25: Finding the Balance

Hi, this is David Orlowsky and welcome to the Rabbi Orlowsky Show. So nice to have you all aboard, whether you're watching on Torah Anytime or wherever you're watching or listening to podcast. It is a delight to have you on board for this episode number 25. Wow, 25. And uh based on the response, uh we are hopefully going to be doing a series of special Shiurim before Pesach. I have to figure out how exactly we're going to work it out, but we would like to make a whole bunch of extra ones for those of you who will be cleaning for Pesach or packing for Pesach or doing whatever it is you do for Pesach. For you who do those things that you do, so well. And uh this is the first time that I am sponsoring a podcast for someone who did not ask to be sponsored. But I mentioned uh last week that a generous individual bought us a fancy new microphone and got me my special Rabbi Orlowsky Show mug. And uh I would like to dedicate this podcast in honor of him and all the good works that he does. He does a lot of good works and he doesn't want to be mentioned. Doesn't want to be mentioned. Uh I appreciate that, I do. There's uh somebody who makes a Well, let me put this in the context. There's a women's Shiur on a lotion that takes place here in there at the show and Binyanei HaUma, they get thousands and thousands of women uh who come out, you know, and uh somebody said, "Why don't we make something for the men?" So he makes a men's Shiur on a lotion and he asks me to MC it and he says he doesn't want any credit for it. And I said, "No problem. Taking credit for things I did not do is one of the things I do best." And I was more than happy to be the public face of this event and to take full credit for it. Thank you very much. Because I I'm happy to take credit even for things that I don't do and certainly for things that I do do. And uh I told this story, I think. I never told this story. Um There's an organization in uh Beit Shemesh called Likras Kallah. Do you know fascinating um organization is run by Mrs. Penhasic. And uh they were making the first fundraiser. And she asked if I would come out and speak on behalf of the organization. And I said, "Listen, you know, I'm for money I'll do anything." So uh she says, "It's really important to us to get you for this event." And I said, "Why is that?" She says, "Because I heard you speak about how every individual can do something special in this world. And uh and I was inspired by that to start this organization. Which provides for kallahs and and It's interesting. You can get somebody to help you make a chassanah. You can get somebody even to help you get a place to live. But then you go and you have nothing. I mean, things that we take for granted. Uh this baal teshuvah once uh wrote into the Jewish Observer. This is my note. And it's time. And it said uh "You know, um there's so many things you take for granted. You know, your your parents or in-laws buy you Shabbos coats for the kids. We don't have anybody do that for us. There are so many things that that you take for granted. So many things that to you are such simple things that everything for us is we're on our own. So uh So she says that she raises money and they check out the kallahs well to make sure it's legit. And then they can go shopping. And dish towels, bath towels, um dishes, pots, um linens, small appliances. I mean, the things that you know, used to having people come and take care of you, but they may not have anybody taking care of it for them. So, um uh So, when I spoke at the event, I said I want to point out that this thousand callers have been reached so far and helped, it's only because of me. And this is all my credit. So, this person doesn't want to take credit, but I want to give him some credit for the microphone and for the beautiful mug and that support and friendship. So, this week is Parshas Tazria. And uh I spoke last time about Vayikra and and Tuma and Tahara, it doesn't really get too exciting for people who should know. And uh this uh uh This week we deal a lot with tzaraas. We deal a lot with tzaraas. And here we're dealing with tzaraas in the skin. Four different colors, uh I should say shades. I should say shades, but the fact is I remember I always get this forget I always I always mix these up. There's something called shades, tints, and hues. And I always forget which one is which, but one of them is the following. I mean, let's say we're talking about red. So, between red and white, there are many, many gradations. It goes, you know, less and less red, more and more pink, pink, pink, pink, pink, pink until it's absolute white. When it's going towards black, it's getting darker and darker and darker and darker and darker and darker until it's pure black. And then if you go to gray, it's getting grayer and grayer and grayer until you're at absolute gray. And all those different shades and and ideas, shades, hues, tints. Anyway, so there's four different types of white. And if you say to me, you know, well, white is white. Um, if you want to paint your room white, and you go into a quality paint store and say, "I would like white paint." They'll give you a little card with five different types of white, and they have 300 cards like that, and you know, pick out, is it ivory? Is it lace? Is it unicorn? I don't I don't know what this Every type of different kind of gradation to be able to get it. We were going to make our original kitchen we were going to make it beige, and the carpenter got a little confused and brought us this sort of like yellowish type of uh thing. I don't know. We had a neighbor who was very nice, very nice woman. She comes in and she goes, "Oh, vanilla." That was the nicest description you could possibly give to that, and uh Um, it's uh it's uh it's an interesting thing, you know, you you you talk about colors. So, there's four different shades that you can get that that makes you tummy. Now, what happens when you become tummy? When you become uh tsara'ath is translated as leprosy, which is almost as good as calling kaylim uh vessels. Um, it's When we say leprosy, it's something that's known as Hansen's disease. That's not what tsara'ath was. Tsara'ath was a type of a discoloration on the skin that you got when you did things that were wrong. Now, let's understand what that means. The world is meant to exist in an equilibrium. A balance. And there's supposed to be a balance between your mind, your body, and your soul. So, for example, uh there's a famous fellow by the name of Dr. Sarno who maintains that back operations are unnecessary because uh people complain about compressed discs, but he says the fact of the matter is that the older you get, there should be more operations, but it's not. It's mostly between 20 and 40 during the high stress time or 30 and 50, I forget exactly, during the high stress times, and after that it drops off dramatically. So, it's really the tension that's causing the pain in your back. And a fellow said to me that his wife had it so bad, she couldn't stand. She was you know, we went to drive to Dr. Sarno's, she was lying in lying on the back of the uh seat of the car. She couldn't She couldn't sit up. She couldn't And she walked out of the of the uh of the lecture he gives he gives a 3-hour seminar. She walked out on her own two feet. So, it means that you think that it's coming from your body. Let's say better than that. It is coming from your body. There's The pain is real. It used to be uh and the way he explains it is it used to be people got ulcers. People got uh had tremendous tension, and so the the body digested its own stomach. There's a hole in the stomach. You can see it. It's real. It's bleeding. But it's coming from tension. But once everyone knew that ulcers came from tension, the body stopped putting it in the stomach cuz you all know that you got the ulcer because of tension. And now you don't do it anymore. So, put it in the back instead. Um a person's mindset can affect their health tremendously. My father passed away 22 years ago from lung cancer and they've made a lot of strides since then, but back then there weren't many options available. Life expectancy was very short. And um uh when the doctor came to pay a Shiva call, he said, "Your father lasted almost 2 years with lung cancer. That was unusual, but he really wanted to live." And he pointed to somebody else in the room and he says, "He would have been dead in 6 months cuz he didn't want to live as much." Uh you have to you have to want to live and your mental state can affect your health, for real. So, too, we believe that if your body and your soul are not in sync, it can also affect you. We don't even know what this means anymore. We don't even know what this means because we have experienced so much stuff. You know this. Uh it's been documented that uh the hormones in the chickens and the beef that we eat are affecting, you know, uh young girls' development. Uh the chemicals that we have. I had a guy in my shul, his name was Sam. His parents owned a commercial bakery. And he says uh "We mix in all these chemicals and all these things, but by the time we're done, the bread is already baked. We don't you don't even have to It's already finished. You don't even have to put it in the oven. We put it in the oven for a little bit to get a little brown on the top, but as far as the loaf of bread, it's already a loaf of bread from all the stuff that that's inside of it that grows. We don't even know what it means." Um people say, I can't say for sure, people say that free-range chickens taste much different than regular chickens. I don't know. I don't know. I've I've I really haven't had. I heard this one guy say, "I I would never eat free range chickens. I want a chicken that was locked up in a box his whole life. He's miserable. He's unhappy. You know, he's happy when you finally shacked him and you eat him." End of a miserable life. I want some chicken who was happy running around having a nice life and then all of a sudden they cut off his head. But people say there's a difference. You can you can taste the difference. I was in uh Los Angeles and I I was with a family where they only drink non-pasteurized milk. They said the pasteurization process takes things out of the milk. So I said, "Well, what about the bacteria?" And they said, "You're right. You have to use it within a short period of time. Don't don't leave it for for a week like you might be able to do with pasteurized milk." But it's a it's a color that I I don't know. I didn't I didn't try the milk, but um uh people people have different what fertilized eggs. Some people like fertilized I don't know. You have a problem there with with halakha obviously. But um We don't know what it means. You're allowed to shacked a chicken on Yom Tov because you're allowed to do anything that Yom Tov. You can't expect me to eat a day old chicken on Yom Tov, right? We get a chicken who was shacked three or four years ago. He's been frozen in the refrigerator all this time in the the freezer. And we finally take him out, we cook him, but we don't know the difference. Yeah, we We we don't we don't know what things are supposed to be. We put so much chemicals in. We have so much radiation. We get exposed to so many things. So much processed. It affects us. It breaks the equilibrium. But we also believe that there's an equilibrium between our spiritual and physical selves. Tzaraas was a manifestation of the body and soul being out of sync. And the result of that was tzaraas. The result of that was that it came out in a certain way. There's supposed to be a balance. We're supposed to be able to maintain a balance and I read an article years ago where a person went to uh a strip mall. Those of you who are outside of America, it means a row of shops, okay? In America, we call that a strip mall. It's a line of shops, yeah? Um I was staying with a family in Leeds. I don't know how many years ago it was. And uh and they said, "Oh, we visited New York once." And uh and so I said, "Uh well, you probably didn't come out to Long Island." I was living in Long Long Island, yeah. Uh well, we have out there is uh you know, highways and strip malls, you know? So, they look at each other nervously and they said, "Uh no, we had the children with us." I was like, "No, no, no. It's It's a row of shops." Anyway, wow, awkward. But anyhow, um so they were measuring strip malls and every place uh it would be like eight stores, three of them were food food stores. And one of them was a drugstore. And in the drugstore, the largest line of things were antacids. And people eat and then they take antacids cuz they're bloated and they're gassy and they're sick and they're There is a worldwide epidemic today of of diabetes because there's too much food. People having too much. To be able to maintain an equilibrium, the hazal say one of the reasons we got the amount of man the way we got it was to teach you. You eat in the morning, you eat at night, that's it. I used to teach. I used to have three rules in my class. When I taught in seminary. I said, no talking. There's no cell phones. And there's no gum chewing. So, people could understand, okay, no talking, it's disruptive. People could understand no cell. Why no gum chewing? I said, because kosher people don't chew gum. You'll never see the Queen of England young chopping away at a piece of gum. You know, I important people don't chew gum. You'll never see a I I I I should say I'm really a caveat. I don't think you'll ever see a kallah under the chuppah chewing gum. It's pas nisht. And I said, I want you to see yourselves as I see you. Because I treat you with respect and dignity, and I want you to treat yourself with respect and dignity. And they said, you know, we're going to pop the gum as soon as we leave the class. I said, that's okay. But this this is a haven. For this 45 minutes, you're going to be somebody special. But it's more than that. Why do people chew gum? Cuz they always have to have something in their mouth. Always have to be eating. Always have to be a snack. To be munching something. There's not a question. This is This is a meal. This is a meal. That's it. It's okay. So, uh I remember this one diet book. It says, you know, in America we believe in having a hearty breakfast and a hearty lunch and a hearty dinner and several hearty snacks every day. We throw ourselves out of whack. We don't know how to maintain a balance. Has to be an equilibrium. Have you have have to learn how to create that balance between your mind, body, and soul. And when that goes out of sync, that leads to tuma. So, for example, there's a type of tuma which is in next week's parsha called the uh zav. The zav and the zava, yeah. The safer chinuch says, what causes that? And he says, what causes that, if you look in the chazal, is too much excess. Too much eating, too much drinking, too much whatever. It leads to zava. And he says, because the body is in a balance. And it can't handle too much extra stuff. And the extra stuff rots and oozes out of you as tuma. Cuz your body is out of sync. Your body is not balanced. And that's the same idea with uh with tzaraas. You speak lashon hara, it means that there's a disconnect between your body and your soul. Your your soul is not resting comfortably in it. There's a gemara in brachot. It says when a tzaddik dies his soul leaves his body like pulling a hair out of milk. It slides right off. There's no problem. Um taking a a rasha's soul out is like pulling a cotton ball out of a thorn bush. And the little strands. That's the reason why why people's bodies have to rot away because there are these little nefesh nuggets that get stuck inside. And you have to rot away to release it. A tzaddik doesn't have that problem. That's why a tzaddik's body doesn't decompose. No need for it. They pull them straight out. Cuz we're we don't have clew where I am, where my soul is, where my body is, how everything is supposed to fit together. There's a There's a the discomfort in life knowing that things aren't where they're supposed to be. And to be able to achieve an emotional balance, Parshas Shmini um last week when they put up the Mishkan it says um and they uh Vayeranu Vayinaflu al pneihem. They sang joyously and they fell on their faces. Now, I know people who do that, but it's they were they were drinking, right? What does that mean? So Rashi says Vayeranu out of simcha Vayinaflu al pneihem out of yirah. There was that balance between ahava and yirah. And that tension is what a Jew always has to try to achieve. Warm yourself by the hot coals of the chachamim, but don't come so close that you burn yourself. There's a There's a balance. There's a balance. In life, there's always pulling close and pulling back. Ahava and yirah. There's There's with your with your parents, there's kavod and there's yirah. There's expressions that we do out of love and there's expressions that we do out of respect. Have to have a to have a certain awe. It can't be all one way. Everything in life has to be there in order to be able to achieve a balance. And uh You know one of the biggest problems that exist today? Doctors say it all the time. Scientists have done a lot of studies on it. People aren't getting enough sleep. It used to be the sun went down and you went to sleep. You could light a candle. Wasn't the same. Not like today when we can turn the night into day. I have a uh uh call the backyard a side yard here and this we call it a chutzah. It's like a accordion or whatever it is, yeah. And they put up halogen lights. So when you want to go out at night, it's, you know, So somebody comes like, "Oh, I love it. I feel like I'm in prison." Like the searchlights shining on you from all around, yeah. We can turn the turn the night into day. There's no day, there's no night. So people have trouble getting up in the morning and people are are suffering from lack of sleep and the average bedroom has all different kind of blinking lights there now, you know, so little blue lights all over the place. This disturbs people's sleep. Studies have shown. Used to be it got dark, you went to sleep. And the sun got up, you got up. Some people would get up late. Yeah, princes who were like, you know, just had nothing to do. So they would get up by by This is my cushion, yeah. That was That was the latest that anybody could have possibly gotten up. That was unheard of. Sleep the day away. Sleep the day away, party the night away. We don't know what day, we don't know what night is. Everything is out of sync. Things are out. This is parshat zachor dish. We start with Rosh Chodesh Nisan. Says the Maharal, the months that have the most Yom Tovim are Nisan and Tishrei. You know why? They're the equinox. Half day, half night. Not too hot, not too cold. That does well for us Jews. When are our days of Churban? Asarah b'Tevet, Shiv'ah b'Tammuz, Tish'a b'Av. The when the days are short and cold or the days are long and hot. Extremes. We Jews don't do well with extremes. We Jews try to maintain an equilibrium. And when you don't have that equilibrium, then you end up being tummy. That's what brings to tzaros. That's what brings to zov. That's what brings to things being disturbed. Things aren't the way they're supposed to go. And it's unfortunate there are people who have been so out of uh so out of whack for so long, they don't even know what what reality is supposed to feel like. Yeah, how are you supposed to feel good? A lot of normal body functioning people don't even have that. Let's face it, most of the diseases or most of the things that are killing people today are examples of the body destroying itself. I'm not even talking about the autoimmune diseases. I'm talking about heart disease. I'm talking about diabetes. I'm talking about all these different things where we're basically killing ourselves. And so many things could be solved if we ate better, if we lived better, if we did everything a little better. But everything's too much. In the summer, people put the air conditioning on so cold that if it was the winter, you would turn on the heat. And in the winter, very often it's overheated. I always in America, you go places, much overheated. Very often people get sicker in the winter from the overheating than they do from from the cold. It's too much. To be able to maintain an equilibrium, you have to go for it. That's Taharah comes from thinking. Tumah comes from not thinking. You know what you have to do to become tamei? Hasach hadas. Just don't think. Right? You wash your hands. I remember this when I used to be a kid and we we'd have a school trip and they'd say wash in the school and then you'd make a motzi on the on the bus. You know, you wash your hands and and you have to watch them like a like a surgeon, you know, you keep keep your focus on your hands cuz all you need to become tamei is forget. Just don't think and your hands will become tamei. You don't have to concentrate on anything. You're not paying attention. Taharah requires concentration. Tumah? Just don't think. You'll automatically become tamei. Say that again? To become tamei, all you have to do is not think? You'll automatically become tamei. That's the that's the nature of tumah. Taharah requires concentration, requires focus. And so too, if you want to have a a life of purity. So you have to keep that balance between your your soul and your body and your mind and everything is supposed to work together. And the more we can maintain that balance It's an amazing thing, you know, I I had the zchus to speak to a number of gedolei Torah. And um if you read Mesillas Yesharim you reach the level that's called yirah. It says mefacheid tamid, you're always afraid, you're always worried. I never saw a gedol Torah who looked like they were worried. They were completely in an equilibrium, completely placid. Nothing shook them up. They were They They had that balance. That's what we really need to achieve. We need to achieve a physical balance, an emotional balance, a spiritual balance. That's this time we're going into. This is Nissan. This is the time when everything begins, the springtime of the world. Where things are where they should be. And that's what we have to work on now in our own lives and in our spiritual lives and our relationship with the Kodesh Baruchu. To be able to maintain that balance, to be able to have that sense that we are people who are We don't let life decide us. We decide life. I can never control events. Make that clear. Can never control events. But I can decide how I'm going to react to those events. That's within my power. And when I have that, then I can take us out. We go may of this We go from slavery to freedom. In slavery, you have no choices. But that's not 100% true. Cuz even though you don't have freedom, you have freedom in how to react. I heard Yosef Mendelevich when he got out from Russia. And he said, you know, they took us into the prison. And it was Friday night. I started singing my zmiros. They took away my sitter. They took away everything I had. I started singing my zmiros. And they said, "No talking." And I said, "You can't take away my song." Yeah, I'm up here. You can lock up my body. You can beat me. You can starve me. But you can't touch me cuz I'm up here. I'm outside of everything. When a person can move outside of it. I knew a fellow who was older when he made aliyah and they drafted him in the army anyway. They don't always do that. When I I came I was 29 and you had a three-year you know grace period when I was 32 I went down to to register and they just told me please go away. This guy they took him and he was there with another guy and they were older older you know middle age and and you know basic training was a little rough so he says the way we got through it is we convinced ourselves we were in a movie this wasn't real and we were playing a role. and um and that's the idea the idea is that if you can look at life and say okay this is what I'm trying to achieve I have to achieve this balance I have to make myself who I want to be. I'm always in control of how I choose to react. You go to sleep on time and you wake up on time and you eat healthy and you exercise and you diving and you learn and you do everything you can to keep yourself in a in a healthy mind body and soul and then may I say a sham we can all be tahor going into this Pesach. That's it for this week. If you want to find out more about the show you want to go to rabbiyelaski.com/podcast. If you want to comment on this show it's rabbiyelaski.com/podcast/25. If you want to find out about upcoming events it's rabbiyelaski.com/events and if you want to contact me it's rabbiyelaski.com/contact and if you would like to sponsor an event it's rabbiyelaski.com/podcast and click on sponsor an episode. Thank you very much I'm David Elaski this is the Rabbi Elaski show.