Practical Spirituality

have to got it hi everyone on youtube nice to be together as usual um what's happening um today we're discussing actually let me just un unmute um mute this for zoom uh how do i get back to my zoom there it is hi everybody and baroque you can help me admit people please and i'm gonna hit this uh record yeah we got it okay everyone so shalom um back from america and the truth is in retrospect i probably should have kept this class going while i was in america but i didn't i'm sorry i was kind of busy but i'm back in israel this sunday my first day back i got here uh friday and i have amazing shabbos and today i went hiking in the desert which was very beautiful hey david hurst how you doing i'll just uh it's my this is my first full day back but i'll show you where i just came from was quite beautiful where do i come from just to show you a half hour drive from jerusalem is is right here let's find a good shot a half hour drive from jerusalem is here in the desert it's my brother-in-law climbing up literally a half hour from my house can you imagine that i was back in a half hour like we did this amazing loop to my brother-in-law and um some of the cliffs there there's my wife climbing up the ladder from down below she looks up at one point and says hello so half hour from town only in the holy land can you be in the bustle of jerusalem with the amazing nightlife and spirituality going on everywhere and and excitement and action and and half our way you're in the middle of nowhere just meditating in the desert so beautiful anyway um today what we're going to what we're talking about is integrity a lot of people think integrity you know means you're a good person but there's actually a definition and it comes from you know if you think about the word you don't need to know much more and the word is to integrate you know integrate what does it mean to integrate well um you know right now my computer's integrating my camera so i'm showing up across the world because of integrity meaning there's integration of my camera it's going to your screen so and your screen's integrated with your camera and the um there's also integrity in uh if i hook up my phone to my car stereo now my car stereo will integrate the entire phone so i play a song and now suddenly the stereo's amp amplifier the stereos um [Music] uh you know the the speaker system the wires everything works for my phone now my phone's my phone's now been integrated into it if you find a shoplifter who can't keep his hands off you know you know products in people's stores and you sit them down and you discuss with them the importance of not stealing and how important it is and all the social breakdown and you explain it with like real thorough explanation about not stealing and the guy finally says you know what i got it i got it you know and he repeats it all back and he says that's it he's even crying he's like i'll never steal again like like i got it don't steal you know and then you know a week later you're looking at the surveillance camera in your market and you see him put the ding-dongs into his his coat pocket and walks out so what does he lack and the answer is he lacks integrity why because he knows he explained to ex that that it's forbidden to steal he gets that yet here he is stealing so it's like make up your mind you know and the answer is that he lacks integrity so integration is knowing is integrating who you are with what you know integrating what you are with who you know there was a famous story of bertram russell bertram russell was an ethicist in uh i think i don't know what country like maybe in england and um he was you know he was known he was an ethics professor and like kind of the people the go-to for morality and stuff and uh but meanwhile he was an adulterer he he wouldn't stay faithful um and and so people came up to him and said you know you're an ethicist like aren't you supposed to do the right thing you know you're you're not faithful to your wife and he said to them he said to him if i were a geometry professor would i have to be a triangle and that was his pithy and funny way of saying that just because i say something doesn't mean i gotta do it and in judaism we say that if you're if you're a geometry professor you do have to be a triangle so don't be a geometry if you're not willing to be a triangle don't be a geometry professor because you should be a triangle you should be what you believe you should be what you know live what you know and that's called integrity now of course you know and honestly human beings are you know we we can surprise ourselves by by breaching our integrity you know we can we can do the wrong things sometimes and um and that's like uh you know it's it's it's part of the nature of man is is mankind or human kindness they would say today it's part of the nature of human kindness that we have you know we have a pull away from doing what's right and to to lose our integrity to do the wrong thing but but that doesn't make it right you understand then it's there's a difference between doing the wrong thing and and making it right we live in a society today that that wants to say you don't need personal integrity and we're even gonna undermine it being right or wrong you know i uh years ago i was in manhattan it was like a story going back like 20 years david you're doing yoga during our class yeah are you at least getting in yoga position okay make me jealous i i got to only do my 10 minute version today anyway the uh i took you to my mikvah over there the hot pool and everything yeah so anyway uh check this out i'm sitting in manhattan with i it was a trip where i my schedule was too tight to see all my loved ones in manhattan you know like dear dear students it was before i had reached out to the brooklyn community and all that you know the black attitude world i this was when you know my my nearest dearest of students were all you know these really chill volcubas in the upper west side in manhattan and uh they're all still there most of them anyway and we're still in touch but i that trip i just didn't have time to meet up with anyone just when i had a packed schedule so you know what i did i said to everybody i said let's just meet let's just meet for lunch we're i'm inviting all of you to eat lunch with me so we went to delhi cosmo and we're sitting at delegates but and um and you know we had a big booth and a bunch of us sitting around and there was a guy next to me in the booth against the wall and a couple people around anyway so we all meet up and the guy's sitting on my left i got to speak to everyone a little bit but the guy's name on the left you know he's sitting a little closer and and so he he explains to me that that he's that he's now um i don't know how to say this without getting thrown off youtube um that that let's just say he he he no longer likes women how's that and am i allowed to say that on youtube yeah okay he doesn't like women anymore and i look at him and i'm like yeah okay that's that's you know everyone's got their everyone's got their test you know and uh you know i was i was nice to him and it's fine everyone's got a test and and then he says he says but but i don't really believe in judaism anyway you know meaning i don't really believe in god and torah anyway so when he tells me when he tells me he doesn't oh so when he tells me i don't believe in god or judaism anyway so you know what i did i body slam him into the wall next to them and i start punching them in the ribs and everyone at the table is like what is going on here and i'm just like wham wham what wham and i'm just slamming this guy i'm like i'm like i didn't break his ribs but i was almost breaking his ribs and he says he says so i finally cool down and he says he says i tell you that that you know he says i tell you that i'm gay and you're like okay you know everyone's got a test in life you know he says but i i explained to you why saying that i don't really believe in god and i'm in bible torah whatever and yeah and you attack me and i said to listen as long as you're doing the wrong thing meaning as long as you you you want to break the torah you want to you want to you want to break the break the torah but don't don't take god out of the picture don't think don't make it right if you want to do the wrong thing do the wrong thing don't make it right now this is a very white boy thing to do this guy did meaning it's very ashkenazi to take god out of the picture why do you know what a safari person does a sephardic person from middle eastern you know tradition you know what they do if they do the wrong thing you know what they do they feel guilty yeah they feel guilty and then they donate you know an extra wing to the synagogue you know they they donate the lunches at the yeshiva or something like they they assuage their guilt they but they don't make it right people have sephardic tradition they're not going to throw god out whereas ashkenazim are going to use the brain they got them that god gave them and do the mental acrobatics to knock god out of the equation so they can feel better about themselves if you're feeling guilty so so that god put inside us guilt to so that we'd have a you know so we'd use our compass you know oh you breached your inner con compass you breached the con the contract within your heart the compass that god put inside each one of us to find truth and to live it and you breach that whatever your truth is but you breached it now you feel guilty well okay so so you know guilt where do you find guilt you know where where do you find guilt in uh in uh darwinism or the theory of evolution you know were the people adapted to feel terrible about ourselves like that doesn't make any sense you know you get what i'm saying like that makes no sense in fact the opposite you know we're more likely to survive if we'll be moral and take care of one another for example you know it's like anyway but the guilt is a very important and and not to be taken for granted it's it's a it's a built in part of having a soul someone who feels no guilt is someone who has no soul but one way out of guilt which is this ashkenazi european move for those who are not jewish listening ashkenazi means all the white jews european jews because ashkenaz is the name of in the bible for for western europe specifically the germanic areas but it but a big swath of land including france and italy and rome anyway the um so it's very interesting what's the difference why if you're of middle eastern descent you're sephardic you just build a new wing for the synagogue when you did something really stupid and why if you're ashkenazi you get rid of god what's the why is that why so what's the breakdown they're both jewish they're both feeling guilty why does one choose to get rid of god so the answer is is that is that by the way i don't know the answer my theory is is that sephardic jews have been living with with believers for the last 2 000 years and some even more if they didn't come back for the second temple their 2500 years in living amongst believers who pray five times a day i.e muslims now they weren't they were living amongst pagans but last you know however many years 1200 years they've been living amongst muslims who pray five times a day but they're all believers greek culture ancient western culture was atheist by nature they were not into god at all and stayed that way now you might say well yeah the christians and stuff but but uh you know it's really hard to believe that the christians were really the christians you know today you'll have christians for christians but but most of christianity if you look at its history was just uh it was just you know it was it was a you know what was it called the holy roman empire like make up your mind are you a religion or you're an empire the answer is you're the roman em the holy roman empire well the roman empire means you know basically mowing mowing down whole countries and civilizations in the name of expansion oh add the word holy you know and now you gotta you got your own crusade which later became the crusades but it was it was land grabs you understand it was it was wipe out every man woman and child who's jewish and grab their land and the so you know i don't know if you call that believers you know that's that's like the ultimate getting rid of your guilt you know and i'm not going to get into their theology about people dying for your sins as if that's possible that you you are no longer accountable to your own sins like we're not getting that but the bottom line is is that the sephardic jews lived with believers and so they're not really willing to get rid of god with their guilt whereas the ashkenazium would just do with the philosophy they live with 2000 years of philosophers you know 2 000 years living with philosophical people who use their brain to get rid of god the brain god gave them they'll get rid of god and so the ashkenazim did this you know they do this this little rigamarole to to get rid of god now integrity means that you live your truth i just did that that was a long chapter on guilt i don't know why i did that exactly because today we're talking about integrity it's it's part of it because when you don't keep your integrity and why is it you'd breach your own integrity and the answer is just because you're you are um you have a an inclination towards darkness now by the way yeah i'll go a little more why david why do you have an inclination towards darkness the answer is because god loves you well if he loved me take it away no it's because he loves you what do you mean he loves me tell me would you have any reward without it would there be any reward for this world for this life if you didn't have a pull away from god you have to have the pull away in order that you have uh so in order to leap forward you have to have something pulling you back and and the the reward of choice what is the unique thing about being human the answer is free will you know without free will we're just we're just upright animals and free will means i got a soul voice and i got a body voice a soul voice body voice and the soul's voice says do the right thing in the body voice says do the expedient thing do what you feel like now do do what you want and that that's that's the body voice the soul voice says wait this always says postpone gratification to make sure you're doing things right that's the soul voice and so and so we have to we have to know how to play both we have to know how to work both and the and use the but use the body voice for the soul so let's say i've got a i've got a lot of strong you know strong urge for food so i have the nicest foods that your shabbos table you know on the day that it's easiest to raise them up so have all your favorite foods at your shabbos table or make blessings on it you know like but make special blessings on it and then use the energy of your food for the good so you know i asked my wife for burritos tonight i don't know if we're getting burritos because it's kind of prep intense with all the chopping of everything but hopefully we're getting some burritos anyway but i'm gonna i love burritos and well i'm gonna go eat those burritos and i'm gonna raise them up i'm gonna turn the chicken in the burritos it was a chicken now it's gonna be a jew and that chicken's about to become yom tov yeah and chicken yom tov never had chicken yom toes so later tonight may be off checking out chicken husky okay and now now the chicken's husky and and you go do mitzvahs with that now chickens can't do mitzvahs but yes they can if you take your animal instinct and you eat it and raise it up this is why the covenant was put where it was on a man's body because it's all about raising it's transmutating the animal instinct for the spirit and then why would god do that it was kind of a strange i mean isn't that a little bit of a strange place for a covenant yeah it's like if you wanted to make a company you should have done it with our earlobe or something you know at least something everyone can see but no god puts it you know because the way he god must have known the song new york new york if you can make it there you'll make it anywhere it's up to you new york new york that if you can make it there in your in your most passionate desire your most animalistic desire that you literally share that with like you know stray cats so so yeah like if you can if you can get control over that for god so then so then everything else is you can make it there you can make it anywhere you know everything else is a downhill cruise so anyway the let's go back so so integrity is is integrating what you know with who you are and if i know what the right thing to do is so living with integrity means doing it like actually aligned with truth align yourself with truth and more oh you found out something else was true okay align yourself with that align yourself with that align yourself with that keep aligning yourself with truth i remember when i was i was so young and dumb but it was so cute what i did um i couldn't learn torah very well yet because i'd only been in asia torah in yeshiva for like how long was that it was a while it wasn't and maybe i was there almost a year but i couldn't learn all this tour all night i i just didn't have the skill sets to learn torah all night so it's the giving of the torah on mount sinai so so what did i do so i got a book a little book that listed all of the 613 mitzvos and what i did was throughout the night i read each mitzvah studied a little bit about it and then i said i commit to to this that this is true you know i i basically said i do like i'm getting married i do yeah then i flipped the page and i read the next one so i said i do the next page i do i did that for all 613 commandments all night long and on chabous and i couldn't study like everyone else but i could say i do to all the commandments and anyway but but living it is living with integrity so i'd like to talk about different levels of integrity and what it means is like how mystic you are the word emes is truth and and then you add a yiddish the the word emes nick means that you are truthful you live with truth and mystic so there's different ways of being i think that all of us have certain things that we have integrity no matter what like for example um [Music] david on this who's been doing some stretching and stuff we've also done intensive yoga together when he was visiting jerusalem and i don't think either of us really skip a day we may not do intensive every day but but there's not a day where there's not stretching involved in and that's integrity because we know you want to live into your old age in a way that your body is cooperating or you want to live in your old age where your body goes and goes against you you know which one you want so i'll go with the cooperating body please and so i always do some bodywork every day and and that's integrity now now do i have the luxury if you do it every day do you have the luxury to miss a day yeah yeah and you can stay in your integrity because you miss a day you're not gonna miss two days and core work i do every third day um every third day i'll do a lot of core work and uh keep my core strong you know it's got to hold up my whole body and we we live in sedentary lifestyles today so we're not we're not lifting vegetables up into a basket all day long you know as we walk along our fields we we are you know we're we're sitting in cars we're sitting in traffic we're sitting at desks we're sitting in studios we're we if we're not building strength so then we're we're basically taxing our bodies and um and causing connective tissue to bear weight which you're never allowed to do you can't let ligaments or any part of your skeleton bear weight but anyone who doesn't work out is causing his his non-weight-bearing parts of his body to bear weight and that's that's forbidden to do it's a it's a it's a um it's basically a a formula for for chronic pain later in life god created every single create creature with muscular muscular musculature to bear weight and the human being also has their their muscles to bear weight but what if you don't have muscles so then your skeleton and your your connective tissue bear the weight and especially people who are heavier all the more so need to work out because there's just automatic weight bearing that's going on and you gotta you gotta build those muscles now core muscles don't come very easy for people who sit a lot that you just got to do so that's integrity now i'm not sure if all of you have the integrity to do this but i think everyone here probably brushes their teeth yeah and that takes integrity now how do you how do you maintain it is big how do you have it because all it takes is a toothache or a root canal or a dentist hitting your gums with a needle one too many times and you're just like i think i'll just brush i'm just gonna brush my teeth and [Music] that's integrity um all of us sleep at night at least hopefully the right hours and and that's integrity because you don't sleep your immune system is going to tank all of us eat a few meals a day it's integrity so we're all kind of truth we're all into truth in some level or another in our daily activities because of the consequence of not being into truth is too dear and so we so we live with integrity now there's a higher level of integrity which we started this whole class with and that is that you is that you do the right things that's a higher level of integrity where you start breaking things down into right or wrong right and good and bad like it's the right thing to do the wrong thing to do that's going to be good that's going to be bad so breaking things into good and bad is a super important part of integrity and and then there's the then there's the level of integrity of uh it also connects a bit to health is i like to call it i love you i hate you integrity is that if you're created in the image of god and you're involved in behavior that's i hate you behavior um for example not calling home um holding on to resentment um health ignoring your own personal health that's all i hate new behavior and so and so someone with integrity would treat himself as if he's someone worth caring for to quote jordan peterson's title of one of his chapters it was the book uh 12 rules for life he says treat yourself as if you're someone worth caring for and in the beginning of that chapter he talks about how they figured out statistically that people are more likely to remember to give their dog medicine than themselves so treat yourself as if you're someone with care for but then there's even a higher level of integrity and that's the integrity of living your living the truth of how awesome you are meaning you're awesome and live that live that way you know when we see people who we think are awesome you know you see them online whatever i don't know who your heroes are but when you see your heroes so you see they're living it man they're they're like they they fully accept their gifts you know like for example right now it's the winter olympics in uh our new best friend uh china and they're they're in the middle of the olympics and these people are they're not you know the skiers let's say the downhill skill they're not saying nah you know you'd sell someone yeah play us a song sing us a song they're not saying that they're saying yeah yeah and they're jumping on those skis and they're flying down those mountains and they're like they get off you know they the gymnasts get off and make a big v for victory when they finish you know when they dismount off whatever they jump off and they're saying yeah i'm awesome and they're and they're living it the training the the performance they they're they're totally in they're in full integrity at least about how good they are at that sport that they're in full integrity so in the end really all of us are created in the image of god and you know god doesn't make garbage you're awesome if we can put jumper cables up to your earlobes we can power all of north america you're amazing and given that you're amazing means to live it that's integrity and if you are self-def self-effacing then you're going exactly against the integrity of of of who you are who god creates you to be so so it's so important that you that you live with the integrity of being amazing so we spoke about health being amazing we spoke about doing the right and wrong right thing in sorry we talk about health with integrity let's talk about doing the right thing with integrity we spoke about saying i love you versus i hate you in integrity and now we took it to the last level now is is having integrity for how awesome you are that god makes you awesome and to live it to live it every day like you're amazing you've got this you got this everyone say i got this i got this you are awesome and now i'm not going to go deep into it maybe tomorrow we'll touch on it but there's certain things and people circumstances and various things that trigger us for not being awesome things that like remind us about stuff we're willing to say about ourselves and but we're not going to go into that right now especially because i've got these burritos waiting for me i'm just kidding the um my brother-in-law is leaving israel at eight and i think it is i don't know oh have a watch yeah if not gain i gotta go um but i wanna take questions i always take questions so let's do that real quick most of my jet lag's like kicking and i'm so tired right now someone said sephardic misraja jews had no reform movement until the time period closer to the holocaust in the time period someone says in the time period of the rambam some muslims became more secular and this affected jews in those countries the rambam helped save those communities okay that's interesting um and then i'm going to check youtube real quick all those youtubers let's check those comments uh how do i get there i gotta minimize this one here zoom where's my minimize i have to change my view exit full screen there we go okay i'm gonna get to youtube real quick let's see i don't really know how to use compute oh embarrassed i i've never owned a computer and so uh let's see if i can minimize that i don't know on how to do this um oh maybe it's here hey i found youtube okay let's see if we got any comments on youtube no comments okay that's cool oh just a couple guys saying shalom shalom to you guys okay blessings everybody love you all be well and uh we'll see you tomorrow thanks i'm gonna next week i'm probably gonna go a little earlier on the hour because i have to teach at 7 00 pm across jerusalem and uh right now it's 7 p.m but now all i have to do is eat burritos but next week is the possibly you in jerusalem shalom everybody all the best blessings