow, the body says, "No." The body demands the neighbor's spouse. Oh, you say, "But that's really serious. That's going against the 10 commandments. You can't do that." Oh, no, the body's eyes want it. But really, the body and and its way salivates and wants that neighbor's spouse. But you can't do that. That's a married person. That's adultery. You should not commit adultery. No, the body's a broken bronco, and the body's going to do everything. The body doesn't listen to the heart. In fact, the body does even more than that. The body overcomes the heart rather than taking the upright desire, when the heart listens to the divine soul, now the heart is overpowered by the body, and the heart gets an unworthy desire, an immoral desire, and the heart really becomes infatuated. The heart joins the body. Joins the body's party. What are you doing, heart? You did Oh, but the body told me to. Okay, the body has this urge. The body feels this urge in that certain parts of his body. The heart goes and the heart become joins the party and becomes infatuated. Infatuated with a thought of of this particular person that is not allowed. That extramarital It's not It's not allowed, body. Don't you understand that? No, body don't understand. Heart, you're going to play with me. So, when Now the body and the heart, they go and they engage in this activity, divine soul says to Hashem, "You put me in that brain. Hashem, I I can't be here. I can't be here. I I can't be contaminated." Okay. Hashem says, "Come home. Come home, soul." So, at that point, the divine soul leaves the body. Hold it. Time out. There is no void in spirituality. The moment that the divine soul leaves the body, that the void that's left up here in the brain is filled with the dark side. A dark side spirit of evil fills the brain, and the person becomes even more and more and more. Now, the dark side says, "Go for it, body. Go for it, heart. Get it right there." And that's not enough with this the next neighbor's spouse. Let's go on the other side, across the street, near then all over the place. And now having a time, we're going to go and really become corrupt. And that's when as soon as that dark side spirit comes, a person is a candidate for head of the mafia. This is what happens. This is what happens cuz the nefesh is an untamed bull, and its dictating overruns the heart. But now the left side take control of the left side of the heart, which is the evil side where the blood is. The right side is where the good inclination is. That's what King David tells us in the Psalms, "My heart is is a vacuum inside me." So, he's talking about the left side of his heart. King David completely cleaned out the left side of the heart from all influence of the liver. It wasn't there. It wasn't there. Wasn't there. Completely cleaned it out. But with a person that doesn't have even the divine souls left them, and this is what uh I remember he said a joke from Rabbi Arioch. He used to tell me all the time that a couple of the Goan has specific situations when a uh soul leaves a body. When a person gets angry, the soul leaves the body. When a person commits adultery, the soul leaves the body. So, uh said that they would say, "A person, really, your soul left your body." What happens when a person converts? He gets a brand new soul. So, he said, "Really, when when you look at it, if a person's soul leaves the body, they need to do a conversion process to get it back." And that was He says that for shisheesley, but there's a a little bit of truth to that. It doesn't come back so easy. It's the person that has to really make difficult teshuvah. And this is things people need to think about. About what are my desires? What are my priorities? People look about, "Well, I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't do anything wrong." Or or there people come up to you in synagogue during the month of Elul, and they say, "Oh, do you forgive me? Oh, do you forgive me?" And it's all this It's It's such garbage. What do you forgive me? Forgive me for what? You You didn't I mean, I barely know you. You didn't do anything wrong to me. "Oh, do you forgive me? Oh, forgive me." And they say they go up on Rosh your shot, and say a sham these people forgave me. And I would say I said you didn't do one minute of self-assessment. What do you What is forgive me? That isn't completely No idea. A sham wants us to assess ourselves and to see what we did wrong to rectify this and to bring our divine souls back home and put them in charge. So, the ignoble soul puts a person not only under the complete influence of the body, but in the complete influence of the dark side of spirituality. So, you know, there's a euphemism. It's slang in in every language on Earth every language on Earth and in Hebrew and English and in in Spanish that when a person does something crass or acts crass and or they're rude or they're coarse and they say that person is an animal. That person animal. They say in Hebrew and Yiddish they say wild wild animal. An animal. So, we can say that's rightfully so. That is a very true. It's a spiritually true slang expression because that's exactly what happens when somebody does something ignoble that the animals in charge. So, this cherished brother and sister our challenge of free choice and that lesson that we had to review the spiritual anatomy enables us to appreciate the challenge of free choice and we ask ourselves will our hearts sway toward the evil inclination down in liver or to the influence of the divine soul up in the brain? And we're going to gravitate upward or downward. This is where the choice is. The choice is in the heart, our desires. The choice as we said everything is up to a sham, but our desire. The desire is in the heart. Okay, heart make a decision. Where do you want to go? Do you want the body to have its pleasures or you want to be healthy spiritually and not only not spiritually? Why did my money say it's the same Rambam who gave us our 13 principles of a moon? He gave us also our principles of health because people understand they go together. People ask me Rabbi, what is being a rabbi have to do with being a fitness trainer? I said learn the Rambam. Learn the Rambam because the the this is the the connection the synergism of body and soul that the both must be healthy. And people that that they they eat like crazy. They Oh, they considered Torah scholars, but how can be a Torah scholar when your your belly goes way way above your belt? I said didn't haven't you learned the Rambam? And you probably don't need to to to be that overweight and to to eat your your fourth course of of the your your fourth portion of pie on Shabbat. That's not right. Or your if you're Ashkenazi your your fourth piece of potato kugel. That's not that's not serving a sham. That's serving the body. Okay, yeah they can have a great potato kugel. That's wonderful for Shabbat. And you have a piece of the great normal one piece a second piece. That's sure that's honoring the Shabbat Shabbat. Okay, if it's really outstanding then have a third piece. But then gorging yourselves that that's not serving a sham. That's not serving a sham. So, we have to know we're going to gravitate with a choice of being an animal or an angel. And this is exactly it. We go and gravitate upward and we choose from the top to bottom influence makes us noble like angels. And if this heaven forbid gravitate downward because there is the bottom influence that the body and the evil inclination liver they dictate things then it is a animal animal. So, if that's a desire. That's the choices in the heart and the desire in the heart, but the heart is not only resident the desire is not only resident the only resident the heart. There are other people living in the heart too. It's the emotions of love and hate and sadness and depression. They are in the heart also. So, spiritually evil is the influence the animal soul. It bends the heart out of shape and it depresses it. Evil is what puts a person in depression and good the influence of the divine soul it straightens the heart and uplifts it. Now, if they say they could say find this at least 99% of the time and probably the other 1% we could find also. If I am not in a good mood and if I feel some type of heaven forbid heaven forbid sadness but some type of lack of happiness and I check myself the moment stop time out laser you forgot your moon. A sham strengthen your moon right now sham. I need an emergency dose of a moon emergency moon moon moon. A sham I need to do everything is from you. So, if everything is from you you're my loving father. How can I not feel good? And then remind this is immediate first aid. This is calling the hot solar. This is calling the the Red Cross immediate infusion of a moon putting on an oxygen mask of a moon and and getting a moon. So, King David teaches that the straight of heart they're happy. The straight of heart because straight of heart with the evil bends the heart and good keeps the heart straight. Could they have shown me something something like that that the the commandments of Torah they're straight. They straighten the heart and they gladden the heart which means King David tells his Psalms that a straightened heart is a happy heart. It's a gladdened heart and a bent heart as when say person says I feel bad with American slang you feel bad. Yeah, I'm bent out of shape. You're right my brother. You're right my sister. You are bent out of shape because the evil of bending the heart out of shape and feel the sadness and depression. So, the objective of the evil inclination now we're really getting down. This is they have to understand understand getting to know the enemy by learning a little bit principle of a moon and we get to understand the evil inclination and how it works. The evil inclination works by trying to vanquish a person and inactivating the divine soul and the human soul the upright human soul. So, since the animal soul in human beings and the evil inclination the animal soul down here in the liver and the animal soul and the evil inclination perfect sync. They sync. And as the evil inclination is always with us. As long as we've got a body we've got an evil inclination. But now we have to de-inactivate like the the sappers the bomb squad that deactivate the bomb. We have to deactivate the evil inclination and at the moment the desire is in the heart and the intellect in the brain becomes subservient to the body uh-oh it means that intellect is none other than body gratification. So, you can have a professor of nuclear physics. I remember I had professors in organic chemistry and the professor would stand in front of the thing the professor would be rude and crude and impolite. Like he'd do lecture and at the same time excuse me for being graphic, but pick his nose and do something really disgusting in in very in front of a whole a whole group of people. Come on. Oh, but the professor's got 142 IQ. He's brilliant in organic chemistry. It's still the guy's an animal. Guy's an animal. This intellect is common subservient to the body. It's subservient to the body. This is the the difference between the so-called secular intellect and a person has moral intellect Torah intellect where that's upright intellect that's the noble that's of being a a noble human being. So, a person may think that his or her intellect prevails and it causes the influence to flow properly down the heart and then to the body, but if the person's intellect is based on human logic human logic is out for gratification the body then it's going to be subservient to the body desires as much as it may clothe itself in idealism. So, to attain the noble flow from top to bottom we have to do acquire divine wisdom and that's what we're doing tonight by learning the the 11th principle of a moon by learning Torah and strengthening Torah and strengthening our moon. And it doesn't come easy because the body resists and evil creation resists. You can't you sit and you learn chemistry. The evil creation doesn't bother learning chemistry. Sit down and learn Gamora with a dose of its interpretation and then see what the evil creation does. So, we can't be because it's difficult. We can't be lax in in learning Torah because if we do then we succumb to temptation and wrongdoing. So, a person takes it gives himself a shot of a moon hour once a week. This is the intravenous uh This is your spiritual strengthening your spiritual immunity against evil. That's it. Immunity immunity immunity. Immunity. So, let's conclude tonight's lesson and we have the common denominator of all our spiritual leaders beginning from Abraham to Moses to Rabbi Akiva and down to our latter the the the past century like the Hafetz Chaim and our leaders from this generation even is that they can function in an optimal manner with noble influence from top to bottom even under extreme adversity. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai the author of the Zohar teaches that we're all capable of emulating our noble patriarchs. You can't say no we can't do this. We can't I can never be an Abraham. I can never be a King David, but we can emulate them. We can do what we learn. We pick up a book of Psalms. Pick up a book of the the the so much King David and tells us in Psalms and now you can't say well, I don't understand the Psalms. Pick up a book of Psalms in spoken English and you just see it. It's right there for you. Understand everything. Everything is is is translated language you understand. So, that tells us exactly how to make the right choices and what we have to do and how to fulfill our brain with spiritual nutrition. We read Psalms, spiritual nutrition. We listen to moon hour, it's spiritual nutrition. And that's the benefit of learning and that's the benefit of learning the 11th principle of moon hour and taking responsibility of everything we do and just reviewing tonight's lesson. We hope to get it edited and up on laserbeams.com and moonabeams.com soon. But reviewing this lesson again, at least one time before Rosh Hashanah and it'll be a great preparation. Help you do assessment every day and by virtue of our preparation for Rosh Hashanah, our our desire to do good, Hashem should inscribe every one of us and sign us in the book of long lives, us and our loved ones for the very best year 5786. God bless.