Mind Control, Heart Control (Parshas Va'eschanan)

so there was a bar mitzvah and uh people brought gifts and there were a bunch of cards with checks and the parents were running around at the bar mitzvah they didn't know what to do with the the envelopes full of money and checks so they uh the rabbi was standing there they figured oh rabbi you know rabbi is a trustworthy person so they said rabbit can you hold on to our son's bar mitzvah checks he said sure no problem um after the bar mitzvah they couldn't find the checks and they were very like they felt very awkward that maybe the rabbi pocketed it and they didn't want to ask him because he felt it was rude like a week later the father saw the rabbi walking down the street and he says hey howie how you doing and the father's sort of like acting awkward so the rabbit says is there something wrong he says listen rabbi we don't want to say you know we don't suspect you or anything but um we handed you all the money all the checks and we can't find them and uh the rabbi says to the father let me ask you you're about a mitzvah boy he puts on filling every day says of course he says i put the checks in the filling back okay i don't know if that's funny or it's tragic or kind of tragic okay all right gallows humor you know bitter galacte so this week's pasha pasha's version we have we have shema and in the shema we have the mitzvah actually i should say properly two minutes in fact that's the whole point of this class is two mitzvahs you should tie them as a sign on your hand voila face and they should be a however you translationally translate type the fight says frontlits whatever that means uh between your eyes okay so and that's the source of the mitz vice plural of phil the twillin know on your palm it means on your arm next to your heart okay so a couple of things a couple of things first question is come these mitzvahs which are so similar putting on head fill and putting on hand to film are described with different verbs a mitzvah is an action right a mitzvah is a as a doing you do a mitzvah they're described with different verbs when it comes to the hand filling which goes corresponding to the heart we say you should tie them or bind them as a sign and then when we say about the headphones they should be they should be as frontlets between your eyes you see you catch the difference okay and it's not just different verbs they're totally different kinds of verbs because chartom is an action that you do it's it's active you tie it you do the tying the haiyu la tayto facebecha is actually describing the trillion the head villain that they should be not that you did anything to them but they should be frontlets between your eyes you know how you found them should it is it that it should bring out an emotion from you going to get to this we're going to get this but first try to understand the the difference in the way that the wording of the passage describes these two mitzvahs because seemingly they're very similar and you would think you'd find one verb that would describe both that would say you know whatever fill in the blank that's filling on the head and same verb filling on the hand okay though the way you put them on uh you're saying because the technically the way you put one one is like this and one's like yeah but ultimately the i mean they're pretty similar things you're putting them on you know in english we don't use two that we would ask somebody did you put on filling we don't use two different actions or we don't even break it up we don't even say did you did you did you tie on the hand filling and did you allow the headphone to be on your head like we don't do that we don't talk that way and yet it seems like that this form should cause something so let me ask you another question the rambam also sticks with these words so clearly these words are not just uh i mean nothing in tota is is by accident but clearly these words are important the rambam when the ram describes these mitzvahs in the minion of mitzvahs in mishna toyota says not only that they're two separate mitzvahs which we know but describes them as one of them is that you should tie the hand villain on your hand or next to your heart and then there should be head filling on your head okay so first of all he sticks with those verbs another thing is though that he switches the order he switches the order because in the passage in the verse we say you should tie the hand villain and there should be the head till so he sticks with the verbs but then he flips the order and he says there are two mitzvahs one is there should be head filling on your head and you should tie hand filling on your hand so if he's being a stickler for how the verse says it why is he switching the order which is a you know pretty obvious change from the way the toyota says it following all this okay so to understand this we're going to learn some basic tanya many of you learned tanya with me so it won't be uh new will be a review one of the basic ideas in tanya is what you're getting at yeah of course you didn't know you were saying tanya of course it just seemed like it should it should bring about something two different things right this is one of the the terms one of the phrases that we use a lot in tanya hamayak the brain rules over the heart the whole tanya well the is is about this person who is abandoning he's in between atsadek into russia that behaviorally he's at sadiq because he has impeccable impulse control but internally internally he's like russia meaning he's beset with the same taiwas and temptations and distractions and confusion just like a russia but behaviorally he never he never gives in and the out there explains why is he able to do that or rather i should say how is he able to do that because because the abhishek created the human being in such a way that the brain rules over the heart and the brain rules over the heart means a couple of different things and if you learn tiny with me you know that and uh won't get into a whole exposition on it now but let's just take one approach to explain mayor charlton live the brain rules over the heart brain rules of heart means like this i can't control what i feel i feel what i feel you know sometimes people like to say in sort of like a harsh way feelings aren't facts that's true feelings aren't facts but it is a fact that you have a certain feeling that's just a fact so we have feelings and sometimes i got news for you our feelings are not the ones we would like to be having we have feelings that we wish we didn't have we hate what we wish we didn't hate and we love what we wish we didn't love and that's a fact that's just a fact and you know the difference between repression and suppression i'm saying from from a psychological point of view so there's there's there's something that you are so um ashamed of that you won't even admit that you have it so that's called repression you don't even know that you're repressing it because you can't even admit you have then there's suppression which is you know every time that you cover your mouth before you cough that's suppression it's impulse control so you're making a conscious choice that hey you know what it's okay that i have this impulse but i'm going to choose how i express or don't express this impulse so we have all types of feelings and unless you're at sadiq it's pretty much par for the course that a lot of your feelings are going to be feelings that are not alpito they're just not holy they're not wholesome they're not they're not things that you wish you had but but you do you do have them that's what it is that's life their their heart is under their control they can choose to only love what's worthy of love but uh if you're not a tadka what's a toddler it's like who said my heart is dead within me my heart means the temptations the desires the lusts of the heart and the gamora tells us he killed with fasting he did a whole program of how to rid himself not just of uh on a behavioral level of anything undesirable but even on an emotional level that his emotions should be completely pristine okay and that's called a toddic but anyone else you're gonna have certain emotions that you wish you didn't have so what do you do about it well to a certain extent you accept it you accept you know it's interesting i was talking to the professor who taught the most popular course of all time in harvard he's an israeli guy originally israeli named tal ben shahar and he wrote a whole book he wrote many books actually on happiness and he he specialized in the study the academic study of happiness and he taught a course at harvard on happiness so somebody arranged that i should speak with him about tanya and its intersection with what current uh secular studies about happiness have to have to say on the subject and uh so we had a very nice discussion it's actually i i should get that video it's not on soul words i'm not even sure where the video ended up but it's a very interesting zoom discussion that we had a few months ago during you know uh we still didn't have live classes almost maybe half a year ago i'm not sure but anyways um so one of the things we're discussing is he said that part of happiness is to accept that you are going to feel unhappy like he didn't use these words but sometimes i've heard people formulated as being comfortable with being uncomfortable and that's definitely true and even in a moral context tanya would advise us to be tolerant of your own moral failings on an emotional level that's very important and it's very important i'm saying on an emotional level if you have a feeling that is against torah be tolerant of that because that is the human condition do not condemn yourself for that that is how god made you in fact i could even go further and say celebrate the fact that when you have an unwholesome desire you are actually being given the opportunity to be mekayama mitzvah to perform a a a commandment which is valid there's a is we say it in the shema that do not stray after your eyes in your heart that you go lusting after so like the tiny explains in chapter 27 sadiq can't even do that mitzvah because they don't have the temptation in the first place but if you're tempted by something that's forbidden by torah and then you catch yourself and say no i'm not going to do it i'm not even going to fantasize about it so that's important because thought is also a behavior albeit one that we engage in in our own heads but i'm not going to do it i'm not going to fantasize about it i accept the fact that i was attracted to it that's just that's out of my hands that's i don't control my feelings but i'm rejecting it on a behavioral level even the behavior called willful thinking which is an important point so so tauban shakai was saying part of happiness is being tolerant of the fact that a human being is going to inevitably experience a gamut of emotions and the the tanya is saying essentially the same thing even even the kids even in a moral context it could be a moral person meaning a person who wants to do the right thing and and believes in the divinity of torah and that every mitzvah for the torah gives us is hashem telling us how to live our lives so obviously fulfilling the entire torah is incredibly important to this person and yet at the same time you might call it a paradox i don't even think it's even paradoxical once you understand it properly that as much as i realize how much i want to fulfill every mitzvah i'm totally tolerant of the fact that on an emotional level again i'm going to stress the term emotional level on an emotional level i may not not i may inevitably i will have emotions that run counter to what taylor wants me to do and it's okay why because america although the brain rules the heart so i don't have to try to accomplish this impossible goal of ridding my heart of any temptation not going to become a toddic not going to become david amella but what i can do and i must do this is the important part i must do what i am obligated to do is to monitor the feelings of my heart and on an intellectual level on a conscious level be a chooser choose which desires i'm going to give space to you know there's a famous story about a jew went to the ms richard and he says he has problems with stray thoughts distracting thoughts unwholesome thoughts and he wants advice how to deal with it so the the maggie said go to my talmud rabzev who lives in jita so this jew had never been to judamer he'd never met rabzev but he was told by the maggid to go to jetham and find it observe so he went and didn't have addresses at that time he just sort of described the house and eventually people showed him where it was it was out of shabbos he arrived in town out of shabbos friday afternoon before before sundown so he's looking around he doesn't know anyone in chitamar and the only per the only house the only address he knows quote-unquote address is this rebzev who he's never met but he was sent by dubsev's own rabbit so he figures that's good enough uh uh credentials so he he finds the house out of shah was getting close to shabbos and he's knocking on the door and nobody's answering he knocks some more nobody's answering he knocks him or nobody's answering so uh he hears people inside the house i mean you ever heard a jewish house out of shabbos hustle and bustle he knows there's people inside and he but he can't get anyone answered he keeps knocking and knocking knocking it's getting close to job as he realizes he's got his pekka like he's got his you know packages he can't just you got to go somewhere you got to go before sundown he's got to put his stuff away he can't carry on shabbos so eventually it's getting so close to sundown he's pounding on the door nobody's answering he just grabs his stuff and he goes to shul and he puts his stuff down in short and he sleeps in chill like with the other you know homeless people so uh after shabbos somebody comes over him and introduces himself and says oh you're a guest in our town yeah come to my house my my you know my name is he said yes you know she told me he realizes this is the guy so he takes him to his house and he makes a dollar for him and they have malava malka and they talk and it's very nice it's very very pleasant and uh after a while though this guy is like so it's bothering him like here's all this hospitality here saturday night but friday afternoon when i needed it you you ignored me so finally he just says it you know it's the elephant in the room so he just says listen your rabbit the the market sent me to you to learn how to handle stray thoughts you just you were supposed to teach me how to handle my stray thoughts and and i came to town i didn't know anyone else and uh you didn't answer and i heard i heard you friday afternoon i heard you running around inside the house i heard there's people in the house and you didn't answer and it basically made me homeless for shops i had to sleep in the shul and you were supposed to teach me how to deal with stray thoughts so says to this guy how to deal with straight thoughts that was the first thing i taught you when you arrived in zhitamer just because there's a knock at the door doesn't mean that i have to open it that was the first lesson just because there's a knock at the door doesn't mean you have to open it you want to know how to control straight throats that's your answer let's break it down in other words the knock at the door means impulses that are going to try to get your attention and we cannot control who knocks at the door how often they knock at the door how loudly they knock at the door we don't control you know i don't want to speak outside of my expertise and i have to be careful whenever i reference mental health people assume that i know these things and i don't i always say is a disclaimer i don't know these things my father's a psychologist and i rebelled and became a rabbi so i really don't know these things but to my to the extent of my understanding you know there's there's something um called intrusive thoughts which we all have we all have intrusive thoughts and truths of thoughts could be something that comes to your mind that you find morally repugnant and and why am i thinking of this thing like i i it outrages me i'm appalled by it or something that's like dangerous like you're driving down the road and you're like what would happen if i would just fly off the you know purposely turn my wheel and go fly not that the person who's got suicidal just has this ridiculous thought what if i would just go flying off the road those are called intrusive thoughts what happens very often and again please don't take my words so you know with uh don't rely on them so much it's just a rabbi's understanding of it but you know with with obsessive thinking is that a person actually becomes caught in a loop where they are disturbed by the fact that they're having the intrusive thoughts so like in other words what's the difference between a functional person and a dis i don't call a dysfunctional person but a person who's suffering from a certain dysfunction the extent to which they just let the intrusive thoughts roll by which is basically what most of us do all the time but then there's a person who becomes so upset about the fact that i even had that intrusive thought that they start fighting it and that here's the thing that would be like saying i'm going to ensure that nobody that i don't want to knock at my door will ever knock at my door ever again well like good luck you're going to make yourself miserable i'm going to make make up a plan what are you going to do how are you going to make a plan that nobody you don't want knocking your door should ever not knock you should ever knock your door over again they're going to knock at your door that is not not under your control but what you can control is if you answer it if you answer it so what's what's the idea here the heart is is the heart is you know heart's going to feel what it feels and it's going to knock at the door it's going to it's going to ask for your attention it's going to say hey let's think let's let's fantasize let's plan let's scheme and that's inevitable and and then each and every time you know like you know the whack-a-molding boom boom boom you know those little guys the gophers that mean you're going to hit them down okay and every time pops up bam you gotta hit it down okay so our obligation to control our emotions is on a case-by-case basis we never win the war we just defuse each situation as it comes up because that's the nature of the heart so do we control our hearts and to the extent that we have to win each battle but no not to the extent that we can make sure that our hearts should never feel anything that we don't want them to feel ever again however in contrast when it comes to the mind you are responsible for your mind on a whole different level then you're responsible for your heart for your heart it's inevitable that bad stuff is going to come up and you're going to have to knock it down with your mind you're in control of your mind it is your job to go out and learn the proper way to look at life and not to be confused and not to have wrong values go educate yourself go get some clarity you know take a class come to a close educate yourself and know the right thing and then use your mind to always focus on the right thing and at least see here's the thing at least when my heart is coming to me with something inappropriate my mind is able to immediately identify this as something that's not for me so at no point is my mind as confused as my heart where my mind is saying well you know i mean that's that's that's the worst thing when the mind starts to rationalize we've said this before in this class rationalize is rational lies it's where the mind is the worst thing where the mind starts using intellect to justify what the heart already is set on that's the worst thing and and and i'm responsible not to do that to not do that so if my heart lusts after things that are imp that are that are inappropriate okay join the human race but if my mind gets confused that's a bigger problem i'm not supposed my mind is not supposed to be confused you know there was once a young man he went to libya for all the all of you who don't know was the great uh defender of the jewish people he would always find a defense no matter what somebody was doing he would def he would find a defense and um so one time this young man came to libya from dichover and he said i need a tikkun because uh he was a young man he had a girlfriend and he said we we did something and uh the olivier bernice you know some some type of words it was or about about to say some type of words of of comfort or of tikkun or a path of chuva and the guy says but wait wait i want to just add one thing and the guy was like proud of this he says i want you to know it's not as bad as it could have been because we did shivan nikiya we did seven days waiting we used mikveh so levi it's his whole demeanor changed and he said ah in that case i can't help you now in case you think the guy didn't get a tikkun olivier madison told him go see my makutan the balatanya and he'll give you a tikkun and that's what happened the guy went to the altar and the altareba gave him a ticket what what tikkun the although he gave him i don't know but i am assuming it had something to do with mayak al-aleigh why couldn't levi it's give this guy a tikkun in other words when he told him i was ready to find a way to fix it but then he says well it's not as bad as you think it is and no actually it's worse because if you told me that your heart you know they call it a crime of passion right that your heart just got carried away all right you're not supposed to let your heart take you to the point where you actually do something i mean it's it's a sin sin is a sin but i can find there's a way to deal with that because at the end of the day what did the heart do other than what hearts do it just went too far it got to the point where it got you to do something you shouldn't do but if you tell me that for seven days your brain was thinking about this and calculating it and you had enough peace of mind to sit and figure this out it's like you know it's like it says about the akedah why did why did why did hashem tell abram to take yitzhak to a mountain that was three days away why not just do it right there why to get so that nobody should be able to say that he was so confused he was so in shock that he just did it when he heard no three days cooling off period meaning he had three days to sort of think this thing through and say like what this is what i'm doing in this case seven days all right so here's the deal the whole point of filling and it says this in shock this is not a kabbalistic thing it says that when you put on film you're supposed to have a cavanaugh what's the cavanagh what are you supposed to have in to subjugate the heart and the mind that you're being mashable you're subjugating the heart and the mind to hashem means you're putting it under hashem's will okay what does that mean it means two different things depending if it's the mind of the heart if it's the heart then it's all you could be expected to do is a as an act a charter an act meaning every time the heart wants something it shouldn't want so you respond to it basically putting out fires that's just that's that's life for someone who's not a toddic the desire arises and you push it away you know there's a knock at the door and you ignore it each time each and every time and in fact that's your only obligation the real obligation of putting on the filling on the hand which corresponds to the heart is just to put it on that's it once you put it on there's no there's no mitzvah to leave it on the only reason we leave it on is because the whole time you have your head filling on you're supposed to also have your hands filling on so we leave it on because of the head fill but really the hand filling the mitz is to put it on just like with the heart the mitzvah is the act of rejecting the unwholesome emotion and that's it but you're not expected to gain control to the point where it is it is in a state of being under control no it's not in a state of being under control it's constantly poking its head up and you're swatting it down however in contrast to the face being when it comes to that the head villain it should be it should just be it should be that way the shiba damaya the subjugation of your mind to hashem's will should be that way it should be in a state of subjugation to hashem's will so two very different levels of obligation with the heart you have to get it under control and then a minute later get it under control again and a minute later get it under control you shout them out because each and every act is a separate act with with the the with the head the holy later it should just be that way it should be in a constant state of subjugation to god's will you're not supposed to be confused you can be emotionally tempted that's normal but you're not supposed to be intellectually confused and if you are it's your it's your job to stop being confused and now we understand why that album sticks with the verbs and he switches the order also because when the rambam teaches us the mitzvahs he doesn't go in the order how they come up in the title otherwise he would do like the safe regina and go like according to each part each parsha it doesn't go according to that the rambam has a different order the ramen's order especially in se for ahava which is the the book of mitzvahs that we do to show our love for hashem like saying and davening and included that is putting on filling um he goes according to what is taught there what is more common or frequent i should say what is more constant so the what is more um toddler what is more constant you're supposed to have the head filling on it's supposed to just be on so that's more constant the hand filling you just put it on the mitzvah is you put it on for a second so he puts the head fill in as a mitzvah before the hand fill and even though the order in toyota is the hand filling comes before the head villain in other words think about it like this how long are you supposed to have your head under control all the time always how long for how long you supposed to have your heart under control as long as it lasts as long as it lasts and then when it gets out of control again so get it back under control because we know that if you're not a tsavik there's a constant maintenance required of getting the heart under control but the mind is supposed to be under control all the time