The month of Tevet - How anger can be a positive thing... - Rabbi Alon Anava

We are in the month of Tibet and as our usual custom every month we do a class talking about the the month itself and what is this the spiritual and self-growth work that one wants to do on themselves during this month. As we spoke so many times every month has a certain energy and every month has a certain sense that we we have to work on and to rectify it. After all, the point why we're in this world is to do a tikkun, to do a rectification. We didn't come here for any other reason but to do a tikkun nefesh, to do a rectification for the nefesh. So, before we start we want to dedicate quickly the class to Shira and Bat Liora Sara who is in critical condition and also her baby the baby that you know Ben Ben Ben Ben Liora Sara. Should both have a miraculous recovery and B'ezrat Hashem going out of the holiday of Hanukkah so we should continue seeing miracles and B'ezrat Hashem should the Mets recovery for her and anybody else that was there hit in that attack. So The month of the vet is considered in Judaism one of the three hard months of the year. It says in the zone in Parashat that when Moshe Rabbeinu was born then his mother Yoheved hid him for three months. It doesn't say the word rather Yerahim. She hid him for three moons. The zone asks what are these three moons that it's referring to? It's referring to three months of the year Tevet, Tammuz and Av that the Shekhinah doesn't protect us. We don't have protection from the feminine aspect of the divine. So these are considered three hard months for the Jews in the in in in the year. We also see that each one of these months we have a fast. We're going to have the fast of Tevet next week and Tammuz we have Tammuz and Av we have Av. So this is a month of Dean of judgment. In general there are negative forces are empowered in this month. Besides that we start the month with the holiday of Hanukkah there's no other holidays in this month. And this month what represents the the emotion and the power of this month is anger and stress. This is not a Thank you. It's but today we're going to learn how to let go of the anger. Don't get upset. Don't get upset. See don't be stressed. Don't be angry. Listen everything that is negative is good because it has the potential to be transformed. So first let's start with don't get upset. It's a month of anger, dean, judgment, stress, but the good side of it that everything anything that is in darkness, that is in the negative side, if you do the right tikun, the right rectification, you can actually transform it to something that initially would not be able to. So, we in order to produce light, we have to have first darkness. Because if you have already lights, then you can't reproduce the light, so to say. Better way to explain it, if you take now a candle, a little candle with a flame, take it out out to a sunny day on the street, would you see the light of the candle? No. The light of the day is much more powerful. But take the same candle, go into a dark room, into a closed basement, suddenly the candle lit up the entire darkness. So, in order to really show the light, first has to be a state of darkness. Look how the world was created. The first Hashem created the world with chaos and with darkness, and then Hashem brought out the light. So, even though the the the month is full of judgments and anger and stress, nevertheless, don't stress, rather because we can see the potential here how we can take something so negative and transform it into something positive. The advantage of of judgment is that when we transform it, we can transform it to something that we all need, and not only that, that's the only way to receive it. This is called mercy. So, in order to receive mercy, to receive which corresponds to the sphere of has to be judgment. From you can't transform to mercy. So, we want mercy. Mercy is mercy and and and the the the showing of the love of Hashem. Yes, and you can't transform khisid into khamim. You can only transform a a a din into a khamim, judgment into mercy. So, it's also again good. Now, the idea behind the month of Tevet is to It's called tikkun haddin, the rectification of the judgment, and the result is that to transform it to something good. Now, we're going to go through it and see how and what we need to do. And what we need to focus on. So, first of all, look at the Hebrew letters of Tevet, tet, bet, and tav. How you write it Tevet. It's uh almost equivalent to another word in Hebrew, just that we're missing a letter, and the word in Hebrew is tovot. Tovot is good and kindness. We're just missing the vav. The vav, of course, of the name of Yud-Key-Vav-Key. So, if you write the word tovot, good and kindness in Hebrew, you would write it with a vav, but here it's written if if you would want to, you can also write it the same way without the vav, just with a pronunciation or or the dot that is called kholam khaser, a dot that is missing a vav. Nevertheless, Tevet and tovot is the same same letters. So, which means that as much as it's harsh, then there's the greatest potential to to to change it into something good. And here is just as a side note, when you see an individual that has a lot of bad qualities or a lot of bad uh middot, uh that doesn't mean the person is bad. It means the person has amazing potential. The more the person comes out of something negative, then it's very easy to say that person is very angry, he's very cheap, he's very mean, he's very whatever. But the more the person, the attributes, the midot are negative, then the potential is greater to to take something and make something amazing out of it. And you can see it with your own eyes with many many people in our generation that become great people after they do chuvah. Look where they came from. Came from very bad places. And I have friends that where they came from. I have a friend who wanted to do once a video of me and him and another two where we came from and where we are. One of them was a mafia guy. He was in in the mafia. You see him now like this. You don't think you don't think he was a he is with a beard and a yarmulke. The other guy was a gang member. There's not even 1 in on his body without tattoos. And we're like we're all we're all I mean we wanted to take a picture of all of us before how we look and then how we are all now with beards and So, you see many times that you something that is extreme negative, don't judge it right away to be to disqualify it. Rather, look at how much potential could be in there. So, the month of Tevet is the opportunity of taking something real negative and changing it to something positive. Uh not so important to know, but the sign is the sign of Gedi. Uh this is the the element of Earth. And element of Earth is representing physicality. Physicality Gedi is Capricorn. So, So, we're not going to talk necessarily today about the sign, but the reason why I want to emphasize is because the The of Capricorn is is connected to the element of Earth. And Earth is very heavy. Heavy is representing the physicality, something low, something that is sad. Any person, first of all, the people who are born in the Capricorn month, then they have a tendency for sadness and depression and anger and loneliness and isolation and so forth. Uh doesn't mean something wrong. I'm just saying that's what the there's a tendency to. But any person that will be very busy with the physical world is subject to fall into one of these emotions. If a person is very into their looks and very into the how they're dressed and how everything looks and all the physical pleasures, they're bound to fall into sadness, depression, anger, uh feelings of isolations and so forth. Because the the power of the element of of of Earth of a father is to bring somebody down. And the more you empower that element, the more they will bring you down. So, people think that if they dress nice all day long and they look nice and all day long the nails and the hair and the lipstick and all this There's nothing wrong. You can look nice. But all day long and the car needs to be beautiful and this and the new iPhone and then you think it gives you all sorts of happiness and gratification, but it actually does the complete opposite and it pulls you more down. So, now the iPhone is not so great because a new one came out. Or you get a beautiful car and the next day a little scratch on the on the back that drives you insane. So, so the more you feed the element of a father of of Earth, the more it pulls you down. It's kind of like a catch-22. Now, we always talk about the the sense of the month, sense, emotion, which of course this month is anger. And anger can be a very, very negative thing. As we know that our sages tell us that the anger, it removes the soul from the body. If a person is angry, he goes into a mode of anger, just know that in that moment you lost your soul. The soul cannot stay in the body when you lose your anger. Every person that is angry, the soul gets removed from the body. It's almost like uh this is my kind of my analogy. Imagine now the president is coming to some rally or some show. And then starts violence. Right away they take the president out. All the bodyguards jump on him and they take him out. Let the the violence stay, but first you get the president out. Same idea. You get angry, right away the soul is being removed from the body. I thought the godly soul never leaves, no matter what. No, there's always stays a spark in the in the in the in the body. That's no doubt. The thing is that if you want to really compare that, if a person now does a severe sin, the soul leaves the body. It is called karet. The soul gets Yeah, but there is there's always going to be a spark in the body to enliven the body. This is something that Rizal is talking about. How can it be that if I a person does a severe sin right now, the soul gets chopped off, the soul gets removed from the body. How does the body is alive? The Rizal says that a spark from the nefesh stays in the body and the person can live 30, 40, 50 years, but the soul is not in the body. This is a empty body. So, when a person is upset, the soul is removed from the body. This is called also siluk shina. But the place where there's anger, the shina cannot dwell there. Take now a beautiful holy shul and there's going to be an argument there, a fight, and there's going to be a lot of anger, the shina is removed from there. The shina cannot dwell anywhere when there's where there's guy's This is very very very severe, you know, our sages saying the Talmud in chapter Shabbat a person that he's angry he's like as if he's doing idol worship. So, anger is a very very severe severe sin. It's one of the it's actually a sin by the way. And people think it's just an attribute or or an emotion. It's a sin, you know, not to not to anger. Why? Because you like you you idol worshiper. You don't believe what he's saying to you right now. Exactly. Yeah. Now, righteous indignation Excuse me? righteous indignation when there's injustice Oh, now let's see where where you can use anger for something positive. If Hashem created anger, must be that you can use it for something positive. Because Hashem created so many different things, anger, stress, jealousy, animosity, hate. Hashem created everything. Which means that if Hashem created anger, you have to use the anger for something positive. If Hashem created hate, you have to use the hate for something positive. Not to hate me, rather to hate the yetzer hara or your actions. The only thing that Hashem didn't create, and this is a famous quote by Rabbi Nachman from Breslov, ein yaush ba'olam. Hashem didn't create despair. This is the fakeness. This is where the yetzer hara is trying to sell you a product that doesn't exist. And he tells you fall to despair. And that's where your Rabbi Nachman comes and says ein yaush ba'olam. The the product doesn't belong in our in our in our factory. We don't have such a thing. It's the yetzer hara manipulating you and showing you here, fall into despair. And you buy you buy the product like that. But nevertheless, let's concentrate on our on our topic and we'll see why the anger can be used for something positive. But first we have to understand that anger can be used for something negative. Everything in this world can be used for something positive and negative. Take the internet for example. You use it for in a right way, it's going to be the most positive and productive thing. You can put a video now online 50,000 people will see the video. But then again, take the internet and it can be the most destructive tool in the world. So, take take nuclear power. It can create a bomb and destroy 3 million people. And take nuclear power and you can save resources of the earth and and and power a whole city. So, the tikkun here with this anger is not to to take the negative side of it. We all have anger. And if you if one you anyone thinks that no, I don't have no anger, then you live in denial. Everyone have anger. And most people on the outside in the street, they hold themselves. But when there's not a lot of people around them, then the anger is out of control. And you can look at some people in the street and they look to you very nice and calm and go to their house and put a candid camera. You'll see how they behave when when they get angry. So, and and we all have anger. One is out of control, one is completely out of control. But all you need is somebody to press the wrong button and and the anger will come out. The idea here is not to look at the negative side of the anger. It's rather to see what's the rectification of the anger. And the way to rectify or to remove the anger is not to push the anger away. You can't fight the anger. Something will anger you. And I'm not talking about that something that is a moment of anger. Sometimes something happens in your life and you angry for a month or for a day or for a week and or years. Some people they're angry for a year. And it's for a whole their life. The point is that you can't push the anger away. This is is the tikkun of anger. Rather, is to change it in its root. You can't if some if you now make me angry for whatever. You told me you're going to come and pick me up at 4:00 and you were late for an hour and I lost a big meeting or whatever and I'm angry at you. So, I may I I can calm myself down, but that's not doing a rectification of the anger. I'm just calming myself down. Tomorrow, somebody else will anger me for something else. The tikkun of the anger is to go to its root, to go to its source and to transform it over there. Then, you're not angry over here. Anger is not an easy thing to work on, but it's something that we all have to. Now, how do you start working on fixing the anger in its root? The Talmud says in tractate Berakhot page eight, "Leolam yergiz adam yetzer tov al yetzer hara." Always, you have to take your anger and to throw your anger on the yetzer hara. The yetzer hara is coming to make you sin all day long. The yetzer hara is the troublemaker. So, take all your anger and throw it at him. Don't get be upset at somebody else. We throw your anger at the yetzer hara. Now, do I fight my yetzer hara? The question is no, you don't fight your yetzer hara because if you start a fight with the yetzer hara, he's going to demolish you within seconds. If you think you can fight your yetzer hara, then there's no such a thing. The only one who was able to fight the yetzer hara was Yaakov, which we read 2 weeks ago that he fought the angel of Esau. The angel of Esau, Malach Hamavet, is the yetzer hara. If you think you can fight the yetzer hara, you're you're putting yourself in a big problem because your yetzer hara is a million times more stronger than you. The fact that we're able to do a mitzvah is because Hashem has mercy on us and he allows the yetzer hara to take a moment of a of a break. And the yetzer hara has a gauge and Hashem turns it up to full volume, half volume, half power. If Hashem turns the power full power, you can't stand it for 1 second. So, the point is not to fight the yetzer hara. That's why the Talmud says the Talmud doesn't say fight the yetzer hara. It says hargiz yetzer hara. Make the yetzer hara angry or annoy the yetzer hara. How do you make the yetzer hara angry? Very, very simple. You don't fight the negative, you don't empower the negative, and you don't fight the yetzer hara. You empower the positive. That's how you bother the yetzer hara. The yetzer hara is coming to bother you, then you have to empower what's positive in you. You have to elevate yourself. Now, if I'm weak in anger, if my weakness is anger, if my weakness is to be judgemental, if my weakness is jealousy, whatever, I have to be I have to be aware of what my weaknesses are. If you're not aware of your weakness, then you're you have a still long way for your for your self growth. I can look in the mirror. Doesn't have to be physically looking in the mirror, but looking in the mirror and looking at myself. And I can right away tell you I am good at this, I'm amazing at that, and I'm bad here. If you don't know how to do this self-assessment or this introspection of yourself, you'll never grow spiritually. So, you need to look at yourself and say, I'm an amazing chef. I am an unbelievable father. I'm in a great writer. I'm an amazing whatever. And and I'm very, very kind. And I'm very quick to forgive. And yeah, you can give yourself a lot of credit points. You can go through the list and mark a lot of a lot of check a lot of these and saying I'm a good at this and good at that, but don't forget that right away you have to say, "But, you know what? I'm very lazy. And I'm very quick to anger. And I judge people just like that." And you have to do this once in a while. Ramchal actually says you have to do it every day. In Mesilat Yesharim, and he says you have to once a day do this hishbon hanefesh. It's called introspection of yourself. That I look at myself. Baal Hatanya says the best time to do it is in kriat shma al hamita. You take 5 minutes out of your day, 10 minutes out of your day at the end of the day. You do teshuvah and you analyze your day. Was I right in this encounter with this person? Not really. Was I right how I blew up at that person? No. And you make yourself an account. So, when you know what you're good at, just empower that. If I'm very, very kind. If I know that I'm kind, don't think that I don't want to be kind to people. People use me. No, take this kindness and empower that. Whatever it is that you're good at, that's how you annoy the yetzer hara is that you empower your good. You can't diminish or overpower the bad. So, just increase in good. Now, the reason to do that is because the way that I'm increasing in good is that I'm elevating myself to a higher level. If I now know that I need I'm very good with patience or I'm very good with listening. And people need a listening ear. Sometimes somebody calls you, they just need to talk for 20 minutes to let it all go. I know that that's what I'm good at. And I'm just giving throwing examples. You use your own imagination of your own virtues. Then, then when I do that, when I take out of my time and I listen to somebody else's problem, what am I doing here? I'm elevating myself. I'm helping you, but I'm really myself. I'm elevating myself to a higher level. Now, there's a rule that it says b'makom she'ein din l'maala, b'makom she'ein din l'mata, Sorry, b'makom she'yesh din l'mata, ein din l'maala. In a place where there's din, where there's judgment below, there's no judgment above. What does that mean? That if I'm doing negative things, I lie, I I I slander, I I I judge people and so forth. There's a judgment against me right on that spot. So, I now go and I say a lie about somebody. I go and gossip about somebody. I go and I plan and I'm going to I don't like this guy. I'm going to do something to hurt him. Or whatever it is. Or I'm looking at a person who's driving with his nice new Mercedes. Look at that guy. He must be a thief. He must be a crook. Where he has this money from? The second that I have some type of a negative feeling in any way, right away there's a judgment against me. Right away there's a prosecution in the heavenly court. How he dares to think about that person. How did he dare talk about this person? How did he dare do that? There's a prosecution. It's called Din. Right away midat hadin prosecutes. Now, when does a Din uh the judgment in the world above, then there's going to be a problem in the world below. Don't forget that a lot of the things that we go through is because we bring it on ourselves. But our sages teach us is when there's a judgment in the world below, then you remove the judgment from the world above. Now, how do you do remove the judgment from the world above is when you do a judgment in the world below. When you're taking Excuse me? No, if you catch yourself in the beginning, then that's there's not a problem. If you walk in the streets and you look in a situation and the first two three seconds starts coming thoughts of being judgmental and you right away stop yourself, no problem, then you then you did your job right. I heard once from a great rabbi. It was a talk for you for men. And the the topic of the conversation was about, you know, men should not look in the wrong and the not appropriate places. I can't talk say in in if women do it and was never a woman, but men they see an attractive woman, they look right away. And unfortunately, right away the the mind starts working overtime and this is a this is a sin. Not to go you can't go after your heart and after your eyes. So the whole talk was about that topic not to look at the wrong places and guard your eyes. So a man asked something similar cuz he was saying how if if a man looks at the woman in the street he sees a woman she's not modest he starts looking at her right away the mind starts taking him to some beach in the Cancun and whatever he starts thinking of and then you have to stop your thoughts. So a young man said what if I see a woman and she's very attractive and very not modest and I look at her but after 2 seconds I I catch myself and I stop looking is it still a sin or not? So the rabbi gave him a very good answer he said you know when it's a sin when you go like that. So cuz the young man said but she's right in front of me what do you want me to do? So he says the sin is when you turn around. So same thing here we are constantly going to be triggered there's going to be a situation somebody comes and tells you did you hear what so and so did? What? And then you can't wait to hear what he did and then you're like you know no no no no I'm really I don't want to hear the lashon hara you know it's it's just not me just it's fine. And your yetzer hara oh but you want to hear it's so juicy you can't even believe but he said so and so and so as long as you stop it right away then you're good then it's not yours. You know the Baal Shem Tov says the first few seconds the thought is not your thought. The second that you took that thought and you started developing it that's already your thought. So we're going to constantly going to be thrown in us thoughts and visions and you think of this person as long as you right away pull down a screen you say but no no no no then it's not your thought. But once you start feeding it sorry to tell you, you earned it. It's yours. So, that's a great work is how do you control your thoughts? You can't control your thoughts, but you can remove the thoughts. So, comes now a bad thought into your mind, then you can't control that thought, so you bring a new thought into the mind. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov says, "You can't think of two things at the same time." So, if I'm now looking at a person and right away arouses me feelings and thoughts of being judgmental or jealousy, then start thinking of something else right away. Whatever it is. Now you busy with a new thought, so that the negative thoughts is being pushed away. So, we want to concentrate on how do I elevate myself? How do I remove the judgment from the world above is when I create judgment in the world below? And that's the only way of doing it is doing this daily introspection. Like I said, the Ramchal, he says in the book Mesilat Yesharim, one should do it once a day. And and and and I added on that, the Baal HaTanya says, "Best to do that at the end of the day it's it's at the time of Kriyat Shema al Hamita." That you take 5 minutes and you judge yourself. And you bring on yourself this judgment. Why? Because when there's a judgment be- below, you remove the judgment above. You sit at the with yourself just for to make an example and you say, "You know, today 2:42, I had a conversation and an encounter with so-and-so. And he really got me upset because he told me that he's earning now double that I am and I got so jealous. And so upset. It's not fair. I also want to earn a lot of money cuz I really want to buy myself a nice car and whatever. And because of my jealousy, I had to say something like like a not nice remark." That's how you do this self-assessment, this introspection, because you telling yourself, "Who am I kidding? I was disgusting in this enc- encounter. And in the in the morning when I talked to so-and-so, it was not nice how I talked to that person. And when you do that, first of all, you really realizing when you when you are failing. There's nothing wrong with looking at yourself and being a little bit harsh on yourself. Now, this is a very fine line. Don't take my words and say it's good to put yourself down. This is not what I'm talking about. This is not self-bashing system. You have to do that in a very in a very smart way. Second after self-assessment is self-trust. Yes, 100%. You have to look at yourself and say, "Who am I kidding?" You know, I do that not once a day. I do it 20 times a day. I do it every time I have an encounter. If the encounter, cuz it's usually between me and another person. It's not me and myself. If I have an encounter right now and everything turned out good, nice goodbye, fine. But if in the encounter I felt something was not right, I right away will review. What did I say? Could have said it better? Could have said it in a nicer way? Maybe I should have given another minute of attention to this individual. Maybe it was not nice of me to right away cut him off. The other day, perfect example, we had a guest here and and I was talking to her and somebody else came who really needed me and I cut her off. I told her, "I'm going to be I can't talk right now and and I I'll catch I'll catch up with you later." And I ran down to attend the other person cuz I knew the other person needed something from me and he left. Later on I thought it was like, "That was so nice how I just cut her just like that." I didn't see that person for a few months. She's a good friend. And you know, right away I texted her. I was very busy. I texted and I said, "You know, I'm so sorry I just cut you off in the conversation and ran out of the room. I really apologize. I mean, I thought about it and I said, 'You know what? I should have said to the other person, "Give me 1 minute, I'll be with you."" The friend says, "You know what? I'm so I'm so happy to see you. We'll catch up later. This person needs my I said to myself, you know, I could have dealt with it in a totally different way instead of just saying, "I got to go." And so sometimes you do something not because you mean, because it's on the moment. But when you catch yourself a minute later, half of an hour later, you say, "I did not I shouldn't have said that that way." Now, if you rectify it right away, you did amazing. That's the That's the point here is that you constantly want to bring a little bit of judgment on yourself that you judge yourself. Was I right right now? Was I reacting the right way? The point of taking it the way of saying it in an easy way is to take the blaming finger. Usually the blaming finger is that way. Take the blaming finger and say, "You know, it's me. I was the problem here." And Yeah, yeah, very nice. Yeah, you point like this, then so unfortunately we usually point that way. You're right, then you have a lot of fingers pointing this way, but the point with this introspection is pointing here. What could I have done better? Where did I do wrong? And that's how you elevate yourself and by default the judgment comes down to the world and it removes from the world above. Now, when you're thinking about it, cuz we want to stick with anger, not with any anything else, when you're thinking of anger, if you want to analyze where does anger come from, that I didn't get what I want. That's anger. And when you're thinking about it, that's the most childish, immature attitude a person can have. Why do you get angry? Because I didn't get what I want. Try to analyze what what else will make you angry. Because you didn't get what you want. This is childish. Now, I mean, I'm not trying to hurt anybody's feeling when I'm saying childish. I'm just saying it's a very not mature way of thinking because anger anger can you know it can come in many different ways but when you thinking about it if you have the attitude that I don't deserve anything anyways so I don't get angry. Whatever it is try to analyze it in your mind I don't want to dwell on this thought too much but when I try to analyze where does anger come from is that it I'm titling it is that I didn't get what I want but it can come in many different ways means you didn't do what I said it's still means you didn't get what I want and so forth. Now how do you really get to a point of true happiness is when you say to yourself constantly I don't deserve anything and whatever I get that's a a huge bonus and then you become thankful and and full of gratitude. So when when I think that I deserve something maybe I think I deserve respect and when you don't give me respect I get angry. Maybe I think that I should be you know number one and when I don't get that I will get angry. Maybe I think I should be the leader I should be the the top one I should be the smartest I should be and I don't get it I get angry at who at the person who so to say took it away from me. So really when you thinking of anger stop for a second when you get angry and you saying why did I get angry right now cuz that person didn't listen to me cuz that person didn't do what I wanted him to do cuz that person didn't give me the respect the love the attention I was pushed aside it's all about me anger's about me. So when you remove the me when you get to a point of saying I really don't deserve anything. A lot of people in marriage for example where what is the num the number one marriage problem is that people think that the other spouse is serving me. People think my wife has to cook for me and she has to do the laundry for me. No she's not. She who said where does it say in any type of a way that my wife is my maid? She's not my maid and sometimes I have to do the laundry and I have to do the the cleaning. But when I come into any type of relationship when it's not about me, what can I give into the relationship, then I'm not expecting anything. I don't expect my wife to do anything. When you have expectations then you have great disappointments. So, how do you do the rectification for this anger? If you remember we spoke many times based on the teaching of the book of formation Safed Yetzirah every month has a letter and the letter that empowers the month of Tevet is the letter Ain. What's so special about Ain? Is that the way to get to a rectification of anger is that I have to see people in a positive way. Ain is an eye in Hebrew. It's the letter Ain, but the word eye in Hebrew is Ain. And I need to know how to look at people. In Hebrew it's called "Lirot Adam Be'ayin Tova". I have to look at a person in a positive way. Most people they look at other people and they right away look at the person in a not nice way. That will be with thoughts of anger or being judgmental, jealousy and so forth. And Excuse me? Wait, hold on. Let's Let's go through everything. You'll see what the how powerful the eye is. The eye, yeah. Eye. Eye in Hebrew is Ain. No, no, not eye. Eye, me, eye, the eye, the The E Y E. In Hebrew eye is Ain and the letter of the month is Ain, too. Now, the tikkun, the rectification is by me looking at another person in a good eye. We're going to explain everything. What does it mean? How do you do it and so forth. And you want to do that especially when the person is doing something negative, not when they're doing something positive. When somebody is doing something positive, even though many people they're jealous, so right away they they they don't see the positive in what that person did, but even when somebody does something negative, you want to look at them in a good eye. Uh interestingly, in Hebrew a good eye, I mean in English it doesn't sound well. In in in English here you would more say look at something in a positive way. In Hebrew you say good eye, ain tova. If you look at it ain tova, ain is the letter of tevet and tova is the letter of tevet. Tevet and tova is sounds the same. Now, it says in the Mishna and in tractate Avot that Abraham Avinu had a very the the best mida that Abraham Avinu had was ain tova. And the one who had the the opposite attribute was Bilaam who had ain ra'a. Avraham used to look at everybody in a positive way, and Bilaam was the complete opposite and he looked everybody in a negative way. Now, we're going to talk a little bit about looking in a positive way about somebody else because most people they that's a challenge for them to be able to look at somebody in a positive way, even if it's somebody you like, but nevertheless we're going to try to emphasize what does it mean to look at somebody in a positive way? How does the eye really look? When you're looking at the idea of the eye and then I'm talking about the eye the e y e, not the eye the me the iPhone and the the rather than the organ the eye. So, the eye has three three meanings. First of all, it's a organ. It's a part of my body that it's an organ. The second thing is this organ is the tool to show me the vision of something. I mean the vision is a very very broad topic because I can look at something and I see one thing and you would look at the exact same thing and see the complete difference. Sometimes you see it with colors and you can see it with many things. And the third is that ain in Hebrew the the word ain is dominating letters of a word in Hebrew called mayan. Mayan, the translation is fountain, but really it's a wellspring. That's a mayan. Now we'll see See, I'm talking the eye and my eye itches. So, we're going to now try to analyze these three things about the eye. An organ, the way I vision things, and this wellspring, this mayan. You have three like the dot and then the circle. Yeah, well, we're not talking about the physical structure of the eye. I'm talking about the three We'll call it metaphorical explanations of what I can learn from the idea of the eye. Now, eye when it sees something then where where where does this Where Sorry, where does you see the connection between the actual eye and the wellspring or the fountain? The eye is a tool an organ that produces water all the time. It produces tears. This is exactly what a wellspring does. It brings out water constantly. So, you already see the beautiful connection between the eye and the wellspring. And later on, once I go through everything, you'll see the beautiful connection. So, first we have it the eye as an organ, wonderful organ, a very unique organ that most scientists and doctors says this one of the most powerful, rare, sophisticated organs we have in the body with the eye, how it's built, what it does. But the eye is really the tool that's showing you reality. Imagine we wouldn't have an eye. How would you look at reality? I mean, we are looking at reality with through our eyes, but imagine now we would have some type of a a group of people that they don't have eyes. Hashem Shalom. How would they see the reality? The reality would look completely different. Now, we're sharing the same reality, but if you close the eyes, and I will tell you now, imagine now we're doing some meditation session, and I tell you all close your eyes, you all close your eyes, and I tell you all imagine a beautiful beach. You think the beach will be identical to each and every one of us? You will think of a beach that is with white sand. You will think of a beach with big waves. You would think of a beach full of seals. I mean, the imagination is will be completely completely different. I will tell you, imagine a field of flowers. You will imagine green flowers. You will imagine blue flowers. You will imagine all the colors of flowers. So, the eye is the tool that shows us the reality that is equal to all of us, the same reality. But nevertheless, we see the reality a little bit different. Now, it's not only showing me the reality, it's how I perceive things. The eye allows me to to see things, and how I perceive things. You need the keys? Now, since we're talking about looking at people in the right way, the eye will allow me to see how I see a person, but also how I judge the person. I mean, this is a little bit more than the vision that I see. If you're looking at the like I told you in the beginning, there are three levels how I'm explaining the eye. The first one is the actual organ. So, the actual organ is how I see the reality. The second one was how I see things and how I perceive it. This is not the organ, because that's already in my mind. The eye is the tool that will bring in the information. But perceiving, that's already how the eye is connected to my mind, and I can look at a person, and it all depends on me how I will judge that person right now. I can judge the person favorably. I can judge the a person in a negative way. I can completely ignore. I can be very detailed what is he doing exactly every little action. That all depends on me. And this is the the the second part. How it's showing me you know, the teachings of Kabbalah will call it the the gavan, the tone. Because I can look at a at a whatever it is and I can see the difference of tones. I will see the tone is red. You will see the tone is burgundy. And you will see the tone is dark orange. So, the the idea take that analogy and now it's we'll see it how we looking at something. Person A will do a certain action. You would look at it as the most amazing thing. You would look at it as the the person is a phony. You would look at it be like that person is a is a is full of ego. You will say that person is amazing. We see the same thing, but each one is judging it in a completely different way. This is all depending on me. Now, amazingly amazingly, look at the letter ain, the shape of the letter ain. I'm not talking about the script how you go like that. I'm talking the the block letter. So, it has a base and then it has the kind of these two two antennas, two eyes. It has two eyes. Now, teachings of Kabbalah explain that the letter ain, I mean the letter ain is kind of like that, right? Then, the teachings of Kabbalah explain that the letter ain is the letter noon and on top of it the letter vav. That's how it is. So, you have a noon and a vav, which will create an ain. Now, pay attention to that because in Hebrew everything is much more clearer. When I'm looking at something, I have to right away use my imagination. Without the imagination that I will never work. The vision will never work. So look at the letter ain. What creates the letter ain? The letters nun and the letter vav. If you take these three letters ain, nun, and vav, what's the word that you get? anav humble Moshe Rabbeinu, the letter ain, the letter nun, the letter vav, anav. It says about Moshe Rabbeinu Moshe Rabbeinu was the most humble person ever. Anav means humble. Now anavah, when a person is humble, then the the vision of another person is right away positive. If you're looking at another person and you're judging them wrong with feelings of judgmental hate, jealousy, and so so forth, you can already know that your attribute of anavah there's nothing there. There's no anavah there. There's no person Excuse me? That's my last name, yeah, anavah. So when a person has the midah of anavah right away he will judge any person in a in a positive way. So this is already we start seeing how the ain is connected with everything. Now it says about I said about Moshe Rabbeinu the person was the most humble person ever. Moshe Rabbeinu when he looked at another person, he didn't try to measure himself by looking at another person. That's really midat anavah. I look at another person and I'm trying to measure myself with means with the other person. I compare myself. Now if that person is way above me, then right away I'll be jealous, I'll resent, I'll hate, I'll judge right away. He can't be that he's better than me, so he must be a liar. He must be a fake. He must be a phony. He must be doing something wrong here. Then, like you said before, my own self-esteem, my own deficiency. Moshe Rabbeinu why was he so humble? Cuz he wasn't looking in somebody else to measure himself. You know what most people do? They look at another person and say, "Oh, that person is a failure. That means I'm so great." And that's what most people look. They're looking to find fault in you, so I can be great. And I don't have to be great. And it doesn't mean that I have to be great if you are great. I am great here, and I'm horrible here, and you are great here and horrible there. But, if we work together, then we bring all our greatness together. So, we have to learn from our teacher Moshe. His title is Rabbeinu, our teacher. Is to look at another person, not to measure him comparing to myself. Now, how do you do that when the person is doing bad things? I'm looking now at another person, and he's doing bad things. Can you easily not judge that person? The person is a liar. He's taking advantage of this individual. He's hitting, he's molesting, he's whatever. How can you do that to a person who does something bad? So, the mission gives us the best example, the best advice. Don't judge a person till you get to his place. If you were in his place, you would be worse. So, it's very easy to look at that person and say, "Look how that person is treating his wife, so disgusting." Or look at that person how he's so pretentious. Oh, before you throw your judgment, how would you be if you would be in that situation? Would you be so great if you would be in that situation? Probably not. That's what Moshe Rabbeinu would do. He would look at another person and say, "If I was in his place, I would be 10 times worse." It's very easy to say, "Look at that uh you know, the public uh figure, how he stole money or embezzled money." Oh, well, you you wouldn't? You know, they're looking sometimes at a mayor or minister, he took bribery. Oh, yeah? If you would have a nice big envelope in front of you, you wouldn't take it? Don't uh think that you're so righteous. We If how would you react in that situation? So, the best way of doing it is when you look somebody somebody doing something bad, very easy to right away pull uh judgment and say, "Look at that." It's much harder to say, "Wait a minute. How would I react if I would be in this situation right now?" Uh probably just the same, if not worse. Maybe not. Maybe I would do much better. But, you have to give the person the benefit of the doubt that, you know what? Maybe I would be reacting in a negative way, also. Now, to come to the third part of what I said about the eye about the ain, the eye I'm talking about, not the eye me, is when I'm looking at somebody and I always look at somebody in a positive way, then I'm able to make that person like a wellspring. All the goodness comes out. If I look at you all the time in a negative way, I emphasize the negative, that's what will come out. If you look at a person in a very positive way, he will be like a wellspring and you get all the goodness out. Now, since we're running out of time, let's just continue. Another thing with the ain, I mean, we're stuck on the letter ain today because of this is the eye, this is the letter, the energy of the month. Ain has the numerical value of 70. Uh-huh. Where do you find 70 in the Torah? Satan. So many times we find 70 in the Torah. First of all, the sons of Noah became 70 nations. 70 nations, 70 languages. Very soon, we're now in parashat Vayigash. Very soon, Yakov Avinu is coming down to Mitzrayim. How many people came to Mitzrayim? 70 people. You said the elderlies, Moshe Rabbenu at some point got very upset in the desert. Everybody was demanding meat. Remember that? They wanted meat, meat, meat, meat. We want steaks. We want steaks. Moshe Rabbenu got very upset. Shem appointed for him 70 elderlies. He says, "Shiv'im z'kenim. You have 70 elderlies that are going to serve you." More than that, we know from our sages, when they're trying to interpret the Torah, how many faces the Torah has? Shiv'im panim laTorah. 70 faces to the Torah. So, we take from that that there are 70 ways of looking at everything. 70 angles for everything. Can you imagine what a multi-dimensional 70 dimensions? Now, very interestingly, look at the letter ayin. It has kind of a twin in the alphabet. That's the letter aleph. Most people will say aleph and ayin the same way. Ani, ani, ani. Some people will emphasize the ayin. Al say. So, but most people when they speak Hebrew, ayin and aleph sounds exactly the same. Aleph is the inner meaning of the letter ayin. Where do we see that? You have the word in Hebrew, or. Or with ayin, with or, or is skin. Or with aleph, with aleph is light. And if you remember when Adam and Hava sinned, Hashem dressed them, "V'albishem b'khutnot or." He dressed them with garments of leather, of skin. He gave them skin. He gave them a body. The skin, the ayin, hovers over the light. The aleph is the inner meaning of the external part of Ein. Very interesting here also because inner in Hebrew means Pnim. The word Pnim and the word Einayim, eyes, they have the same numerical value, 180. So, the Pnim or Pnim, Pnim is inner has the numerical value of Einayim, of eyes, 180. So, the Aleph is the Pnimiyut, the inner part, Ein is the Hitzoniyut, the external part. And very interesting, like I said, that we How did we start our nation? We started nation with 70 people. So, going back to to Pnim and Einayim is 180. So, Pnim means inner, Einayim is eyes, but we just very briefly explained that the Aleph is the Pnimiyut of Ein. The Pnimiyut means the inner part of Ein. So, now we're going to I No, no, no. I'm I'm going to explain that. I'm just saying that when you I give one example with the word I A O. How do you see that Aleph is the inner part of Ein? Is O is leather or skin, and O I with Aleph is light. And the skin, what does the skin do? It covers over the body. It covers the body. It's it hides the inside. So, In the beginning, no, Adam and Hava, they didn't have bodies. They were just a beam of light. They were Neshamot, they were souls. So, this is This is a mystical explanation, but in the beginning, Adam and Hava didn't have bodies. After they sinned, then Hashem dressed them into bodies. I know Hallmark makes them look like you know, very handsome, and she's very beautiful and blonde long hair, and eating apples, but that's Hallmark or whoever invented that. Adam and Eve didn't have bodies. They were souls. They were beaming souls of light. And later on when they sinned, they got dressed into a into a body. But that's off the subject. Let's just finish cuz we're really taking a lot of our time. But the point is that that's the clothes that he dressed them, the fig leaves, but he dressed them with bodies. He says Hashem could not or could not this garment is the actual clothes and or as he gave them about body. So, but nevertheless, that's totally off our subject and we're taking off what we need to focus on. We need to focus on the eye into the this good eye. And if I have anger then I have to right away turn the the anger to myself. That's the bottom line of it. I know we got so sidetracked in so many things. It's hard to focus on what we were trying to what we were trying to to give over. But the point is that that we need to focus on what's called eye into the on the positive eye on seeing things. Now, if I get angry, then I have to angry get angry with my negative things. I have to take the anger that I have in me and if I'm lazy and I know I'm lazy or I have a tendency to be late. That's something that a lot of people have a problem with. Begin to angry at yourself. Don't get angry at somebody else. Get yourself that I was late. I caused this problem. I was the one who needs to need to work on myself. Now, you said before about if I have to look at other people or look at myself. We have two eyes. We have We have a few organs that we have two of them. We have one heart one brain and so forth. But we do have a lot of things that come in pairs, two lungs two ears. but we have two eyes. You're right, one eye is to look at another person and the other eye is to look at myself. Based on the teachings of Kabbalah, the right eye is the eye of Hesed and the left eye is the eye of Gevurah. But nevertheless, one eye constantly has to look out and one eye constantly has to look in. So, it's very easy to look out, but most people don't want to look in. I need to look at myself constantly. And when I see something negative or bad in another person, I have to be angry at myself or more just to be more accurate to say I have to be angry at my yetzer hara that is disturbing me to see the good in that person. Because every person has good. I can easily point the bad in every person and not only me, all of us. It's very easy to look at a person and say so many bad things. That's the easiest thing to do. It's much, much harder to look at any person and says, let's remove the bad for a second. Amazing individual, smart, witty, funny, courteous, generous. So, when I see something negative in somebody, I have to right away pull the screen down and start getting upset at the yetzer hara. Why are you disturbing me to to to see the good in this person? You know, sometimes you come to a movie or lecture and some guy sits in front of you and you're like, I can't see anything. Why are you Why are you I can't see anything. I mean, I didn't go to a movie for 20 years, but I remember sometimes you go to a movie house and then there's this, you know, sumo wrestler and you're like, you know, I can't see anything. Can you move a little bit? The yetzer hara, sometimes he blocks you. So, you look at a person and you don't see the good in the person. You just see the bad. Get upset at the yetzer hara that is bothering you to see the good. So, to conclude, so we're talking about that the month is a month of the name of judgment, of cast, of anger. The way to to do the right rectification is that I have to direct the anger somewhere else. I can't remove the anger. Just direct it somewhere else. And the way is to direct it to the be upset at the and you can direct it completely at you and be angry at yourself when you mess up. Not in a negative way that you bash yourself. But the anger needs to be directed that when you fail you have to have the right analysis to say guilty. It's very hard to raise your head and say, "I was wrong." But you have to practice it. Now, you don't have to do it in the beginning publicly. Do it with yourself. And if you want to do this introspection once a day, fine. I like doing it 50 times a day in every encounter that I have. And then I can find myself one time, two times, 10 times to say, "I'm guilty." Then right away you can go and and rectify it. You can apologize. You can fix the situation. That helps you looking at another person in a very good eye. So, another trick how to do it. And there's so much what to talk about in this class, but we're really going so much over our time. What How do you really reach to the tikkun in this month? So, I explained many times that every month has a planet that has power of energy over the month. The planet that controls the month of Tishrei is the planet that is called Shabbatai. Or in English it's called Saturn. Saturn or Saturn. I I don't know how to pronounce it the right way. Saturn. But in Hebrew it's called Shabbatai. Shabbatai is written in Hebrew shin, bet, taf, alef, yud. Remove the last letters, you get the letters Shabbat. Shabbat means hashbatah. Stopping. I'm stopping from doing anything. This is Shabbat. The power of the of the month, the power of the star of the month, is to completely stop anything that is negative. How do you do that? But your self-judgment, by this introspection. This called Din Atsmi. So, Shabbat means to stop, to lishbot, to not do anything, no labor, no action, no nothing. Then I have to take this energy. This is a very powerful energy. This is Din, by the way. Din, judgment, or Midat HaDin, or what is called in the term of Kabbalah, Gevurah, people think is a negative thing. It's actually the most positive thing. The teachings of Kabbalah explains that the ultimate Hesed of Hashem is Gevurah. It's to know how to stop. It's very easy to let go. To give is I mean, to some people it's hard to give, but for a lot of people it's very easy to give. But to stop, whoa, that's much harder. You know how you measure a power of a car? By how fast it can stop. Horsepower is how much it can how fast it can stop, not how fast it can accelerate. So, to accelerate in anger, very easy. To accelerate in anything is easy. Now, let's see see blocking or stopping. Pressing on the brakes. And if you have very strong brakes, you stop right away. This is the power that you can derive from this month. This is why it's called Din. That's why I said in the beginning, Din sounds very negative, but it's actually very positive. Take this power, it will allow you to You want to say something? Uh. You didn't say it. You want to judge somebody? No. You pull yourself back. Anything you're about to do, you stop yourself. How do you do that? Din Atsmi, you judge yourself. You don't judge anything. It's very easy to judge the entire world. You judge yourself. So, the trick here is how do I do the rectification of anger? Is Re'ayat atov. Is that I see good in things. And the only way of doing it is instead of looking, just imagine now that the vision is if it's bad this way, it's good this way, then flip it around. Good that way and bad this way. You judge yourself, that's how you able to bring the stikun, the tikun to rectification. This is called ain tovah, a good eye, that I see the good in everything. How do I see the good in everything is that I'm able to see the bad in myself. Have a beautiful beautiful month. Hopefully a very very productive month. Even though the month can be very negative, but anything negative can be transformed to something so positive. And as Hashem if we start developing that, I can guarantee to you that we'll reduce a lot of hate, a lot of anger, a lot of sinat chinam. Needless to say we can develop a lot of avat chinam, avat Yisrael. And that should cause us all to be much much more happier, definitely much more healthier. And as Hashem we would merit to see the coming of Mashiach with that.