56: Something to Change

[Music] hi is Deborah Lasky welcome to our special additional reverie Lasky Show podcast before the UM the room and probably for many people this will be the last show you'll be watching before Rosh Hashanah as as we go Sunday night is earlier Shoshanna so there's gonna be another podcast that comes out no it's a Shabbos you may not get chance to watch it but with era Shoshanna there's so much to do social experience of having to go to the mikveh not everybody is the same thing there are certain people only go to the mikveh Erev Yom Kippur there are some people who only go to the mikveh era of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur there are certain people only go before the show each other there's some people go everywhere Shabbos and obviously some people go everyday but on on the crunch times you know it's a it's an incredible social experience I want to talk about this one time I guess I want to save it for our second year of the Revlon ski show when I've already more or less established or lost my credibility with with my listening audience so when you tune in you know what you're in for [Laughter] and so this is it we're going into Rosh Hashanah the gomorian Magilla tells us that you're supposed to before Hashanah read parshas cassava dices ads and also purchase Nets of him should tip Lashon and kill a salad to end the year with the curses so we read the curses that are described in partial Sookie Tsavo and in parsha stats of him in order to be able to by reading the curses end the year of all the curses how that works is really for another discussion I want to focus on one thing that we're going to see and parshas that southern this week which mama she is we're going to be reading just before Rosh Hashanah and it's an idea I heard from the three crucial offski many years ago and it's something that I found particularly meaningful and insightful and certainly going into Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur I think it's an idea we need to focus on it says in the partnership yeah mitzvah Isaiah said sure no he Messiah haha yom the mitzvah I command you today Loden if lace hmmm ha Valera fika hey it's not too hard for you it's not too far away loba shamaya me lame art it's not up in the heavens who's that a person has to say me Ya Allah Allah Noah show my movie Kahala know who will go up to heaven and get it for us yes render us over now Senate so that we can do it Valona a valet Yami lame-o hvala no is a Raja mica ha ha la novia shman or so Vanessa so that who's going to cross the sea to get it for us so we can hear it into it Hikari laughs at over my ode the fear hold above huh laughs I say it's very close to you in your mouth and your heart to do it what's the Mitzvah Zoe's so basically what are we saying this parsha this Mitzvah is not too hard for you it's not too far away it's not up in the heavens it's not on the other side of the sea what are we talking about that's so easy and so close to you it's tighter so as Rashi says it was given to you a pattern if it's a pattern about pet it's it's explained to you it's clear to you it's accessible to you and this whole thing is talking about torque and in general that's a that's a very important point because we think of this journey to find the truth people climb up mount ins in India to find someone meditating at an ashram it's be able to share with us the truth that was this middle-aged Jewish woman she flies to India she takes a train up into the mountains see switches to a car and eventually she gets on mule the only thing that can get up through these mountain passes and she finally comes up into the ashram and she comes into the ashram and the fellow in charge the yogi the Swami the whatever he is is sitting there meditating and she comes in she says I would like to speak to the fellow in charge there they said listen he's meditating now you can't disturb him no no I just want to talk to him for a minute you can't even speak to him for a minute he's meditating he says I just want to say three words to him okay so they are swimming to his presence is meditating she looks woman says Sheldon come home but people thank you at the climb mountains you have to go and search for the truth and a curse Bertha says you don't have to go into outer space you don't have to go on an expedition overseas searching for the truth I give you the truth it's right there know if Weinberg says when a person is born and my life hits him on the lip I didn't forget till it's time he says why is he hit him over here he says to teach you that when you go searching for the truth the first place to look is right under your nose so in that level it's definitely true letter is very available but the Ramban says that this mitzvah is not too hard for you not too far away and not too difficult for you it's very close to you and says the Rambam the Mitzvah is the Mitzvah of chuva and I remember in a Sekine smooth and a talk to coach Alaska asked what do you mean it's so easy it's so close to you ha ha chuhwa is so easy it's so accessible you see how hard people work trying to be Juba so he said the following idea and I think this is so important especially when we're going Eshan he said doing chuhwa is easy what's hard is recognizing that I have to be children because to come to a realization that I did something wrong and now wow I feel terrible about it and I've got to change it they used to say how many psychologists does it take to change a lightbulb it says one but only if the light bulb wants to change the hardest part is believing I did anything wrong and he quoted the famous story of Sir Isaac ship where he meets this boy before Shoshanna he says no getting ready for my den of course Rebbe he says you're doing Jumma yeah yeah of course the Thames river he says for what you know for different appearances it's like what you know I don't know says well let's let's go down the list she was darling give a kill anybody No oh good boy I vote is our know oh good yeah give that right no no no okay great and he keeps going down the list this is Russian huh yeah yeah I mean there were times I spoke loshon hora but it was always for it to Ellis was for a purpose was it's Tom you know little tiger oh yeah there were times out of a bottle Tyra but it was you know it was always with an Irishman you know it was it's Tom you know and he goes down the line and funny he goes you Russia you're never gonna do to vote how can you do to me you've never done anything wrong in your life yeah you yeah you know you never embarrassed somebody in public that's like killing them you never looked at a girl that's called get I rise according to missiles your arm the only reason you haven't done a voters are is because the Iron Sheik nesic a dollar were Movado the tiger for it the only reason you didn't do our idol worship is that the men of the great assembly I took away the desire for it all you would have done that too you speak Russian are you Movado Tyree do all these terrible but in your mind you've never done anything wrong so how you're gonna change the first step is recognizing that I have what to change and that's the hardest thing I had a write back once with dr. Reinfeld who's a well-known psychologist coming back from a mush Britisher the Thursday night and I said to him I used to be in the field you know and now I'm retired just living off my past reputation but when I would meet with people sometimes I'd meet with somebody and I know instantly what the problem was and I would try to tell them and they say no no no that's it now I see what you might think that but no that's that's that's not the problem and they come back to me sometimes months sometimes years later and they'd say you were right I just wasn't ready to hear it then and that's a big problem I'm not ready to hear it yet so I said so a person comes to you and you can evaluate what the problem is right away he looks at me and he smiles that he says that's the hardest part of my job I have to allow the people to be able to come to a recognition on their own of what their problem is and people don't want to people don't want to acknowledge that they have a problem I just met somebody who's going working on the 12-step plant for two different different addictions that he has and you know the first thing you have to do is stand up and say I am an addict I have to recognize it a lot of people have addictions they don't recognize their addictions yeah I like to have a drink every now and then yeah i gamble every now and then but they don't see that they're addicted to the behavior they don't recognize it in those terms I had to first acknowledge it yes hotel see obvi see bisciotti I've sinned I've transgressed I've done bad things I have I have to be able to say I V doing is an essential part of Trueba I have to admit it and that's what we clap our sake this is one of the things we do wrong is veto the pact we same I don't mean it the insincere video in sincere confession I say but I don't mean it because if I really meant it if I really sense that I did something wrong how many times do we tell ourselves yeah I did this but it's not such a big deal not a big deal right and and part of that is is very simple right part of being an adult is taking responsibility I remember the last adult president we had was Ronald Reagan and and I remember when there was a car bombing in Lebanon he got on television and he said I am the president United States I am the commander-in-chief the buck stops here I am responsible for this because being an adult means taking responsibility I remember when we had President Clinton for his baby boomer president and he lied under oath and he said it's not my fault I wouldn't have lied if you hadn't asked me the question it was not my fault when I was mushki up there was this kid who was much more mature than everybody else I know cuz he kept telling everybody how mature he was and you know cuz most people came right out of high school and he had a year in college and so he was much more mature I always tell everybody how mature he was and and one time I said to him you know maturity it means responsibility and diverting is at 7:15 and you don't get out of bed until after 11:00 often after 12:00 and he looked at me and said maybe you should be skinned yourself why you can't inspire me to get up earlier because at the end of the day this is your failure rabbi isn't it I was stunned it was stunning to me that that a person could have no sense of responsibility it's not my fault it's your fault it's your fault for not making me want to get up in the morning for not inspiring me I mean people decided oh I'm not from anymore why oh this one was bad to me that one was bad to me I had a rep he wasn't nice I went to a doctor who was incompetent I was here learning in arts show an epic I didn't know I had hepatitis I know I couldn't move and I knew that I was throwing up everything and it was terrible and this doctor came checked me out and he said it's the stomach virus and the next day was even worse so they brought in a real doctor and he said right away that it's it's hepatitis and then this guy sent me a bill you know he said I was thrown off because you were wearing yellow pajamas now do you think therefore I never go to a doctor anymore I've turned my back on medical science because I met a doctor who was incompetent I met a doctor who is bad all it was mean to me no modern medicine makes sense what do I care that this person did something wrong but the alternative is for us to take responsibility and people can't do it so I I toured for many years in seminaries and things in our colleges and so you'd have somebody left a roommate I'd say why'd you use my laptop I didn't think he'd mind yeah but I told you a whole bunch of times not to use my laptop I didn't think it would matter no no but I told you another okay fine okay I'm a thief okay you're happy I'm the worst person in the world you're happy now you're happy no I would be happy if you said you're right and I'm sorry the reason Rosh Hashana really went off the rails was that that was the day that other militia was created and he ate from the tree the only Mitzvah that he had don't even from the training from the tree and guard comes him and says why did you eat from the tree there's only one correct answer you're right I'm sorry I shouldn't have done it that would have been the end of the story and God would have forgiven him we wouldn't have needed all these years of history and everything we've been through but instead of saying that other Asian said it's not my fault my wife's fault and he says to the wife why did you eat from the tree that's not my fault it's the snakes foot sorry I never really driving drunk and had we on that first brush Hashanah stood up and say you're right I did something wrong I acknowledge it and I'm sorry I couldn't do it we just couldn't do it there's there's something in many people that they just are incapable of taking responsibility for what they've done when I was a kid well I remember I broke my leg and nobody thought it was gonna sue them if you're walking you break your leg I'm back when I was a kid the storekeeper would come out and say you idiot why don't you watch what you're going and he'd call your father your father would say you idiot why don't you watch where you're going and then he would take you to the hospital and the doctor would say you idiot want to watch where you're going and you put on the cast when you got it off you watch where you were going and now if I fall down it's your fault because you had a hard sidewalk and you didn't take that into account and they give out a reward every year for the people who come out with the most outrageous condition where they're blaming somebody else for a situation it was named after the lady who bought a cup of coffee and McDonald's held it between her legs while she was driving and then burnt herself and crashed and sued McDonald's because the coffee was hot and now to this day whenever you buy a coffee written on the cardboard container as caution contents might be hot cuz it's coffee that you bought of course it might be but you can't hold me responsible for that so now when you buy a Superman costume it writes in the Box caution does not allow wearer to fly and people got awards for the most outrageous examples the guy was driving his Winnebago and he had it on and cruise control and then he went in the back to get a drink Kevin confused cruise control with automatic pilot and of course the road turned and he went off and crashed and survived and sued Winnebago and won a new Winnebago and now if you look in their manual it says caution must continue to drive vehicle when in cruise control and then someone showed me a label on a hairdryer that said do not use underwater which is no different than a Power Sword that a guy showed me where it said do not cut wood on your lap excellent advice or my all-time favorite example mr. peanut it's cold mr. peanut the jar is shaped like a peanut the mascot is mr. peanut who is a peanut you know he's got a head and a monocle and uh yeah but he's a peanut and it says on the front planter's peanuts and on the side there's a label caution may contain peanuts [Laughter] because it's not my fault can't be my fault when some walks down the street and they they stumble they right away turn around they're sure that a fissure must have opened up in the urethane you know grab their foot it can't be that I just stumbled can't be my fault nothing to be my fault tube is easy the Ramban learns the pus ik kuba is easy but to be able to take a hard look at yourself and realize my name is Dave and I'm an addict yay Dave to be able to have that ability to be able to stand up and say I did something wrong and I think the reason that we do this is because it's it's hard for us to be able to live with ourselves if I actually acknowledge that a dead wrong things it's so hard because I have to have enough confidence that I'm a good person who did something wrong and not that I did something wrong and therefore I'm a bad person you need a certain amount of self acceptance and that's why remember we'll talk about this before Yom Kippur but remember yo Nina says if you're still doing things wrong don't focus on regret focus on changing the action because if you just regret you'll just feel bad and then you won't have the strength to be able to change don't work on Kurata we're gonna zoom Ursa fades work on changing who you are just stop it I said what guy you know he stepped on my foot and the guy says I don't know what's wrong with me I you know I try to be more careful I try to be more conscious but I'm just not careful enough and you know and I don't know why I do these things no no first get off my foot okay then we could talk about anything else but but don't sit you're apologizing what you're still standing on my foot when I'm doing things wrong what I need to do is change my behavior patterns that I can worry about regretting the bad decisions I made but if I'm just gonna focus on regret I'm gonna get anywhere I have to acknowledge I have a problem and I have to work on changing it and then - busy's this is a common newlywed fight wife sister husband you hurt my feelings and he said no I didn't she says my feelings were hurt this is your fans might be harder than I do it me because what I said was not hurtful objectively now it could very well be he's right Goody's right what he said was not objectively hurtful but the wife is describing the fact that I feel hurt it's reality so he's not gonna apologize he might you'll say okay I'm sorry if you think that I did something which I didn't okay but but if I if I'm incapable of acknowledging is anything wrong why in the world would I ever change it you don't change something if there's nothing wrong if it ain't broke don't fix it so that in order to be able to do to ver and once you do that it's very easy but first I have to be able to sit down and acknowledge yeah I did something wrong and I and I'm a good person so I may have mentioned this in an earlier podcast the best booster screws I ever got was that from a mesh yeah honey Shiva it was from a Nassau County police officer I had gotten my license in Los Angeles and I was driving and I got a ticket and someone said to me you don't have to worry there's no reciprocity between New York and California well that's all my childish mind needed to hear in my mind it rendered me visible and invovled nobody could touch me and so I was not careful about how I drove and I got a bunch of tickets which I basically just guarding yeah and then one time it was late at night I was driving home and it was a 30 mile an hour speed limit I was going 45 cop was waiting for people to pick them up because they know it was late at night and everybody drives quick really quickly down that little stretch yet he pulls me over license registration him lee california license and he says you're driving with a suspended license and I said no no I have a California license there's never a surprise today between New York and California he says you're right we can't suspend your driving privileges in California but we can in New York and we have you've you've driven with a suspended license that's a misdemeanor I could take you to jail and so I said I've always I just completely fell apart and he said to me listen you are not a bad person but you did something stupid and now you have to face the consequences I'm not gonna arrest you I'm gonna let you drive home but this is a serious thing you better get yourself a lawyer and straighten it out and I got myself a lawyer and I paid a lot of money and they worked out some kind of a plea deal and I had a million points on my license and it took a very long time for me to clear my driving record but those words echo in my head forty years later you're not a bad person but you did something stupid and now you have to face the consequences if you can recognize that I'm a good person who did something wrong something I need to change so that I need to improve then you can go in to the you may hide in and then truth will be easy but if you have excuses and you have explanations and you have reasons and I'm a victim of circumstances and is that my fault it's this one for that one's fault and everybody else is fault how you ever gonna change I have to be able to acknowledge that I have shortcomings that sadek falls seven times but picks himself up soppec is not somebody who never falls first and falls short person a person falls below expectations we do things that are thoughtless parshas a kev sumithra such a douchebag kaveri we trample them as we're just walking down the street we don't think about them because people don't think sometimes and then we end up doing bad things and if we can recognize yes I've done bad things and I need to change it then tumor itself is easy the Rambam explains you first have to recognize the sin then you have to regret it then you have to admit it and then you have to take upon yourself to change in the future and if a person can do those steps that's true it can change I can have a better person the hardest part is the first part to admit that I have a problem to see my shortcomings and then to be able to not reject myself because of those shortcomings and say you're a good person but you did something stupid and you have to face the consequences oh you're sure Shawna comes once a year and we have to figure out where we've been before we can figure out where we're going now enough to become perfect tomorrow but I have to be able to at least acknowledge what my shortcomings are and I have to go step by step by step and change but I'm never gonna change if I've never done anything wrong that's what I say sure said look at all the things you've done wrong but to you in your mind you've never done anything wrong everything is somebody else's fault or or circumstances or this but it's not me that's the obligation the obligation is for you to be able to stand up and be an adult and take responsibility and we live in a world where nobody wants to take responsibility everybody is a victim everybody's been abused everyone's been hurt that one's been and to find yourself as a person who can stand up and take responsibility Wow that makes you one of the Great's of our generation and it made such a mess we get ready to you add in a few days away don't email sleeveless or some new Oh God new gazelle nudie bar new toffee oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah my brother had a heart attack and afterwards he developed the Federation of the heart this was decades ago and that meant that every now and then his hearts are going bump and stop and they said to him mr. Lasky if this was years ago he would just send you home and know that this will happen at some point you'll die and that's it but now we can take a defibrillator and put it in your chest so that when your heart stops it will shock you back to life I always thought about that when we clap our Cade when we say Oh Sean do during sleepless when we'll say it then your kid broke mine we don't know we go over these awesome no book I'd know cuz I'll know the Barnard OFI gonna shock your heart back to life and recognize yeah yeah I fallen short by recognition of a fallen short that's what can allow me to be able to become the person we want to become every one of us consider our goals and our dreams and our aspirations and shoot for the stars and that's it for this week and what can I say you know we wish everybody that you should have a a good judgement should all be written in the books of life see us in whatever and you know what can I tell you I wish I wish all of Chloe so that there should be a great year year bracha for us and for everybody and I give you the broker that my mother always used to give me I wish for you everything you wish for yourself and then reassess them it should be a sweet good year and that's it you want to find out more about the show go to very lucky that come you can make comments you can leave a message you can find about upcoming events and if you want to sponsor an episode go to every Lasky calm / podcast click on the sponsor an episode button I'm Debra now ski and this is the raviolo ski show [Music]