Rabbi Simcha Barnett - How Our Inner Power Can Conquer Anything

welcome to the project inspire his a daily visit broadcast my name is rabbi simcha Barnett I'm the executive director project inspire we want this series to be inspiring to be uplifting to help us with our voters of sham and also most of all who tried to highly deal when the challenging situation that we find myself you have to begin at the beginning and Jewish philosophy really rests on one incredibly revolutionary concept and that is our concept of us yet our concept of God Jewish people really bore a revolutionary concept into the world many of us are so used to we don't know how revolutionary it is but the the idea of a God whose infinite infinite we don't even really clearly know what that means you know it's not finite it's not bounded not limited not imperfect it's perfection its unbounded whole complete any superlative you could think of and from the port view of that guy a guy that is perfect a guy that is anything that really doesn't need anything from you or I it's like a billionaire doesn't ask semca barnett for a loan of $1 so they're before if God chose to create this world all the philosophers all the Jewish stores to say it was really the first act of love of selfless giving to the creation and I would call it the longest-running love story in the world all love stories are just a car or a Larry or just a a extension of this continually running love story and God and humanity particularly the Jewish people God wants to give us all kinds of pleasure he created even a garden of eden called the garden of pleasure but our world we understand was like a hospitality so Abraham found God he saw this tremendous tremendous in giving pleasure smells tastes Beauty intelligence creative ability all types of incredible harmony perfection absolute absolute pleasure so Abraham understood that this God was a God that was a one-way street giving to his creators creatures so Jewish to math I was called a Jewish math or axiom axiomatic axiomatic that any pleasure that's wrong we're all after whether it's relationships whether it's physical pleasure spiritual any pleasure whatsoever must be a subset or from the source of the infinite source of all pleasure which is done not I was used to kid my kids when they were young you know is got ice cream cone you got God what's bigger what's bigger my six-year-old son and they would know it's died but they really emotionally wanted to see ice cream because because some have ice cream and everything else finds its source and God but we know one thing that God's perfection necessitates that he's an absolute giver absolutely independent no dependence of anything else so he gave us a tremendous gift he gave us a power I thought the borrowed power to make ourselves like him to become independent to become self-sufficient to the extent that we can and mr. Berman and his tremendous power was the power of creation the power of free will now I always have a visual example of this which I kind of like that you know when you get a manufacturer is is making washing machines a toaster oven an iron you know on the box it has a manufacturer's description poach their washing machine it tells you what's in the package now imagine you had to make a product designation manufacturers description for men but men of ox what's on that some people have told me they would caught they would say man is a thinker I would say man is a speaker under they've told me man's a doer but I think the best description which encapsulates what man really is is man as a chooser the use of free will the YouTube that power that we have something that you can engage 24/7 that's our essential power no Pirkei avos chapter 3 mission 218 does it like this comments about free will this way rather Kiva used to say beloved is a man that he was created in God's image sella melo king but even a greater show of love is that it was made known to man that he was created in god's image as it says in the torah and gracious most elemental game of sodom in the image of God he created man it's very fascinating we understand that the creative ability free will he tremendous tremendous power and we're thankful for it but would we think it died telling us that we have this power free will is such a big deal it's like what do you want to hack me on back you know I'm so great I make sure this power with that a very Weinberg the founder Buford this a lot of the material in this presentation is built on his classic class on free will he's think they're very nice and out he would say I'm imagine they have a homeless man or woman on the streets of New York and their life's miserable they're living hand-to-mouth and squalor on the streets they're really terrible existence and you know the you see the this woman say passed out next to her shopping cart and you really you're a rich guy you wanna be magnanimous you take an envelope with a hundred thousand dollars in cash and you put it in the bottom of the shopping cart now really that person that beggar is rich totally rich change their entire existence in the blink of an eye apartment you know how food cleanliness prospects whole existence has changed but when they wake up do they feel rich in any way there's still the same beggar the same problems stuck in the same cycle of poverty they were before because they don't know that they have the ticket to get out of this life inter living now imagine me my free will it's more than $100,000 it's millions of dollars in what it can do for us change our existence change the course of humanity and yet we don't necessarily we're not necessarily so aware of the power that we have how its defined and how to harness it at best I would say most of humanity is woefully underperforming and utilizing this incredibly precious gift at worst people esra bone suffering because they don't know how to harness this incredible incredible gift I have to start with a definition that's the most people thing about Judaism when I was coming to Turin in my early 20s one of the things that was amazed to me about our religion is that most of the concepts that society has a very hazy poetic idea about see freedom free will love Judaism has definitions unbelievable because how can you actually hope to achieve something without a definition so if you ask people about the definition of free will and you get some answers most people would start out by saying it's kind of choose whatever you want to choose and then if you kind of push them a little bit and you'd say well what about for example the choice between vanilla and chocolate ice cream at a free will choice they say yeah it's a free will choice but they were recognized isn't that important you know we share that type of idea of having a preference share that with animals we're programmed we never desires it's really not a big deal so when we say free will and get something a little bit more deep little more significant a little bit more people will generally say meaningful choice perhaps choices between good and evil but they're heavier the meaningful choices so but when you look into that kind of definition you were faced with the following problem you know how many moments of meaning or of choice between good and evil do you have on a daily basis I mean if you have six person has six meaningful moments you know you see your baby in the morning you look at you have a tender connection and you kiss them and then you have a beautiful interchange with your wife perhaps and then maybe you know three or four hours later you know you're helping a colleague and you feel good about it you know perhaps you then go work out you you you you know have your personal best time in the mile that you want to run whatever it is if you add up those moments at the end of the day six is like a great day terror twelve is off the charts if you had to put your God hat on and you had designed the system wouldn't you design the system with our most important power operative all the time isn't that what the best we need to do it and we know guys not constrained he has no resource problem no lack of attention you can keep in his head all these different people all the billions around the link you know split screen like we're on zoo you think could be something more constant if you look at the Torah the turn actually gives a definition black and white environment it's of him on freewill fastening and it's in chapter 30 verse 19 very famous few lines I'm gonna excerpt in a bit I have police before you life and death blessing and curse and you shall choose life car to bhai him you should choose life so that you will live choose life so that you will live now that's really something the tour is defining free window as a choice between life and death now I wouldn't have thought that not only anybody really you know first glance with the foot three wheels it's troubling death who is struggling between life and death on a constant basis and that's little one but number two which is perplexing is I would have thought that the only way not to live is to choose death but per says we look knit again it says choose life so you have to choose life in order that you will live I would have thought reverse unless I choose death of course I'm going to live that's the kid that's the condition I wasn't before that's the conviction I'll be after another wine but always point and focus our attention unfortunately what he called the final eggs unfortunately there's some people people were not judging as a turtle thing mcdu commits to us that could take their lives and who think that finally so he asked why do they do that what do they do that they said typically it's that the person is overwhelmed with pain overwhelmed by pain he doesn't have he loses or she was just a sense of perspective and the pain is so overwhelming that they need to escape its escape from the pain of life and not judging look fart be for any of us to know any of that type of suffering but it's an escape from that pain of life now we look at it that way we might be able to see a parallel to our own lives and I would put it like this we might may not commit suicide take that final exit but we commit suicide in installments we often take the easy way out even in our lexicon of language you've heard the expression everybody's heard the expression killing time well time is life killing time is killing life that drunk person's a zombie someone's vegging out all these are expressions of its engagement so with the tour is teaching us very powerfully that really the opportunity on a moment-to-moment basis to engage with disengage in life engage is to choose life disengage is to choose death now we might be walking down the street but if we're disengaging disengaging disengaging recording quote walking dead man that's the idea now if you think about it first of all it's beautiful because it fits our first criteria it should be constant you should have a free will struggle that's constant because every struggle presents an opportunity opportunity degree opportunity to create my existence and create the create the world so that's the idea of free will Shakespeare said it so well a very famous Shakespeare that Hamlet that we're very used to hearing to be or not to be that is the question whether tipped by the narrow you just Forge or to take arms against bubbles and by opposing and to sleep just leave chance to dream be or not to be that's the minute to knit struggle to live or die choice by choice minute by minute day by day all right why were used to saying and it really is true we don't think about this that the character and the quality of our lives is inexorably following the free will decisions minute denied that will dictate who we are that will dictate who will become free leave a huge amount of that on the table we're not gonna max out that really defines who we are and who we will become so how do we become experts and utilizing our freewill and how could help us deal with the situation and we finders so I really think it helps tremendously well the first level of a Weinberg would say is get on top of your choices it would say most of us many of us didn't like all of us myself included all of us bar none much of our life is spent on autopilot we eat certain things every day we go to work in a certain way they put on a certain radio station certain habit of that we engage it in our work have so much of our lives like you can just you know sometimes you get your car you don't even realize you guys how you it's not just our car it operates over huge areas of our lives so remember Berg would say that you know maybe one day one day a long time ago you just make a decision in that area of your life but didn't Eve is--it that decision he didn't dust it off and make it new so what happens is you dear each of our lives kind of go dead from a freedom perspective he would saying don't let your life run you you need to run your life so you can call that periscope up your periscope but take a look at those areas of your life which kind of just go by themselves then we evaluate them you might think you know what decision that makes a great decision but I'm gonna reown it and I'm gonna revisit it and periodically revisit it how do I spend my time on the way to work am i learning something am i growing you know I keep falling at the same track with my child I keep getting into an argument maybe I should just live a little bit different maybe I shouldn't you know keep falling into the same pits I fall into all the time well that's the first level the first level is periscope up second level it's kind of an offshoot of the first one and he said it was really amazing it's kind of surprised to me there's autopilot knowing them but the second level was really fascinating when I heard it for the first time he said that you know we all have social conditioning in our lives our parents our teachers our rabbis the world the media kind of gives us certain ideas about what's true in life and we kind of run with that naptime totally the glass is the that we see life miss and we really think we're right the capitalists the pro-democracy countries thought they were right the Soviets in the old days in communism they thought they were right everyone thinks they're right the truth really is they don't think they're running you don't really think much other you don't really think about it very critically you know we all feel we're right when I first heard that it kind of has to put a shiver up your spine because how do you know that your facts line up any better then the guy suicide bombing in Israel Miran how do you know now you kind of think so but they think so also at the point is you really don't think you think it through most of us didn't through felt it through we confused that's really scared so he would say not only do you have to you know we look at the things that are on autopilot you have to kind of also revisit those things which you hold about the world social cognition you would always dope wingman's social conditioning is nothing it's pretty much you're a Democrat you know you say the Republicans are brainwashed in the problems they just socially conditioned room is in the reverse nothing Democrats Republicans remember that's just how you look at life we're white the other guy wears a black hat so he would say now make those your home don't just destroy them because you were taught them by someone else your parents your rabbis your society they could be right make them your own know why they're right know why you do them and real knit again this is your free will re-engaging on a huge swath between these two areas huge areas of our lives can be reclaimed and we can get on top of the level though is where you make your money this is really the essence of free will and it's really the idea that Apple is going on inside each one of us and the rappers have a story and you say there was a great Torah scholar that saw a band of soldiers in the old days coming back from a victory they were flushed with excitement a great victory and he said what are you so excited about said in this war if you're if a war between man and another you know another another army they fight the victor if you know he's not gonna come at you again the next day he's gonna give you a rest but he's gonna give you time off in the war this worth and I'm gonna talk about it's automatic you lose the first battle anyway you're thrown into battle number two he said in the war that I'm gonna talk about usually in a war between two armies if you run far enough if you run fast enough I'll also get some time to regroup you also can live to fight another day the war that I'm going to talk about is over that you no matter how far you go no matter how fast you run armies always pursuing you never get it British we're never be able to stop running and to be stopped being pursued he said you know the worst thing you can have in a battle between two armies if your enemy is right in your camp you have traitors and they're in your very camp you said the more that I'm going to talk about their war where the enemy is right in your very camp they said what is this war you're talking about and he said it's the war between the good inclination and the human needs are and these are at those this war is at the fulcrum of pre will now it's often associated with our body and our soul typically our soul is associated with our good inclination that wants to be great that wants to grow that wants to strive that wants to be sensitive that's associated with their spirituality our mission our soul typically her middle inclination our laziness our physicality it's generally associated with our body now don't want to put the body down because the body has tremendous strength and sets and Verve and passion and the goal really is for the soul to harness the body's incredible capabilities very much like a Forks and a rider horse and rider who do you want to have in control of horse or the writer where's the writer because I horse and rider where the horses is in control is out of control that's scary that's addiction that's crime that's just a slippery slope anything I don't want to know what's going on over there so the sole means to hold the reins but it needs to use Coe about the incredible criminal talents of body that's this body soul endemic and the Box old war now let's get practical how does this manifest myself so often it's a choice and free will rebel I redefined brilliantly it's a choice between doing what we feel like and what we want good what I feel like doing and what I wanted when I feel like doing but almost always associated with the the right now I gotta have it what needs of the body for example one of my free will struggles is you know always on the latest diet and I'm trying to watch me make nothing too great now front of slim down a little before pacer but you know look we're in quarantine what else can you do buddy but anyway I looked there the chocolate cake well I just made it looks unbelievable and I feel like eating I really do I want it it's calling me calling my name not unbuttoned but I want to be fin I want to be healthy I want to have you know energy to play with my kids if they live long and specifying life so you see I had you opposing tendencies inside of me I feel like doing something immediate with immediate gratification I want to do something a little bit longer a little bit more than a vision immature and if I'm fighting as I'm fighting against myself remember when I was 16 is to be a tennis player he's a play on the circuit I decided I wanted to try to get a bit of an edge you know to my game so I started jogging like 6:00 in the morning to me that was a 16 year old kid getting up at like 6:00 the morning so one part of me wanted to jump out of bed I really wanted to get the edge but I felt every time that alarm went off I felt like hugging the pillow and I had this battle I almost felt schizophrenic and it didn't stop you know I went out for the for running for the run and I'm eating you know it's kind of tough and you're susceptible to quitting and I remember the voice inside saying hey if you if it'll work step heart's gonna blow up you know we it looks things like that and my other voice thing oh come on let's just run another half a mile and it'll be this war and I thought yeah like I'm this oh there's an old book Sybil schizophrenic hurts a bit that's the the war between the 8th Sahara needs are told that we're all familiar with we understand how this war is beige we understand how it's fun but how do we get over how do we get over so the first thing is to take a look at your particular struggles now all of us have the same struggles my wife Emily struggle steals other struggles every one of us has probably you know fiver stinks seneschal freewill struggles now each of them you could kind of say what is my feel like or I feel like so for me I feel like a Machop the cake I want to be in shape I feel like being sensitive and patient when my mother calls me to talk about her finances or where my wife is asking me something about something whatever and I have like something else I feel like insensitive I feel like being patient but I want to snap I want on like be sarcastic that's my kind of freewill struggle I want to listen but I want to say what I want us today you know so each one of us has these freewill struggles because what happens typically is that if we don't recognize the manic time we get ambushed by them you know it's kind of like someone's waiting to get you the enemies would be to get you but if you know these fearful struggles and you kind of know when you're gonna call them also it's a little early learning preparation you can try not to fall into now it's very interesting because there's another statement that rabbis kind of goes with if I didn't I wouldn't understand it said that the evil person he would fall down he wouldn't get up whereas the dystonic the righteous person would fall down seven times and he would get up every every time and I think in light of this definition of free will makes a lot of sense and what it means is who would have thought I would have thought righteous person is someone does good deeds a religious person does right two speeds an evil person does evil deeds but you know what that's not how good and evil starts that's not the basis of good and evil it's actually more insidious more frightening because really what this is saying this is saying is that you want to be a righteous person the best way to be a righteous person it's just engage adult life you get knocked down the gamut you've been up again and you fight and you fight and you win some and you lose some and if you keep fighting you will win more than you lose and that's the road to righteousness whereas the road to be an evil person is funny is giving them up you give up enough you quit the mouth taking the easy way out start taking shortcuts you can see how that can lead to a real downward incredibly downward struggle now to be really effective in free will you have to know one thing brings us back to being of the class we mentioned that the rule of traitor for a pleasure God wants to give us pleasure this woman be not to fit out there that trips us up right in the tree will battle you got to know about rabbi Weinberg always used to ask he would ask people all the time it's the opposite of pain nine out of ten people would say neither then would say the opposite of pain is pleasure and I don't want my boobies say no good guess but no the opposite of pain is not pleasure the opposite of pain is no pain in a car my car always happens unfortunately nesara air conditioning breaks no Fria honey pain now when I get a new a new shot gyptian of freon am I now a pleasure what did I am I now in comfort I was uncomfortably paying before now I'm in comfort the opposite of pain is no pain or comfort now if a person thinks that pain is pleasure I'm sorry that that that pleasure is comfort then all he's gonna be going after the life it's comfort he's not really gonna be getting a deep pleasure because we say and if you think about it a little the greatest pleasures that any of us have ever had save created a business say you've had a baby so you raise children say you've won a marathon race or you become a tennis champion go all of those efforts that you remember for the rest of your life were at the expense of a tremendous managed struggle a tremendous minute even if tremendous amount of pain you know we'd say in a dim no pain no gain we all kind of know this when we say it better for a minute but on a superficial level we gravitate to comfort but really really it's fool's gold I've been Weinberg would always drill this point home he would say what's your parents greatest pleasure but your previous appearance greatest pleasure and everybody would say you know me their children and I would say what's the greatest pain I think they would say their greatest pleasure is also the greatest pain wherever I would ask me that I happen to have a twin brother so you ask me what your greatest pleasure I would say me and he yes but your parents pain hosting my but most for the most of the people they would never go this way but what he would try to ill explain you know so beautifully it's that penis the price tag from deep everlasting pleasure pains got a tremendously bad rap in our society guard after it's not it's how you become great so we need to make sure that we're not treating in real pleasure for comfort in our society is pushing comfort Madison Avenue it's pushing no prob oblems relax have a beer in hand mr. bat asleep on the beach she's been asleep even our society where does it head was the ultimate comfort environment no problems though all my problems are behind me flatline now they will be used to say so I used to say flatline it's really not good for you to be you know when the heart flatlines are dead gotta go up you got to go down you got up you got to get so we need to know and that could be a truth be on top of our free will we have to understand is the choice between what you feel like doing and what you want to do and if you're working you want to do more and more often and by the way that's becoming more in the line maybe your neshama more in line with yourself more than line with your higher aspirations I would say it's your aspirational self the more you know your aspirational self the more you nurture your aspirational self the more you fight for your aspirational self and when you get knocked down to the canvas you come up that's the way to be tremendous the self-actualized person and a tremendous tremendous religious person you know I want to turn now to the situation we find ourselves at 20 25 years ago had great privilege to hear on a college program that I was one of the counters on you would say my dream in Hebrew the time trance and the time Stransky you know was a famous refusenik in the eighties he was created okay I think nobody's been a buddy he's he's you know the who's who list he is on and he has done an author and a statesman and incredibly eloquent so he was giving a riveting presentation to this student group I was with and asked him about being free because he was locked up in Siberia in a cell in solitary for many years and they could understand you know at define man but it must have done to him he said something I'll never never forget he said that you know when I was in that cell in Siberia I felt more free than when I walked down the streets of Tel Aviv in Israel people didn't understand he was talking about himself he said you know when I'm walking in Tel Aviv I have a kind of a semblance of freedom they can kind of go where I want and do it I want to be kind of like as this veneer of being free but I'm not a little planet as we mentioned before you know life just kind of cascading as it will in whatever direction it's moving it is when I was in that cell my free will was in front of me 24/7 am I gonna give in to them the Soviets or my gonna fight them some every single second of the day because of my confinement because these distractions were taken away I'm focused upon real freewill and I can't help but think that that's what the situation is that we're in right now you ask everybody are you free we're about to go to Passover your free person and on one level not we're not really free we can't go to work you can't go out we can't do the things that we ordinarily want to do going stir-crazy of course we're not free but when you think about it what's happened is that our distraction so many of the distractions the a to be the C to D to e that my life just progresses on kind of on its own has been taken away and I'm just left with my free will challenges particularly my challenges with my family you know I have a great relationship with my wife but sometimes we feel like we're two ships passing tonight you know with that you know what that's all about you have your work to do and you have on your plate and a lot to accomplish a lot of people in your lives and you don't even you don't even talk to each other my mom always look can't believe that my wife doesn't tell me I don't tell her this team's gonna Lana here for my mother what's going on with my wife and the reverse we laugh about it but it said so now now I have no excuse my wife's not going anywhere I'm not going anywhere how is our relationship is our intimacy like am i sharing my life with her am I just gonna go in my office or am i get engaged with my children you know the child every one of us has once a little more difficult and the other and the others am I gonna see what that kids about am I gonna run a free will decisions right in front of me it's my diving gonna look like and when I go to the show let's together autopilot you know I ain't now have to make a decision am I gonna get up to the sunrise service but I'm really supposed to do and there's no minion around how much do I want it much do I understand with those words me how much is it moving me what am I on top of my religious life and how much or how much was it just on top of me boy my free will has never been more in front of me than it is now with each child am I gonna have so much time now and my work slowed down like a lot of our work to spawn yet we feel look fun I think it's gonna look in the news am I gonna write a couple of classes am I gonna take on a new project am I gonna do something I've always wanted to do I just never know oh they never had the time am I gonna be what are my choices gonna be I feel this is giving us a tremendous opportunity it's locking us yeah for pious folk focusing costs on all of our battles all of our struggles with the most important people in our lives and if we embrace it we don't run from them but we choose it I choose my relationship I choose my situation I choose this situation right here that I shed and God has put me into I'm not running anywhere I'm not going anywhere and I'm gonna make I'm gonna make the best I can you can out of this situation that God lovingly is pick just for me and just for you just for everybody now if you look at it that way maybe able to make the greatest leap personally the insight unlocking that incredible power that we will have than we ever could have me back in our lives the quarantine and if we send that a new baseline if we reset the narrative each one of us can reset the narrative on our entire lives and we can go from ordinary to extraordinary imagine we get now with a new lease on life and a new commitment to our unleashing our power and confronting and engaging in our life imagine what we could do to get a larger feel of choice come opportunity post this equation right now so my breakfast is that we all engage we all engage and not disengage you live we don't die and if I minute shroomish by choice asada gets knocked down seven times he gets up that's all we have to do Hashem God wants to know that we want it we want to be better people we want to be greater people God willing he'll make is great let me make us better than ever before and we'll get out of the situation kind of reeling us rest the Jewish people the entire world stronger than ever and really being a much better position that changed the face