Living with a Torah Consciousness "Walking Humbly with Your G-d" by Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

Good morning everybody. We are now going to do a quick review for those that missed some of the classes over the last few weeks. I want to just sum up the whole Gmorrah and bring down the main points of what we discussed in Gammorra. Alf on the bet that's 61b towards the end we were discussing when you're facing the bas mikdash or with when you're in certain proximity of the basa mikdash how one should behave so we talked about kalos ro which is uh levity and lightheadedness and foolishness one should behave a certain way when they're in certain proximity of the temple the temple compound so the first idea was when you're within a certain proximity that being um sofim and the gammor we discuss could be talking about hard sofim which is in one particular area but it might not be an area it might be the circumference anywhere you can actually see the temple compound you shouldn't be lightheaded and then we discussed uh going to the bathroom if you're in a place where there are no walls and you're outside and you're exposing yourself in which way should you be facing And we went into great detail. If you were north, if you were in Yehuda, then facing east west was more problematic. And if you were in the gal, the northern part of Israel, then north south was problematic. Um, we discussed this might only be when the base of Miknash is standing. We also discussed the idea of what if you're in Yehuda, but you're directly south, should north south be problematic? And if you were in the galo, well, there's no place in the galo really facing east west that's problematic, but north south, should that be problematic. We discussed this and then um we were thinking that because the the divine presence rests in the west so shouldn't be problematic anywhere in the world. So we were discussing Reb himself who decided that it was even init that this should be true that one can only go to the bathroom if there's a wall not even in the open even in Babylon. And then we talked about Ra's own bathroom. He made his toilet seat. He made his bricks arranged in a certain way which were facing east west. That means he faced north south. But Abaya when he went to the bathroom of Rubber, he switched the bricks. He wanted to see if it was a really particular reason that that Ruba did such a thing. And when Ruba went to the bathroom, he actually changed the bricks back to face the way that he wanted them to face. So then we we turned the page and we entered 62A. And uh this is a little bit of a strange discussion because Rub Yeshua and Rabika there's a story Rika once followed Rub Yeshua to the bathroom and he says he learned three things. So what are you following your rabbi into the bathroom for? And at the end he says, "Well, I need to learn Torah." And this is another concept we're going to learn is that shimoo is greater than Talmud. And acting in a more, let's say, familiar way with your rabbi, following him around, being involved on a familiar level with his family, perhaps helping him by carrying his books or his towel to the bath house. um just being around him and assisting him. It's called shimush. Listening to the way people ask questions, listening to the way he answers the questions and seeing how he acts when he makes and he's blessing Hashem, how he prays. So, you can learn a lot more by being in someone's presence when they're actually living life than just sitting in a classroom and listening to what we call head information, but really seeing how he behaves, what his what his facial expressions are. And there's a lot to learn from that. So, anyway, he followed his Revy Yeshua into the bathroom and he learned three things. So one is we don't face east or west at least at that time but rather north and south. We don't uncover ourselves while standing but rather only once you're in the sitting position and we don't clean ourselves with our right hand. Remember this is in a time we didn't they didn't have toilet paper um or let's say running water for that matter. Then Azai came to Rabika and says how how brazen are you that you went and followed your rebi to the bathroom and you're looking at him there. So Rabika says, "Well, I needed to learn Torah and um I I learned I followed him into the bathroom and everyone needs to learn Torah." Then a story of Benazi. Benazi says, "Once I followed Rabbi, I came into the bathroom and I learned the same three things." And Yehuda asked Benazi, "Well, how brazen are you to follow your rabbi into the bathroom?" So Benazi basically said the same thing. It's Torah. I need to learn it. Kahana went into uh Rob's bedroom and hid under his bed. And when he heard Rob converse and joke around with his wife before relations, that's what he heard. Remember, he's doing shim. So Rob speaks, this is what he said. Like he's very lightheaded for pleasure, like one who never had relations before. And Rav Kahana said, "Oh, you were here." There's a home locus whether he was actually in the room or whether this conversation took place later or he was in a u a room underneath and he can hear what was going on in the room above as if not just the the walls are paper thin but the floor was paper thin. He said leave. It's improper for you to be present at such a time. And his response was very similar. It's Torah and I need to learn how to behave with one's wife while in the most intimate of relations. So here's the first question. Why do we why don't we clean with the right hand? So he learned to wipe himself with his left hand. But we say the left hand of the right hand, we're talking about when when pe we mean the right hand of everybody, meaning everyone's strong hand. Therefore, lefties clean themselves with their right hand which is the left hand of everyone else. So when we say why don't we clean ourselves with the right hand. So Rabba gave an answer and he says cuz this is the reason is because the Torah was given with Hashem's right hand. Okay. So if we go to Deuteronomy 33:2 Lo he said Hashem came from Sai having shown forth to them from Sahir having appeared from Mount Pan and then approached with some of the holy myriads from his right hand he presented the fiery Torah to them. Now, Hashem doesn't have any hands, but what we're explaining is that the of the right, the importance of the right, that the das, this fiery Torah, which itself is a nickname for the Torah, came from the right side of therefore, we don't use the right hand to clean ourselves. That's the uh first answer. The second answer was by Rabar Barkana. He says because people regularly put their right hand into their mouths. And I'm left-handed, so I'm I'm obviously picking up my left hand. And the the strong hand, the hand that you use most often is the one you use to put food into your mouth or to clean your teeth with. And therefore, or to clean your mouth with. Therefore, you do not use that right hand to clean yourself with in the bathroom. R Luckus, the third answer, he says, because this is the right hand used to tie the fillin on the left arm. So, since I'm left-hand, then I use my my right hand, which is my left hand to tie my tfillin on my weak arm. Vice versa, you guys, most people use their right hand. That's the mitzvah hand using the your your strong hand to do the mitzvah of putting your on. Therefore, it's not appropriate. And the fourth answer, he says because this was used to show the mikra the mikra when a person is reading from the Torah Mondays or Thursdays or shabas. So there's an assistant standing next to him and he's helping uh signal the cancellation notes with his hand using we [Music] call sign language to show him the signals to show him the signs of when to raise your voice to lower your voice to extend it and when the end of the verse is and when the where the commas are and the other notes of the cancellation. So it's not appropriate to use the right hand when doing such a thing if you use the right hand for to clean yourself. So therefore you should not clean yourself with your right hand. And there's a um an idea that this was a a um in the Bryce says that usually people eat with that that their right hand. So that's not appropriate. And from Yeshua says people write dra Torah with it which we know that a right-handed person who's a sam who writes Torah is to fill in um the ones that use the right hand they should get a better price. Uh it's it's only been the but it's still kosher to use your left hand. And the third reason said because the right hand is used for showing the which we already said is the cancellation notes. So now anyone who's this [Music] is he said anybody who's su in the bathroom what does that mean? That means quiet that means gentle and quiet in the bathroom and doesn't expose himself more than necessary. In other words, this is what we mean by sua. Modesty. Modesty in the bathroom is safe from three things. From snakes, scorpions, and mazikim. Snakes and scorpions. We know. Mazikim is a little bit hard to um explain, but we can either explain them as demons or dark forces or negative forces. Sitra a things that come from the dark side and they attach themselves either to you to your words. And that is something we want to um avoid. And some say and is also very important that even his dreams are not disturbed. So maybe I'll take a few moments to discuss this idea of tuma and tahara even though we're talking about mazikum and demons and the negative forces but I think it relates in a certain way. So you have what we call tahara and that let's say represents life and you have tuma which in its most severe form is represented by death. But what is death? Death is the absence of life. So where you have life you would have the absence of this tuma. But once you have the absence of life, then the tuma has a u a way to enter um an ent an entrance, an invitation so to speak. So let's say for example a woman's menstrual cycle when she has a seed which is a life-giving um entity. So she could be pure but once that flushes through her then there's the emptiness of that life force and enters the tuma. So too by death when the person's soul has been removed from his body. So too that uh negative forces have the invitation to enter. So too here let's just talk about the body. We right we we have food. We eat the food and what comes out is solless is the the extract right? But what happens when you eat food no matter what you eat whether it starts with the minerals and then it goes up. There's four levels of existence. You have the domain, the inanimate objects. Then you have life force of plants, which is the next level up. So they raise the sparks and they're a higher level than the minerals. And the life force is in the plants. Then you have an animal that eats the plants and it is actually eating the previous two levels of existence, meaning the domain, the minerals and the life force that's in the plants and that is now in the animal. Now you're going to be the highest level of existence. you eat the animal or you eat the plants or you eat the the the minerals. But when you eat the animal, you're eating all the levels of existence and you're raising the sparks and the nutrition is inside you as you eat. And then your body is absorbing the nutrients. So you're you're you're absorbing the life force and it's entering your blood system and that is where the life is. And that's pretty clear. When you eat, there's a digestive system that draws the nutrients or the life force out. And what's left? It's empty. It's hallow of life. So that is what is left behind in the bathroom. So there's an invitation for the negative forces to attach itself either to it or to the place where this stuff is found. Okay. So then we said that some say that even your dreams are not disturbed if what if you are modest in the bathroom. So I think what we can explain is that it carries over into your life because if these negative forces attach itself to your words that you use during the day or to the negative forces that are created through the vacuum the absence of life I think what happens is during your your your sleep you're also part of your upper soul part of your highest level of your soul departs from you'll say that sleep is like 160th of death so there is an aspect ect of slowing down the respiratory system and part of your higher level soul does depart from you and enters into you the um negative forces and this is one of the reasons we have to wash our hands in the morning when we wake up the negative forces depart from our body and it exits through the fingertips. So when we wake up in the morning, we have to wash the last bit of residue off of our fingertips from those forces that left us while we were asleep. Now, the idea that the being modest in the bathroom allows you to protect yourself from these demons, from any negative forces attaching themselves to you while you're in the bathroom, in the place where there is, let's say, a um heavy containment or a more um constricted containment of these forces. And if you're modest there, they won't attach to you there. And therefore, when you're in your sleep, which is when your defenses are down, that even your even in your dreams will not be disturbed by these negative forces because of the protection you brought upon yourself by being quiet and modest in the bathroom. And just to get an idea, where did the kazal get this idea of being modest even in the bathroom? because it's a place where you normally uncover yourself. If we look at m Mika 68, he has told you, oh man, what is good? What does Hashem require of you? But to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God. In Hebrew, [Music] Right? And this is the most important part at the end. As we said, the English translation was to walk humbly with your God. Is not just modest in terms of dress, but it's an attitude. It's knowing that God is seeing you, hearing you. He's totally aware of you and what you do even in the most even in the most hidden of places of that God walks you walk humbly with your God. And we're going to see later on by a eulogy. It's going to bring us back to this point that if you are humble, how do you know if you're humble? How does anybody know if someone else is humble? So like in a eulogy at the end where someone gets up and says this person was very humble and the discussion takes place. How do you know how humble he was? Were you there in the bathroom with him? Because it's like the litmus test. How does one know? They see somebody on the street and they look humble, right? They dress modest. They don't bring too much attention to themselves. But how do you know they're really humble? The litmus test is when you're in a room by yourself in the most hidden of places and yet you act with a sense of modesty. So we're going to get to that at the end. So the gammor begins talking about this idea of there was a certain bathroom in Tiberius and normally this was a haunted bathroom. Normally nobody goes in there alone because it's haunted. So if two people went in together that would be okay because during the day um normally the mazikin don't affect two people but in this particular place even two people could be affected and yet we hear a story about Raami and Robasi they went into this bathroom one at a time so the rabbis asked them are you afraid why are you going in one at a time so both Robi and Robasi basically claimed they had this tradition that if you're quiet and modest while you're in the bathroom then the mazikim are not going to affect you. And they added something else. They said that also when you have isim, as long as you're quiet, then you should also pray for mercy. And that's the kabala that they have in their hands. Which is interesting because what does this really have to do with that? In other words, what does going to the bathroom and being modest all of a sudden in their statement? So some say it was just said because it was a continuation of their statement. It's very similar and we'll bring it in here. But that's there's always something deeper if this statement is brought here specifically. It could have been brought anywhere. So if one receives problems and difficulties on his life and he is quiet, now I'm not talking about going and venting to somebody and having a person to discuss this with to help you process. But if you go around and you discuss all your problems and you're complaining openly about the problems that have come to you. So if one has a lot of afflictions that come upon them and they're able to process it and realize that it's coming from love from Hashem or vice versa, it's even coming as perhaps a punishment for something they've done that they're able to process it and realize what they've done and change their ways and do chuva. So that would be a you using your afflictions in a wise way and advantageous to yourself because you're going to become a changed person and you're going to become a better person because of it. But if you talk about these afflictions and you just complain. So certainly you're not going to grow and take advantage of the message that Hashem is bringing you by just talking about it. but rather if you accept it in silence and you pray for mercy and you accept it with love, you have a better chance of becoming a better person and getting rid of these afflictions or at least accepting with love and getting a greater reward in heaven. So apparently Abaya's mother which we know was his foster mother because his mother his father died at conception meaning when he was conceived and his mother died at childbirth. So it says Abaya's mother raised the sheep to follow him into the bathroom so he would not be alone. Apparently we talked about not being alone in the bathroom but the good asked what is why did she use a sheep and not a goat. So it discusses the idea that the goat is more like shaped like or looks like or could be in the form of the demon. As we know in mythology, they you do use this half body of the goat on the bottom and a man up top with with um horns. But that's like a whole another how they they came up with this idea. We'll we'll talk about another time. Um then we have this idea of Rao before he became Rosh Shiva. How did he relieve himself? What did he do? So before he before he became Roshiva, his wife which was the daughter of Rhizda, she used to put a nut in a copper pot and make noise from outside. Apparently noise scares away either the the snakes and scorpions and demons. Um but apparently the noise helps and after it became the roashiva. So then she made a window and in the bathroom and she would put her hand on his head at okay so that was what happened with rubb then we discussed how much should how far should one distance himself so we talked about either you're away let's say there's a fence over there there's no real distance necessary as long as you're not seen and then we discussed the idea of sound grunts and other kinds of sounds that happen when people go to the bathroom that these both ideas are part of the discussion of modesty and it seems like the seeing is more important the not seeing is more important than the noises that are emitted. So, if you were behind a wall, but there are noises, it's not a problem. But let's say you're in an open field and you have to go the distance cuz there are no trees to hide behind. There no walls or no big rocks to as far as you can be seen. As far as you can hear because you that's there's no choice. You're going to be seen no matter what. But go as far as the distance. You won't be able to hear. So, we are juggling with these two ideas. So now we have this story or this concept about a showare a guard for a olive press. So the olive press either has workers or people rent out the olive press to use to press their oil to press their olives for oil. And what ends up happening is not everyone there that either works there or is renting it out is such a wise and may not know all the laws of tuma and sahara. And that could really mess up when we talk to olive oil either used for the ma mikdash or given as gifts to the kanim and uh or other other things that have to be eaten in purity and therefore one person touching the wrong stuff liquids could mame and make it not useless but not for the right uses and it's a nic it could be a damage at least in value. So therefore, the shower, the guard, is kind of either he's questioning people and keeping people at a distance. So what if he's guarding in the middle of the day and he needs to go to the bathroom. So how far can he distance himself or does he need to distance himself? Cuz usually we just discussed seeing and hearing. So there's a leniency here that he can um go to the bathroom quite close, but that he should at least still be able to see what's going on inside. uh people should know where he is that he's that he's not this that he did not disappear. Okay. Then we've discussed this idea of someone giving a eulogy. So if someone gave a eulogy now just the idea that one should or could you know exaggerate the greatness of the person that's the tendency but we're not allowed to lie. You have to distance yourself from lies. So there is an idea that one is allowed to exaggerate a little bit but they still tell the truth. So what happens this guy gets up and he says man this guy which passed away was very modest in all of his ways. So how can that be? First of all comes to him and says how do you know he was modest in all his ways? Did you enter the bathroom with him to see if he was modest there? Because there's a concept that says one is called modest only if he's modest in the bathroom. So why did care if the deceased was really to or not? So here this is an idea. Just like the deceased are punished for their sins when they are praised for merits that they did not have have at all. This arouses judgments against them. Also false eulogizers are those who endorse their words. and exaggerate their words, you're going to be punished. So, you got two aspects. The person you're eulogizing, if you exaggerate too much, so that's not helpful to him, he'll be punished because the judgment is aroused that people think he did this, but he didn't. And on the other hand, because you're lying because you're exaggerating, you will also be punished. So, this was a legitimate question, but it brings us back to this idea. And I think that the muser hoskll the bottom line of all these gamoras if you want to narrow it down to one very important point is that one should be cognizant of the fact one should really be aware of the idea that God is around us at all times. He we right you walk with God humbly not just when you're around people but in everything you do. When you go to the bathroom that's the real litmus test. Are you modest? This is inar This is in a private place where you don't expect to see anybody. Okay? You're in a place where you know I'm not talking about an outhouse anymore. I'm even talking about your own bathroom. You have an on suite. I'm sure that when you had a shared dwelling and you had an outhouse that you had to get basically get dressed before you went out there, it was much easier to be cognizant of this fact because we cared about what other people thought of us. But now that we have our own onsuite bathrooms or bathroom right next to our bedroom and if we sleep in the naked we should still try our best to be even inar and that's the real litmus test. How do we act in terms of modesty? Are we modest even when there's we know there's nobody looking? And I don't mean modest in the sense of only showing skin. I mean modesty in the terms of being anonymous, in terms of not trying to be the life of the party. Maybe there's are people who that's their personality and Hashem, they should live and be well. Unfortunately, there's also people that are a little bit on the um they're a little bit troubled with um self-esteem issues. So, this is something we all have to work on. Even if we have self-esteem issues and we want to be the life of the party, so it's coming from a negative. Okay. But what about those that are coming from a positive? They just have a bubbly personality. They also have to work on trying to walk humbly with their God and not get too much attention. So it depends how you dress, depends how you act, depends how you talk to try to be let's say anonymous to try to blend in even if you are a very charismatic figure and not try to take over and be a the center of attention but rather the center of attention should go towards Hashem and we should do our best to walk humbly with our God.