Rabbi Shmuel Silber - 7 Habits of Highly Spiritual People: (Part 1) Be Proactive

this torah class is brought to you by torahanytime.com i want to take the opportunity to welcome you to this new series seven habits of highly spiritual people a new series that emirates hashem we are launching for the remainder of the show there's not that much even left to elul anymore by the lacking that last two weeks of elul and amir and sasham to continue through the season of the yamim no rohim and lemir sasham to continue on afterwards as well this series is based on the highly acclaimed book seven habits of highly effective people by stephen covey i want to begin by saying before i explain this series i begin by thanking our sponsors for this year to thank the wolf family and faith wolf and family for dedicating all of the sheer room this month there are tamatore responses for the month of ello memory of cyrus wolfe shalom bennettsvillehirsch to thank joe and galia berry who dedicated all the sheer room this week in honor of their 43rd wedding anniversary and emirates hashem in celebration of their three and a half years after having made aliyah we thank our sponsors for their generosity and their dedication so what about this series you know i started i've read stephen covey's book books a couple of times and i've always found them incredibly helpful in trying to become a better person trying to become a more effective person and i thought that often when it comes to khadija our focus is often on chuva which is what it's supposed to be right the whole the whole theme of these days is chiva is repentance is change and sometimes we don't necessarily know the ingredients necessary for change in other words i know what i have to change but i don't always know how to change it or i don't always know what change is supposed to look like oh for that matter what are the steps of change like for example the rambam and chuba brings down the various stages in chuva person has to stop sinning right the person has to go and admit their sin a person has to have remorse for the past so on and so forth because understood you can't just tell people to to children is a complex process so i have to teach people says that i'm the stages the different parts of chuva so when it comes to personalistic change so many of us i know i shouldn't speak with i know i have to change but then i wonder to myself like why is it i know that i have to change i know that i have to change and improve for many years i even know what it is that i have to change so why haven't i changed it why haven't i made the necessary tikkunim the necessary changes or adaptations in my life so sometimes it's because i'm just lazy and i just haven't done it but other times it's also because i know what i have to do but again i don't know necessarily how to do it and i found that this book of seven habits of highly effective people is an incredible framework for change and i think many of stephen covey's idea first of all stem from a religious mindset and i think we're going to use this series emirates hashem to develop the seven habits but to also expound on them through the lens of torah through the lens of ghazal through the lens of hasidos of to really create seven habits or seven principles that hopefully will form the framework which will allow us to change so by way of introduction my introduction so so kavi highlights something quite fascinating he has a quote i want to quote you he says each of us tends to think we see things as they are that we are objective but this is not the case we see the world not as it is but as we are or as we are conditioned to see it one more time we see the world not as it is but as we are and this is incredibly important we've spoken about this over the years in many different shalom bayes classes and classes but this to me is is is the beginning of every avodah every every personalistic service of change to recognize that i see the world through my lens it is not an objective lens it's my subjective lens that is a composite of so many different things it's a composite of my history it's a composite of my upbringing composite of my family it's a composite of today right we all know you have a bad day the world looks one way you have a great day the world looks a different way and this is incredibly important because this leads us to the next important step which is the willingness to undergo a paradigm shift we all create our paradigms in life a paradigm represents the constructs through which you see something through which you see the world through which you see yourself and those constructs those paradigms are developed often and developed and reinforced over the course of many many years and many of us get stuck in our paradigms get stuck in our constructs and we can't see anything else a paradigm shift is when a person is willing to take a step back take a step back and say i see the world not as it is but rather i see the world as i am and therefore maybe i'm not seeing the world maybe i'm not seeing life maybe i'm not seeing myself really as it needs to be seen kavi tells an incredible story about a paradigm shift i'm actually going to quote to you he says i remember a mini paradigm shift i experienced on sunday on one sunday morning on a subway in new york i've actually quoted this story before but to me it's such a such a muscle people were sitting quietly some reading newspapers some lost and thought some resting with their eyes closed it was a calm peaceful scene then suddenly a man and his children entered the subway car the children were so loud and rambunctious that instantly the whole climate changed the man sat down next to me and closed his eyes apparently oblivious to the situation the children were yelling back and forth throwing things even grabbing people's papers it was very disturbing and yet the man sitting next to me did nothing it was difficult not to feel irritated i could not believe that he could be so insensitive as to let his children run wild like that and do nothing about it taking no responsibility at all it was easy to see that everyone else on the subway felt irritated too suddenly so finally with what i felt was unusual pace and patience and restraint i turned to him and said sir your children are really disturbing a lot of people i wonder if you couldn't control them a little more the man lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time instead softly oh you're right i guess i should do something about it we just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago i don't know what to think and i guess they don't know how to handle it either and so covey explains this story and he says i experienced this incredible paradigm shift here right my understanding of the circumstance is what these are a bunch of bratty kids rude kids and an absent parent a parent who is pretty much shirking his responsibilities why aren't you disciplining your kid why aren't you controlling your kid you're just letting them do whatever they want and then in that moment and so he saw he saw the world he thought he understood everything and in that moment when the man explains to him what exactly had happened his entire understanding of the situation shifts and this is incredibly important because the willingness to undergo a paradigm shift is in and of itself a prerequisite for personalistic change you see if a person says i know i know everything i know everything about me i know everything about life i know how everything is supposed to be and everything is great okay so hashem if you could be a i don't know if it's boxing to be a person like that but sad to be a person like that but la nice a person like that there's not really much room to do anything with there's not really much room to change anything they're okay it is it is what it is it is what it is but if a person is willing to take a step back and say you know what i know i see the world in a certain way i know i see myself in a certain way but maybe i'm not right maybe i'm not right so let me take a step back and be willing to go ahead and rethink things let me be willing to go ahead and re-look at things you know just as an aside is this not part of the greatest challenge our current society is facing i find that today it is virtually impossible to have an open-minded discussion regarding any matter of political significance with pretty much anyone we're all set in our ways and i'm sure i'm like that as well we're all set in our ways just for the record i don't engage in too much political discourse because it's not good it's not healthy certainly not for a rav and the shul but it's interesting everybody is so convinced they have the ms everybody is so convinced and they're unwilling to hear or unwillingly and worse and worse vilify the other if you don't believe like i do you're a racist you're intolerant you're a supremacist you're this it's incredible there's absolutely no room for a person to say i have my strongly held opinion you have your strongly held opinion i disagree with you vehemently but maybe you're right let me let me take a step back and try to see it from your perspective but back to us back to elwo back to yamim no rain our goal is to change and when i say change probably the better word is to advance progress evolve i want to become better because change sometimes is scary when people hear change they think i have to become someone different i don't have to become someone different i just want to become someone better i don't have to be different i just want to be better now the truth is we realize that in order to become better i often have to become different as well the prerequisite to that is a willingness to undergo a paradigm shift a willingness to say i've seen myself for focusing on the personalistic i've seen myself and i've seen my life in a certain way and i've lived in my life in a certain construct is that personalistic construct correct a lot of times we justify bad behaviors that we engage in because you see this this is the framework i live in so it's become part of my lifestyle okay just because you do something often doesn't make it permitted or just because you've done something for a prolonged period of time doesn't mean that it's okay so the paradigm shift allows us to take a step back and to say i want to reimagine myself i want to reimagine myself i don't want the cp i don't want to keep perpetuating the same shmuel silber i'd like to have a vision of how it could be better how i could be holier how i could be just a better individual so assuming that if you're listening to this share you're willing to undergo the paradigm shift so if that's the case that's where these habits these seven habits come in incredible it really really give us an incredible sense of caulk an incredible sense of structure how to advance change if i'm willing to undergo the paradigm shift the seven habits will give me the tools in order to be able to effectively create that personalistic change so for today's for today's share we'll focus a little bit i don't know i'll get through all of it but on habit number one to habit number one kavi calls be proactive so to give a bit of background to this there is a school of psychological thought called determinism and in determinism it's the view that all events are determined by previously existing causes in the world of determinism there are essentially three different groupings there's genetic determinism which says everything everything you are whoever you are is your dna you are hardwired to be a certain way right genetic determinism so again the same way that i can't control what color my hair is or if you have hair right every aspect of me is determined based on my genetics there's psychic determinism which ultimately says that your parents your home life your childhood experiences make you who you are very freudian in nature everything is about my upbringing everything is about my childhood if you have a good childhood that's a great determinant for your future if you had a scar childhood a traumatic childhood then chances are you're just going to be damaged goods and then there's environmental determinism so environmental determinism says everything in your environment shapes who you are now just so you understand how far this goes what this says is if you have a bad day at work you have a bad day at work you have a mean boss you don't have good friends you're in a bad marriage whatever your kids are disrespectful i'm giving all negative examples but the positive is also true all of those things in your environment impact who you are of course it's true in the positive as well all of the positive influences in your life will positively impact who you are so this is the essence of determinism that all events are determined by previously existing causes either my dna either my family or my environment to kind of summarize all of these approaches you could kind of put them on a piece of paper in a very simple way there's stimulus and response stimulus and response something happens and whatever happens that causes an automatic response so again if you're a hustler of genetic determinism so there's a stimulus whatever that stimulus is something happens my response is genetically pre-programmed psychic determinism there's a stimulus something happens i'm going to respond a certain way based on how i was raised based on the parents that i have environmental determinism there is a stimulus something happens and i'm going to respond but essentially in the world of determinism so the stimulus comes from wherever it comes or whatever it is but the response is somewhat scripted right in other words the response is always going to follow the same model depending on which school of thought of determinism you go with the response is always going to be the same so i'll share with you something amazing and copy quotes this as well so viktor frankl victor frankl who i'm sure many of you if not all of you have heard of survivor of the holocaust was a determinist he was a bashita determinist raised in the tradition of freudian psychology so meaning again in his world view the impact of our parents the impact of our upbringing mamish fundamentally determines who you are so essentially whatever happens to as a child shapes your life in its entirety was a survivor of auschwitz fundamentally changed his thinking in the aftermath of the war based on what he was able to observe in the camps based on his own experiences and based on what he was able to see from others he fundamentally changed his approach he left the world of determinism i want to quote you from his book man's search for meaning so frank writes in his book manchester meaning everything can be taken from man but one thing the last of the human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances to choose one's own way one more quote we who lived in the count in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others sorry comforting others giving away their last piece of bread they may have been few in number but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from man but one thing the last of the human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances to choose one's own way so covey quotes this idea from victor franklin he adds in one additional line between stimulus and response man has the ability to choose so this to me is such an incredible you sowed if you're a husset of determinism so determinism says that there is a stimulus something happens and then there is a scripted response because remember again who you are and what you are is fundamentally dictated by previously existing causes whether it's the day that you had today if you have a good boss if you had good parents if you have good dna whatever it is so determinism says what there's a stimulus and then there's a scripted response what frankl was highlighting was this incredible idea that no it need not go stimulus right into response there's a space there there's a space and that space ultimately again is where you insert choice it's where you insert choice so there's a stimulus something happens but i don't subscribe to determinism i don't subscribe that i already have a scripted response right after that stimulus i have the ability to choose to choose i could choose what what do i have to what do i get to choose so remember a lot of times you don't get to choose the circumstances right the stimulus is there the stimulus often is separate and distinct from me is something occurring to me or com something occurring for me or with me so often i can't choose the stimulus but the question is how do i respond right how do i how do i choose to respond in that moment in that moment and then ultimately again it goes from stimuli to it goes from stimulus to response my response need not be scripted i could choose the type of response i have to any circumstance and this may sound very simple and elementary but how many of us live thinking that we don't have choices something happens and we act so helpless something happens someone does something and we feel victimized now it's true a lot of times you can't control what other people do for you to you how other people act but you always choose your response you know covey makes an amazing observation he says the word responsibility is made up of two words response ability i have the ability to choose myself what what is true responsibility true responsibility is when you don't fall prey to the determinism when you don't assume that you are just a series of pre-programmed responses that their stimuli you know we hear this all the time sometimes when a person has a bad temper so a person has a bad temper they fly off the handle so sometimes what people actually say and it's crazy and sometimes i've said this as well and you think about afterwards i just have a bad temper what what is what does that mean you just have a bat you just have a bad temper so a bad temper that's that that's like saying that's like saying well you know what i have to lose a couple times i'm just over well no no if if i wouldn't have had three pieces of chocolate cake things would have been different what do you mean just you just have a bad temper so remember again just saying i just have a bad temper then you're a hustle of determinism then what you're saying is at the end of the day i don't control me i don't control me i'm hardwired in a certain way it was my father he didn't love me enough it was my mother it was this it was that so i'm not responsible for how i respond this is just my scripted response and what frankl is teaching us and ultimately again what cubby is teaching us is that no i'm a responsible person and what's responsibility responsibility i have the ability to control my response i don't go right into the response from the stimulus stimuli but rather something happens i pause and i have to decide how to honor how do i want to react to this how do i want to respond i think we'd all agree that some of the things that we regret most in life to regret most in life are the things where we respond hastily and we didn't take a moment to think sometimes it's something i said and i set it in the heat of the moment and i just should not have said it now i try to comfort myself by saying it kind of just came out it just came out no no no nothing just comes out nothing just comes out the number of neurons and everything else you need in order to articulate a word of speech is dramatic nothing just comes out but what i did is i allowed myself to be a deterministic person i allowed my response just to be governed by the stimulus as opposed to going ahead and being a person of responsibility of being a person who recognizes that although i can't control the stimuli i they don't have to trigger an immediate response i have the ability to choose i have the ability to choose now once a person accepts this premise that he or she has the ability to choose then this really creates the difference between being a proactive and a reactive person reactive people reactive people just respond they just respond because again i'm driven by this stimuli whatever whatever happens i just respond to whatever it is that happens proactive people realize again i might not be able to control the stimuli but i absolutely control what i want to do in this circumstance i control how i'm going to talk and i can try i'm going to conduct myself and i control how i'm gonna spend my time i can't control so many other things but i absolutely have the ability to control my response and when i say response i don't just mean verbally i mean i have the ability to control my response in life to whatever it is that occurs i have that kawak the distinction between being a proactive and reactive person or there are some people who you know when a person faces a problem so there are sometimes a person will tell you yes there's a problem i'll tell you why because ruvain's not doing his thing and shemin's not behaving and this one didn't do this and ah it's too hot and it's too humid and it and there's a million and by the way all of those things may be correct all of those maker it could be that the person is saying 100 ms everything is correct but what you're allowing yourself is to become a reactive person the world is acting upon you so you're enslaved to all of these other things so because no one else is doing what you think they're supposed to be doing therefore you're powerless and paralyzed a react excuse me a proactive person says okay it's true ruben's not doing this and shim is not doing this and it is way too humid and everything else but nice i have to choose how i want to act in this circumstance i have to choose what i should do i have to choose my response i have to be i have to exercise responsibility response ability i have the ability to choose how to respond to this particular situation or kavi tells an incredible story i want to quote it to you from here because i i thought it was really great he tells the story that he was once giving a seminar and he was talking about this concept of pro-activity so listen to the story so the man comes up to me and he says stephen i like what you're saying but every situation is so different look at my marriage i'm really worried my wife and i just don't have the same feelings for each other we used to have i guess i just don't love her anymore and she doesn't love me what can i do the feeling isn't there anymore i asked kavi speaking that's right he reaffirmed and we have three children we're really concerned about what do you suggest love her i replied i told you the feeling just isn't there anymore love her you don't understand the feeling of love just isn't there then love her and if the feeling isn't there that's a good reason to love her but how do you love when you don't love my friend love love is a verb love the feeling is a fruit of love the verb so love her serve her sacrifice listen to her empathize appreciate affirm her are you willing to do that so an incredible insight if you look at the word love so what is love so we often assume love is a feeling love is a feeling but the problem is if love is a feeling then i'm being reactive so if i love you if i love you i'm waiting for something to engender that feeling that's called being a reactive individual as opposed to if you look at love as a verb love is something i do it's something i do if i love you i take care of you i serve you i provide for you i do for you and then when you do when you do the feeling comes out of that you know russia kaddish says the same exact idea rashi says with all of your heart right love hashem hashem and again the obvious question we have on that is god can mandate a variety of things hakuna sbaruch who could tell me to honor him to keep shabbos teeth kosher a whole bunch of things but how can you command someone to love right so what does rashi say so remember you hear the question how could a kurdish brotherhood tell me to love him tell me to serve him tell me to fear tell me to reveal love him and rashi says something amazing rashi says assay devarav it means at the end of the day serva qaddashvarahu as if you love him serve him as if you love him what is rashi saying see kavi thinks it's his radish it's not his radish rashi already says it rashi says you think love is an emotion you think is an emotional obligation no it's a verb it's a verb means surface parahu serve him because when you love someone you want to take care of them when you love someone you want to be there for them when you love someone you want to give to them is not god legislating my emotional state of being because you can't legislate emotions love is not a feeling in the eyes of god but rather again love is a verb love your fellow as you love yourself let's be honest we're amongst friends everybody questions that mitzvah because i know some people not anyone watching this year of course but i know some people who are just not lovable they're just really not lovable in fact i do anything and everything just to avoid them i'd rather have nothing to do with them at all but i have to love everyone same idea same idea what does hello say in the gemara madison alexa what you don't want done unto you don't do to someone else love is not a feeling in the eyes of the torah in the eyes of akhadeshwarahu love is a verb love is something you do and here lies the difference between being a proactive or a reactive individual reactive people understand love is an emotion as i hear it all the time i'm just not in love anymore okay you're just not in love anymore now what almost as if almost as if a person is helpless helpless i've fallen out of love and again whether it's fall i've fallen out of love with my spouse or i've fallen out of love with god i've fallen out of love and and and what and what are you doing you see when you speak about love is an emotion then you are the helpless victim you fall something has occurred that has made you fall out of love and apparently there's nothing that's within your power to make you fall back into love but if you look at love as a verb which is what reactive excuse me which is what proactive people do proactive people responsibility people choice people say okay being in love is a choice being in love is a choice it's it's a choice and i know this might fly in the convention of some relationship wisdom but being in love in a very large measure is a choice the feeling doesn't come by itself the feeling comes from action the feeling comes from a voda the feeling comes from proactivity that is true in our marriages and it's true in our relationship with hashem how many people walk around uninspired how many of us walk around uninspired davine does nothing for me mitzvahs does nothing for me and you know so people we love to say it's the yeshiva system it's the best yakov system it's the school system it's my parents were authoritarians or my teachers were this and by the way all that might be true schools everything could always be better i could be a better parent we could all be better in every single way but let me have one question what are you doing what are you doing so you've fallen out of love with god fantastic fantastic but again so if if i'm coming home and uh and then the rest of shabbos is in my shorts and a t-shirt i mean hallelujah should be the worst thing but you know if that's it if that's it if if i'm lazy if i'm spiritually lazy and just virtually lacks a daysicle so what do you expect why do you accept you expect to fall in love you expect that somehow magically you're going to see the ribosome he's going to see you the birds are going to be chirping there's soft music playing in the background you're going to run towards each other and fall into each other's arms you know they don't even make movies like that anymore let alone real life love is a verb proactive people realize that if you want love in your life you want love in your marriage work hard work hard don't and by the way don't expect your spouse to do some don't don't put it on anyone else because the moment you put it on someone else is the moment that you are falling prey to determinism is the moment that ultimately again you assume there's just stimulus stimuli and response it's someone else who's in charge take the reins back of your life be a proactive individual be responsible responsibility you want love in your life make it happen make it happen be the best husband or the best wife you possibly could be you want in your life you want a meaningful relationship with hashem love him but not the emotion the verb the verb serve him tavin learn give tzedakah said push yourself harder and harder and when you keep working when you keep exhibiting or living love is a verb then ultimately the emotion will come along these same lines kavi goes on to explain that a person also has to make a distinction between the various categories of life events so now that we've established that i do not want to be a hostage of determinism that i'd rather be a hassle of viktor frankl recognizing that between stimulus and response there is a space and in that space is choice and those who choose choice become proactive individuals those who choose choice live live life with love as a verb not love as a feeling those who choose choice choose to take the reigns of their life and not be directed they choose to act and not be acted upon but in order to fully exercise this choice person has to identify the different categories of life events and it's here that covey kind of breaks up things into three different categories what he calls it direct indirect or no control so there are things over which i have direct control so those are the things that i could change by working on myself right there every we all run into this there are things that are not really working so well in my life but i know that i could change it i have direct control over those circumstances indirect control means i don't really hold the rings on this others might hold the reins but i have the ability to influence others i have the ability to influence the circumstances the last category are things over which i have no control and things over which i have no control the this can you see the first truck kind of obvious direct control if i control it fix it indirect control that that really requires me to have good interpersonal skills be able to get along with people be able to collaborate but what's interesting is the no control category because you would say to yourself okay well i have no control i have no control yet how much time do we spend focusing on the things over which we have no control how much time do we spend literally again focusing and really even like lamenting perseverating on those things over which i have no control of which i'm no control it's kind of like talking about the weather you know sometimes people speak about the weather and small talk you have to have a conversation about the weather people mama should get upset like it's so humid and like they're they're visibly angry over the humidity i i don't like humidity either but at the end of the day not my department i i i can't handle i have nothing to do with it so you you have no control over the weather so you're gonna allow it to weigh on you or ultimately again are you going to say you know what i have to life every person has a finite amount of koach a finite amount of energy and ability and in life you have to choose where you want to put your co-hosts and sometimes the greatest mistake we make is that we divert way too much energy to the no control category you see you have to be careful because here i want to be a proactive person i want to be a responsibility person i don't want to be a husset of determinism so now they know that i want to be proactive i have choice you have to use your choice in the right ways so use your choice in the areas of direct control indirect control but in the areas of no control let it go let it go it'd be nice to say don't think about it most of us aren't on the level to think about it but at least don't let it eat up resources don't let it eat up time don't let it eat up your soul sometimes on the things over which we have no control we just have to be ready to let go i want to conclude with what i think is an incredible example of this entire essence of everything we've spoken about and that's the story of yosef sadiq because i think in the story of yosef yosef personifies all of these ideas and the amazing part is yosef somehow understood this intuitively or or innately he certainly was never actively taught it or he learned many things from his father life lessons from his father but we know the story of yosef you know and this is important because yosef has a very important rosh hashan italian secretary part of a whole string of gemara's where it says the world was created so i understand the power of a woman being remembered for childbirth life creation of the world life that yosef was released from jail on rosh hashanah it's interesting but what's what's what's what's the shock like what's the deeper meaning so perhaps what we're trying to express to us was the following let's take a look at the story of yosef in jail what happens when yosef goes to jail remember again the wife of potiphar tries to seduce yosef yosef goes in and resists her temptations as a result she maligns him and therefore he's thrown into prison so the positive says what happens when yosef was in prison deposit says this is embarrassing of base chapter 39 verse 22. this is amazing yosef is given he's in charge he's in charge the warden puts yosef in charge of all of the prisoners the sharabes yosef was in charge of everything now my friends i'll ask you a simple question can you imagine yosef's mental state the boy he was 17 years old stripped of his clothing and his dignity by his brothers thrown into a pit sold like a like less than an animal finally comes to him it's finds out finds a nice householder works for potiphar goes up the ranks in potiphar's own potiphar goes and trusts him with everything everything this woman potiphar's wife tries to make advances on him it takes all his inner strength to go ahead and say no and say no speak about yosef's internal struggle should he succumb to the desire not to go but he's able to muster up the inner strength and then what happens he's thrown into jail he's thrown into jail a second time right remember again the first time yosef was put in jail was really when his brother's room into a pit it's the same russian even it's always the pit the right the base are sore the pit is excuse me the gel is always a pit so i don't know i often think if i was yosef and i was thrown into the pit you know i would have said bro i'm done i'm done crawl into a ball sit into the corner i'm i'm i'm just done i'm just done how much could one person possibly handle how much could one person possibly take and yet what does yosef do yosef rolls up his sleeves in the jail and he says how can it be productive what can i do what can i do there's the stimuli of everything that happened potiphar potiphar's wife my brothers everything else and then there is ultimately again the response and the response should be i'm angry i'm jaded i'm forsaken i'm cynical but instead yosef realizes that there is a space between stimulus and response and in that space is choice and it is there here here there that yosef chooses to exercise that choice i'm not going to crawl up into a ball and just cry myself into oblivion in this jail even though i have every right to do so i choose to make something of myself i choose to do something with these circumstances as difficult as they may be i choose i choose to do something with the circumstances that the ribanus allah has given me i choose not to be reactive i choose to be proactive and it gets even more amazing because if you skip down a little bit in those pursuit when yosef then comes out of jail right he interprets parallels dreams he becomes the viceroy and then of course the dramatic meeting between the brothers so before yosef reveals his identity say stringing them along in this whole this whole charade then he finally reveals his identity to them and what does he say what does he say listen to these pursuing this is in parikh memphis chapter 45 verse verse 5 and on the atta my brothers sent me ahead to ensure that the family of yak avinu would survive and that ultimately you'd be able to go ahead come and resettle in egypt and ride out the famine the atta listen to these words and now my brothers it is not you you didn't send me god sent me here you see me god made me a second in command to pharaoh says always bother me how does yosef have the right to say to his brothers you didn't send it wasn't you it wasn't you who sent me to egypt it was god really really it wasn't you by the way fast forward a little bit and you know we're going to read about it on yom kippur rebound the assailant was the 10 martyrs and our tradition tells us that why were the ten martyrs the ten great sages why were they murdered in such a brutal and horrific fashion it was kalali israel's punishment for the sale of yosef quality shows punisher for the sale of yosef so don't tell me don't tell me that bro you said your sins it's okay guys don't no sweat you know what mistakes happen stuff happens between siblings yeah we sell each other we slow the goats pretend that we're dead it happens let's just quality event all is good what is yosef saying those words you didn't send me what do you mean yosef these are the brothers who stripped you of your clothing and your dignity these are the brothers who sold you threw you into a pit who are ready to kill you who are ready to kill you had you done not intervened and you who to convince them then to go and sell you or the brothers decided then to sell them so do you mean you didn't send me what do you mean they're not responsible so it's happening over here dear friends is something amazing yo say fat sadik is making a choice as to how to view his circumstances he's making a choice he's not rewriting history he says i realize i have a choice here the choice is i could look at these circumstances and my brothers sold me into servitude they sold me like a piece of property and they mistreated me so horribly i could say that i could say that and then if that's my narrative then at the end of the day i'll be filled with resentment anger and animosity towards you to my dying breath or i can choose to recognize that this is part of a divine plan everything is part of a divine plan the ribosome orchestrates and organizes everything so this is what akadeshwar did so yosef is not absolving his brothers yosef is giving his brothers a window into his cognitive process i have to make a choice now about how i view the last 22 years do i view them as perpetually being wronged by people close to me i'm wrong by my brothers i was wrong by potiphar i was wronged by potiphar's wife is that how i view my life and even before that you know the brothers had a very difficult relationship with jose even before they sold him now again maybe jose contributed to that but is that how i view my life i'm one one big victimhood narrative no i'm not a victim instead what i am is an important cog in the wheel it's true i was acted upon but i also acted i acted yosefatsadek chooses makes a choice to be proactive in life and that proactivity expresses itself by his choice of life narrative i will not choose the narrative of victimhood instead i will choose the narrative of being hakodeshbarahu's right hand man in the actualization of a dramatic and magnificent divine plan i am not a victim i'm not a victim i'm a major key i'm a major part of a major cog in the wheel of a magnificent divine operation you'll say fat scientific is the paradigmatic example of what it means to be a pro-active person who chooses to insert choice in between stimulus and response you see from yosef's world the stimulus was the oppression of his brothers that was a stimulus the natural response would have been aggression animosity anger revenge but he inserts choice and it's a little bit different yose8 serves as an incredible example so if we bring this all together what we come out with in habit number one of being proactive is an incredible paradigm shift in how we live our lives so many times we're faced with circumstances and we feel powerless in the face of them because since someone else or something else caused the circumstances i assume that i don't have the power to shape them but that's not true that's determinism determinism says everything is scripted whether it's your dna whether it's your environment whether it's your parents we believe ultimately again like frankl said that in between stimulus and response is that power of choice we believe that we have the ability to be proactive people i need not be reactive i could be the kind of person who believes in love as the verb not just simply love as the feeling i believe in love is the feeling as well but that feeling is generated by the verb not vice versa i believe at the end of the day that i have to use my efforts and exert my control over the things over which i have direct and indirect control and stop wasting my time over the things that i have no control over and as we're in khodesh evol and we begin to think about ourselves and begin to think about our lives we have to ask ourselves are we proactive or reactive individuals have we fallen prey to the hashkaf of determinism or do we have the power to be a yosef we often we often don't choose the stimulus but we always have the ability to choose the response maybe bezos hashem to find that quach of yosef to begin our journey by allowing ourselves to undergo that paradigm shift to take the reins of proactivity and start driving the direction of our life the direction of our personalistic narrative wishing everyone a wonderful evening you've just experienced another torah class brought to you by torahanytime.com