Sefira - Out of Memory (Ep. 170)

Hi, this is Dov Elkins and welcome back to the Rabbi Elkins show. I hope you all had a wonderful Yom Tov and uh it was invigorating and exciting and enjoyable um as it should be. Yeah. Um I have a little bits of business I have to take care of first. I'm going to be in St. Louis May Shabbat uh right after I light my Omer. If anyone's in St. Louis who would like to go there, we'd love to see you then. And uh and may Hashem the week before then we will be having another live Rabbi Elkins show. I will give you the details and may Hashem in the next podcast and of course if you're on our mailing list, if you've signed up, uh we'll send that out to you and uh try to keep you uh up to date. Um the last time we didn't give people much lead time and so uh I know a lot of people wanted to participate. And uh what can I tell you? Uh there's nothing like uh our Rabbi Elkins show community of which I am a just a member. And in fact, we'll get to the question answers at the end, but someone wrote an interesting thing. Ploni Almoni asked, "Would you consider starting a shidduch aspect to your website to let young people entering the parsha use your shiurim as a starting reference point to find people?" Listening to your podcast already means they must have a lot in common. I think that's a brilliant idea. And I would love to see a shidduch uh section on it and if we can make some shidduchim and take a bunch of Rabbi Elkins crazies and put them all together, the world can only be a better place. So we're going to add that in, but of course that's the uh that's the next announcement is that we have been speaking for a number of months now about the upcoming tefillah series and dun ta-da, we are about to begin. Uh we have weighed all of the different times that are good for people and uh the majority of people say that Sunday afternoon Eastern Standard Time is probably the best time for the majority of people. Now, not for everybody. Obviously. Um but it turns out the most people who responded that works out to be a good time. So, uh we are going to be setting it up. Our launch is going to be Sunday evening well, Sunday afternoon May 8th. If you're in Israel, it'll be Sunday night. If you're in uh Los Angeles, it'll be Sunday morning. If you're in Australia, it'll be Wednesday. Um if you're in South Africa, they don't have any tech over there. Just kidding. Don't need any any uh South Africans calling me up saying, "Rabbi Phillips, it's about the big Rabbi Elkins. Seems to imply all technology is not good there." I worked I finally figured it out and that was during apartheid when there was a boycott. They they weren't able to get any vowels. That's the reason. They took it they took it it you have no vowels in any of the words. Just kidding. I love it. Yeah. Look at Anyway, so um uh so that's that's going to be launching. If you want to sign up uh you go to rabbielkins.com/tefillah which you can see on your screen over here. Um that's one L, tefillah. Uh and um that's it. We're going to get started. We're going to raise the level. And again we are going to be focusing mostly on um understanding the tefillah so that when I daven, I can understand what I'm saying and make it meaningful to me. That's going to be the focus of of this year. And uh as I mentioned, you know, we have a a very strong online community. A lot of people feel uh strong connection to the podcast, to the show and uh um in fact, in the last episode um one of the questions we asked is, "Why uh the yeshiva guys seem not to be uh careful about their dress and appearance?" And one person wrote me, said she's a big fan of the show, but she was offended. That she felt I was casting aspersions on Bnei Yeshiva and there are you know, it it's not it's not the problem that I'm making it out to be. Um I appreciate you being melamed zechus on the Bnei Torah and I hope when we get up to shamayim, you have a good word to say about me cuz I'm going to need whatever I can have people put in good words for me up there. Uh there was a book that was written 20-30 years ago called The World of the Yeshiva by a um sociologist whose last name was Helmreich. And he himself is a frum person and uh and he wrote a analysis of the yeshiva world and he pointed this out that this was part of the phenomenon. I have been in yeshivas where I have heard rabbaim speak about this problem. Plus, I've seen it with my own eyes. So, the one thing you know in this show that we do not do is say everything's fine, we're no problems. We always uh address issues. So, although it's true that it's not everybody, it's also true that it's not nobody. And since there is a perception, the perception needs to be addressed. Therefore, if someone asked the question, "Why is it that so many executives on Wall Street uh have an unkempt appearance?" Nobody would know what you're talking about. But when you say it about Bnei Yeshiva, people understand. And you can uh say there's a svar to it. Say there's a svar to it. Rav Michel Shapiro spoke about this once in a shiur um how people would make comments about the fact that Rav Chaim Brisker was not careful about his appearance. And he tied it into the Gemara with Rabbi Yehoshua where uh Caesar's daughter says to him, uh "Why are you so ugly?" Yeah. And uh the whole story over there with the wine. Right? He says, "Why do you keep your father's wine in these ugly earthen ware vessels? Why don't you keep it in gold and silver?" And she does and of course it oxidizes and all goes bad, you know. So he says, "Sometimes an ugly klee holds things better than a beautiful klee." He says, "Well, what about the chachamim who look nice?" So he says, "If they were as ugly as me, they would be smarter than they are." So, Rav Michel explained that there's two different approaches. There's on the one hand being able to maintain um a status as ben Torah and you're machuyav to and the other hand is an idea of being mashpil yourself and moving away from physicality. So whether there's a philosophical overtone to it or not doesn't make a difference. The fact is it's a phenomena that exists. And uh uh I know often before Tisha B'Av uh you know, they have these shiurim on shmiras halashon and I have I speak about them. And uh sometimes people come up to me afterwards and say, "You were very critical of Klal Yisrael. I feel like that was lashon hara about the Jewish people." And I said, "Well, what are you going to do with Yeshayahu?" What do you do with that whole sefer? What do you do with Yirmiyahu? I mean, the if you're a social critic then you're in a position at times of pointing out that there are problems. That's that's the that's the nature of the beast. In fact, I'm pretty sure I told this story. We have a men shmiras halashon that we usually do once a year in uh before Tisha B'Av. And uh I used to ask Rav Bulman at shul if he would speak and he kept brushing me off. So finally I said, "Rebbi, why don't you want to speak?" And he says, "Because I'm afraid that the public emphasis on shmiras halashon is being used to silence criticism." So of course that doesn't mean that you're uh allowed to cast aspersions where there's none there, but you're obligated to talk about problems. Yeah? Without going into the subject because it it's it's not my place to talk about it, but you know, we had a recent scandal in Klal Yisrael uh where somebody who was very well known was engaging in all kinds of terrible activity and people were like, "Why didn't people say things?" Yeah? So, the answer is people did as soon as they found out about it. Um they're just saying that let's not paint everyone with the same brush. You know? Um they do this to Republicans in America. When a Republican does something, they run around to every Republican and say, "Do you condemn this? Do you condemn this? Do you condemn this?" You know? They never do that with Democrats. You know? When uh Bernie Sanders shot up a bunch of Republicans at a at a baseball game, nobody ran around to all the Democrats saying, "Do you condemn this? Do you condemn this?" Yeah? Same thing happens here in Israel. When something happens, so the media runs around to every Haredi, you know, Knesset member, do you condemn this? Do you condemn this? But when something happens, you know, against Haredim, they don't run around to the secular people and ask them to condemn it. So, uh when you run away to to Khasheva Rabbonim and say, "Do you condemn, you know, uh child molestation?" This is, "Do Do I Do I need to come out on this? Do Do you think I'm in favor? You know, you thought I was pro. So, I have to make a public statement that I'm against molestation, you know? Yes, I think molestation is a terrible thing, okay? I mean, what Why would you even demand that? So, you say, "Okay, there's a problem that needs to be addressed." Everyone agrees there's a problem that needs to be addressed, but uh but one thing everyone agrees is you don't cover it up. So, when I talk about problems that exist in Klal Yisrael, all right? Um I'm a big believer in not covering things up. Let's talk about what the issues are, address them, and try to fix them. And that's why I am one of the major forces for good in the world, and that makes you, by extension, part of a And when you get married through the Rabbi Alansky website, we build little little Rabbi Alansky Show families throughout the world. This is getting really frightening. Anyway, so I just wanted to take care of those those bits of business. All right. Um I've said this more than once, you know. They say, "When you get old, the first thing that goes is your memory." Second thing is, um I don't remember. But anyway, you you get the idea. You know, I I have I have a bad memory. I don't just attribute it to age. I believe it's also genetic. As long as I can remember, most of the people that my father knew were named uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh What's that guy? Uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh It's definitely genetic. I'm one of six boys. And I would be standing right there, and my mother would say to me, "Bruce, Jason, Mark." I'll go, "Keep going. You'll You'll get to me eventually." So, I'm pretty sure it's genetic. I I have a I have a poor memory. Uh compounded with age, it's it's just frightening. And so, I can't say that this happens to anyone else, but I walk into a room and I forget why. I don't know why I'm here. I open the refrigerator looking. I open this for something. I don't know what. And these things happen to me with greater frequency, I'm sorry to say. And uh so, I'm going to tell you a story. Um my uh my father-in-law, uh uh Moshe Chaim Ganz, we uh he was nifter during Pesach. And his uh his yahrzeit comes out on the fifth night of Pesach. So, we had a seudah. And I spoke And I spoke a little bit about the fifth night of Pesach, um I was working with the Atbash of the uh of the Torah, where he says every day of Pesach corresponds on the calendar to another different Yom Tov, and I wanted to say that there's a relationship between each day of Pesach and that Yom Tov. And the fifth night would correspond to Yom Kippur and why that would be, and okay, it was uh absolutely fascinating. Anyway, by the time uh everything finished, I realized I still have to prepare my Daf Yomi. This is Yevamos. You know, I got to got to spend time on this. So, I went up to the Beis Medrash to prepare, and it's already after 11:00. And uh and after I um prepared, I realized I hadn't davened Maariv. It was late. Okay, so I davened in the Beis Medrash, and I counted Sefiras HaOmer. The next night, when I was in shul for Maariv, and they counted Sefiras HaOmer, they said, "It's the fifth night." And I said, "I don't remember last night if I counted four or five." Cuz in my head, since I'd been talking about the fifth night of Pesach, which is, of course, the fourth night of the Omer, it could be that I counted five, cuz that's what was in my head. And I couldn't remember. So, for the next two days, I counted without a bracha, because I wasn't sure. And two days later, I remembered. I went to Maariv that night. And I confirmed with my wife. She says, "Yeah, before everything started, you ran up and went to daven Maariv." So, I forgot that I davened Maariv, and I davened Maariv again, and I forgot what Sefirah I counted the second time. Oy oy oy. What will become of all the memories? Yeah. So, uh so, memory's a tricky thing. I can't speak for anybody else here, but do you remember vividly something that never happened? You remember when you were in school and this happened and that happened, and and it never happened. But But you remember it. Memory's a tricky thing. We remember things. So, uh so, we're now in Sefiras HaOmer, and obviously, you have to remember to count. There are apps that are there to remind you what the night is, make sure you count, things like that. Um a friend of mine, Rabbi Rudman, uh started a WhatsApp for the 48 things uh that you need to be mekabel Torah, which correspond to the time between Pesach and Shavuos. Uh he had asked me to mention it the last podcast. Of course, this will come as a surprise to you. I forgot. But uh it's not too late if you want to sign up. Um the details will be on the uh on the screen. He'll send you each day a an insight into what middah you should be working on lifnei hamemchaz devorim on that particular day. Um Full disclosure, Rabbi Rudman is one of my talmid chacham friends who I go to when I don't know what I'm talking about. And uh he's uh he's If you have an opportunity to participate, it's brilliant. He also has a parsha sheet that he sends out. I mean, just marvelous things. But anyway, um so, uh there are all these different apps and things to help you remember. And I saw one year someone sent around. They said, "Oh, they came out with this great app to remember the you know, what night of Sefirah it is." Daven Maariv with a minyan. That's uh that's an eitzah tovah for you over there. That's for free. You can keep that one. That's I'm throwing that one right out for you. But um but it's an interesting idea, because the parshios that um come out between Pesach and Shavuos, you'll find very often have a uh a seven theme to it. Yeah? Um you obviously Parshas Emor, you have the mitzvah of Sefiras HaOmer and the mitzvah to count seven days seven times, seven weeks, to remember Sefiras HaOmer. That's a pretty obvious one. Uh at the beginning uh of Emor, it talks about Kohanim and the seven relatives that they're allowed to become tamei for. Um uh Behar Bechukosai, obviously Behar, you have the din of shmittah, count seven years, and then it says count seven years seven times, 49, and then you uh come to yovel, which is obviously a parallel to the times of uh counting Sefiras HaOmer. And Parshas Bechukosai, it gives you seven sets of seven klalos, says Rashi. Seven sevens of klalos, also going down. So, there's this concept of of counting these sevens. Um the Rav Dessler points out that there's a mitzvah to count. One is called Sefiras HaOmer, and the other one is shiv'a neki'im. Now, women today, when they're going to the mikvah, so they have to count shiv'a neki'im. And that's uh the Rabbonim instituted that on the off chance that there is a zavah, which is a different type of tumah. But a zavah and a zavah have to count shiv'a neki'im before they can go to the mikvah. It's a mitzvah to count seven days. Um a metzora, obviously, has seven days, and it comes back another seven days. So, there's this concept of counting to be able to get you to taharah. Why? Cuz tumah is very easy. You know what you have to do to become tamei? Just don't think. Hesachas da'as, forget, you're tamei. We all know that. Uh wash your hands. When I was a kid, when you go on a trip. So they would say you can wash your hands in the school and and you'll make a motzei in the bus. And you're walking like this like a surgeon. Yeah. Cuz you're afraid that if you lose your concentration, you'll go back. I if you just don't think why do your hands become tamei? You die must con you say People aren't aware of where they're touching what they're doing. It's a very interesting thing. Torah requires a tremendous amount of concentration. To become tamei you just have to not think. So we were on the lowest level of tumah and we had to work ourselves up to the highest level of kedusha. The way you do that is by counting. What does that mean? Stay in the count. Think. Are you aware what you're doing? Where you're coming from? If you're in my online Mesillas Yesharim so you know that when we do zehirus it's always tricky to come up with a good definition of the terms. If you have the old Mesillas Yesharim it used terms like for zehirus and zerizus watchfulness and zeal. Two terms that means nothing to anybody. Yeah. If you had the newer translation it used words like vigilance and alacrity. Two words that have no meaning and also are wrong. That's not really what zehirus and zerizus mean. So what is zehirus? It's taking me a long time to find the right word and that's always the the trick with translations. I am working one of the many projects that I'm working on um in a desultory fashion is I'm making a translation of Mesillas Yesharim into English. Now what do I mean? So you know ArtScroll translated the Torah into ArtScroll language which is very similar to English. It's a dialect. But there are words in it like behold and vessels and forsooth and thank you virtuals and vittles and you know things like that. Nobody really uses these words, you know. Nobody's ever in the kitchen says could you pass me that vessel? Yeah. So it's a problem. I've spoken about this in the past. So Aryeh Kaplan sat down to write a translation of the Torah into English. So I I've been working on that on Mesillas Yesharim very hard. Cuz the only guy who said there were no extra words in the first 11 paragraphs of Mesillas Yesharim so you have to cut out words to translate it and you have to do it in a in a way that um that's that's going to that's going to make sense to the reader even though you're going to be leaving out some of the ideas that the Ramchal said. But okay. You can learn shot in every single word so there's no way to turn it in. And a lot of people who I've met who started Mesillas Yesharim and never finished it, one of the reasons is the translation. So you have the option to join my online Mesillas Yesharim shiur and then you can you know go through the safer with me and I will walk you through at least on uh on on my level uh an elementary level. And but I want to try to get a translation which although not perfect will at least be readable. So so one of the big problems is to come up with a good word for the terms that he's using in English. That's why sometimes there's there's uh there's no there's no word that's available to it. When we do the tefillah series I'm going to talk about this but uh l'hodos l'halel u'leshabbeyach u'lefaer u'legaddel u'leromem u'lekalles So when you look in the English he's high and mighty and extolled and exalted and then praised and and you know it's just a copied out a list of of praise from from the thesaurus. If you're not familiar with a thesaurus, a thesaurus basically has a whole bunch of words for every word except thesaurus. There is no other word for thesaurus. Ironic. But but so they copied a bunch of words but you know lefaer and leshabeyach you you you have to find they may not even be a word in English. You have to it's a concept that you need to explain and that's that's often the problem. I remember Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb was so upset when the ArtScroll translation first came out. And he says look, they translate melacha as work. How many times have we had to explain that there's a big difference between melacha and avodah. One is a creative act and one is physical labor and they don't mean the same thing. It means not to work on Shabbos. It's true. But what's the English word for melacha? I don't know if there is an English word for melacha. That's why you get stuck. So so finally they came up with a word for zehirus the uh secular world. It's now a big term in psychology. And it's a major movement in psychology. It's called mindfulness. Mindfulness means being aware all the time and I've talked this through with people and we're more or less in agreement that probably zehirus the best word for it is mindfulness. Don't do anything without thinking. Be aware where you are. Be conscious of what's going on. Sefiras HaOmer is mindfulness. It means you have to if you want to become tahor you have to be conscious. You have to focus. You have to know what you're doing and why you're doing it. And so see you think to yourself okay what I'm doing is counting. Obviously it's not all you're doing but even that itself which means that I'm maintaining a certain level of consciousness. I know what day it is and where I am. Yeah. My mother alav hashalom every now and then she would collapse and they would have to get the EMTs just like pick her up you know she wasn't very mobile. And they were worried that maybe she you know had lost uh consciousness and they would they would ask her you know questions. What's your name? Where do you live? Who's the president of the United States? How do I know? It's not the kind of thing that people always know. um One of the the things that the Chazon Ish insisted when he met with Ben-Gurion uh because they wanted the Chareidi community to be part of the new state was you cannot draft um religious girls into the army. And it was a big issue but okay he gave in on it. So when a religious girl wants to be exempted they ask her questions. So sometimes they ask what's the parsha? She doesn't know. Didn't go to shul. Doesn't know what parsha. She's you know she's she's got a job and she's working in a gan. I mean a gan you would know the parsha. Okay she's working as a secretary. She doesn't always know the parsha. You're not always in on it. My good friends the Freeds from the Steve Tours I've spoken many times about the wonderful experiences we had going to Europe. And um Let's see if anybody backs me up on this. I'm sure there must be some people on the tours who watch the podcast. One of the reasons he stopped the tours is because he says it just wasn't financially viable. So I said to him that's why people in Habonim should never run business ventures. Just charge more money. And he'll cover your costs. How much is this? How hard is this to work out, you know? He's not comfortable. He's not comfortable charging more. So if anybody out there was with me on the Steve Tours and would like to do it again I think it'd be a wonderful thing this Thanksgiving weekend to go back to Spain. It was warm and beautiful and we went that time we only did southern Spain. We didn't do you know parts of Barcelona and some other areas. So if you're interested please contact the Freeds right away at the Steve Tours and tell them Rabbi Lopian says right I'll pay more. A chance to go to Spain and spend quality time with Rabbi Lopian. Thank you very much. Anyway so um but um we were in Prague and we were davening Shabbos at the Altneu shul. Now this is so interesting. There are who are trying to get into the shul. So they have guards there not for security reasons but because they think there are people who are trying to sneak in so they can see the show without paying the entrance fee. That's what they're there for. So, when you're there, the guards ask you questions to make sure you're Jewish. They say, "What's the parsha?" Lech Lecha. What's it about? So, well, the Maharal explains that the whole theme of Lech Lecha is that when Parshas Noach ends, you know, the big number is seven. And there's seven mitzvos b'nei Noach and seven colors of the rainbow, seven pure animals. Whereas at the end of Lech Lecha, Avraham Avinu gets the bris milah on the eighth day. When the story opens, Avraham is 75, which the Maharal says is between seven and eight. And so, the whole thing is making the transition He goes, "Oh, okay, okay, okay." He didn't know what he was getting, you know? Sometimes you you get too much information, yeah? Uh TMI is the is the term that my children like to use when people are oversharing. TMI, too much information. Uh occasionally, it's WTMI, way too much information. But during this time, that's what we're supposed to be working on among all the other middos that we need. And make sure and sign up for every Reb Redmond's uh uh WhatsApp so you can you can see which middos you should be working on each day. But the general sense is we're counting because we're keeping track of where we are. Yeah? Um People lose focus all the time. It's a terrible thing. So, I thought it was so ironic that I literally experienced that I forgot that I had davened, and I forgot what s'firah I davened on the second maariv that I davened. It's time for a home. That's really I need I need to have supervision. When my mother was getting old, it was difficult, you know, she had an age, and I said, "Mom, why don't you come? You can live with us." She says, "I'd rather be pushed off a cliff." She said to me. After moving with my children, forget about it, yeah? But uh you know, I wouldn't mind a nice home. Sit on the grass. Anyway, it's uh I used to do this imitation of like an old person sitting down. I don't have to imitate it anymore. I'm there. Uh life imitates art. Okay, so we're going to work on our mindfulness. We're going to work on being conscious and paying attention. Um please don't forget to sign up for the uh t'fillah course. And um and if you are interested possibly in us starting some sort of a shidduch service, you know, let us know. You know, every loski.com. You can leave a comment. Okay. And now we come to the question and answer portion of our program. There are two uh questions uh that I think sort of overlap. Anonymous asks, "As someone who has ADD, what do you do when and in parentheses, if you get overwhelmed? Thank you so much for the chizuk." I've pointed out many times I have ADD. That's why the old joke is of course uh uh how many kids with ADD does it take to change a light bulb? Uh one of ride my bike. So, I had a fellow who was a rosh kollel. He says to me, "Count your blessings. I had ADHD." You know, you guys they used to just put in the back of the class and you'd go like He says, "We were the ones who got beaten cuz we were bouncing off the walls, you know?" Fact to my nephew, Daniel Ganz, he he shared with me an insight, you know, what is ADHD stand for? Attention Deficit Hey, Donuts. Anyway, so what do you do when the ADD gets you overwhelmed? I I speaking from personal experience. I remember one time uh Anyway, there's another question. Anonymous asks, "Over my life, there have been times that I've seen things that I shouldn't have. As much as I try not to think about these inappropriate thoughts, they sometimes come back anyway. Is there a way to not think bad thoughts and to keep a clean mind?" So, there is a certain overlap in these two questions. That's why I put them together. Um ADD means you have to focus your mind. And you're fighting against your your physical uh brain to try to refocus it. It's very hard because your brain just wanders away. It's just the nature of it. Similarly, if you have bad thoughts, um you try not to think them, but they keep coming back. They keep coming back. They haunt you. So, as far as the ADD goes, there is good news. It becomes uh less intense with age. The older you get, the easier it gets to overcome your ADD. And obviously, during that formative time when you are supposed to be in school and focusing and things like that, uh that's when it's it's worse. What you have to remember is you are not helpless. You can take control of your brain. The whole section Maseches Share'im that's called Taharah is talking about purifying your thoughts. That's exactly what it's about. Being able to focus on what it is that you're that you want to do. Now, I read years ago Scientific American that your brain makes shortcuts. What does that mean? Uh if you know a little bit about computers, you know there's something called a macro. Where you push one key and like six things happen. You you programmed it. It's a small program. And when you do one thing, a whole bunch of different things happen. Your brain does the same thing. If you keep thinking the same set of thoughts, your brain makes a shortcut. As soon as you start to think a particular thing, the first step, your brain goes boom boom boom and takes you to the conclusion. You have to rewire your brain, and you can do that. It's possible. You have to break the connection in the synapses. When the first thought comes to you, refocus. Think about something else. And by the way, this is not only about thinking about inappropriate things, this is also talking about depressing thoughts, sad thoughts, suicidal thoughts. When you start down that road, boom boom boom boom boom, you end up at that same conclusion. But you can break the pattern. It takes effort. Yeah? Um If I just let my mind go where it will go, so then yeah, I'm going to end up at that conclusion. You have to stop at a certain point. Now, I spoke to a guy who converted to Judaism, was pretty seriously into Christianity. And he said, "I had a big problem when I converted. Because whenever I would daven, I would see Jesus on the cross." Now, that's that's tough. That's tough. No question about it. Um just a quick uh shout-out um that people should appreciate this. The best you can do is prevention. If you avoid certain things, looking at things, listening to things, you'll find it much easier later to be able to avoid it cuz you never saw it in the first place. Yeah? Um I may have mentioned this in an earlier podcast. When I was a teenager, so uh I read the book The Source by James Michener, which was a secular presentation of Jewish history. It's worse when they make it into a story because then you you buy into the characters and things. I'm telling you, it took me decades to get those thoughts out of my head. That when I think about Avraham Avinu and Yaakov, I wouldn't think of his twisted presentation. It it was terrible. It was a terrible thing. But you put these things into your head, takes a very long time. I I'm pretty sure I spoke about this once. I also mentioned there was a book Like a Driven Leaf, which uh basically was an attack on Chazal and the rabbinic process and everything. And uh when I read that, I was older and I was able to read it with a critical eye. I wasn't a teenager. And I mentioned how I wrote a response to this. And I met an avreich, yeah, in the mirror in his 40s. He says, "I read that book when I was a teenager, and I never recovered the emunas chachamim I lost." So, yeah, people who think that they're going to look and listen to inappropriate things and it's not going to make an impact are mistaken. These things stay in your brain and you have to work very hard. So, I said to this guy, "How did you get rid of Yishki?" He goes, "When it would come up, I wouldn't fight it. I would acknowledge it and then move back." Cuz the more time you spend fighting with it, very often you're giving it more power. Whereas if you just let it Apathy is a tremendous tool. Yeah. Uh you know, everything has a positive value. What does laziness do? When you want to do an aveira, you know, so uh so uh say, "Yeah, I'll get to it soon." Use your laziness. Reb Chaim Brisker said, "What What's the positive aspect of having a krum a cup?" You know, not thinking uh in poor ways. He says, "This way, when you see somebody do something and you're pretty sure they're doing the wrong thing, you could be melamed zchus cuz you have a krum a cup. You can twist it around and say, 'Oh, I'm sure he was So, those are uh uh those are some techniques. What you have to do is when you feel it overwhelming you, this is what you have to do. When you feel like you're being overwhelmed, let it wash over you like a wave. The more you fight, the harder it's going to be. Let it just, you know, uh work a little magic and take a deep breath and start again. There's no other way. Yeah? You got to just keep working. Put one foot in front of the other and do not worry when things mess up because that's built into the system. Hashem gave you this. He knows your limitations and he appreciates the fact that you're working on it. And if you have these bad thoughts, every now and then they'll come, don't dwell on it. Just, you know, try to blank your mind and uh move back. Okay. Anonymous asks, "The rav says all the time that you have avoid maturing. How do I do it, too? Please answer before it's too late." So, what it means is you maintain a childlike delight in life. You know, I used to say about parenting, one of the most important parenting skills you need is to kvell. If you can enjoy little kids. Yeah? Um when people get older, they become cynical. They become jaded. Yeah. Uh you have my eyes on you as sati lifneihem hayom. What I give you today, yeah? Say the chazal, every day it should look new to you. Reb Aryeh Levin, he said this in a public speech, so I feel like I can quote it. He says, "When I was teaching in Aish Torah, you know, I would take a cab to Shaar Ashpot and I'd run up the steps to Aish Torah. And one time I realized I didn't even turn to look at the Kosel." Cuz you get used to it. Um I came to Eretz Yisrael. I've told this story in the past. Um in January 1969, a year and a half after the Six-Day War. And we came up that twisting Bab el-Wad and the bus pulls over to the side of the road, if you can call it the side of the road. And he says, "Jews do not ride into Jerusalem. They walk." And it wasn't a religious tour. We all got up and we walked into Yerushalayim. You come back and there was this flowers that were planted to spell out "Bruchim Habaim L'Yerushalayim." And it took my breath away. I was in fifth grade. And I try to remember that every time I come into Yerushalayim. That childlike delight, that excitement, that that fills you. And that's when I say "avoid maturing," I I like to think that's what I mean is that, you know, I haven't allowed myself to become jaded or cynical or not that I'm not cynical, but "How do you become so sarcastic?" I went to sarcasm school. "Really?" No. Anyway, but what it means is that the childish delight that you're going to have, that that's what keeps you young. That's what I mean by it. Adina R asks, "I heard Reb Alansky mention coming up with an approach to carbonos in an old shiur. Can you please discuss this at some point?" Yeah, sure. Um Carbonos means l'karev, to come close to Hashem. Ideally, we want to give ourselves to Hakadosh Baruchu. That's why Yitzchak was the ultimate carbon. He was ready to give his life to Hakadosh Baruchu. His one request was, "Tie me down so I don't move when I see the knife cuz I might get scared and then there'll be a mum. I want to be a carbon." The famous song Bilvavi L'cha banai agriv lo es nafshi. I offer myself up. The problem with that is um it's like I saw a cartoon once of uh of um suicide bomber school. So, the teacher has on the vest and he's like, "Watch closely cuz I'm only going to do this once." And he said, so sacrificing yourself, you can only do that one time. So, we bring a carbon, which is an animal. Why an animal? Because we see ourselves in an animal. We don't really see ourselves in a piece of bread. Yeah? Uh you don't see yourself so much in a cucumber. Unless you're tall and thin. I see myself more as a tomato. But uh even so, yeah. But when you have an animal that is alive with a nefesh and you sense it, and that is being offered up in place of you, that's a a life-changing experience. And that's why when we stopped having that intention with the carbonos, where we understood that the purpose of the carbonos was to allow us to fill ourselves with a sense of purpose and sacrifice. When we used to just bring uh sacrifices, that's what we say in the haftarah on Shabbos Chazon from Yeshayahu. Hashem doesn't need your z'vachim. I don't need you to shecht an animal for me. Uh I need you to uh bring a carbon. A carbon is l'karev. I'm doing this because I feel like I'm giving myself to Hakadosh Baruchu. And that's why especially when it comes to a korban chatas or an olah, which is also uh usually brought on some sort of an aveira, so you're doing it and understanding that should be me being shechted. And you walk away from that as a changed individual. Um the carbon changes the way I look at it and that's the idea of bringing a carbon. A carbon something that I can relate to. It's not the act of the offering, it's the person who's offering it that's being offered. And that's what carbonos ultimately supposed to do and that's what the entire avodah is supposed to be for. May it Hashem wish we zocheh to uh to see it in our time. So, that's it for this episode. If you want to find out more about the show, you can go to rebbealansky.com. You can leave a comment. You can sponsor an episode. You can um uh sign up for the tefillah series. You can still sign up for the Daf Yomi and the uh Mesillas Yesharim shiur. Had somebody recently joined the uh both of those shiurim. Very nice to have everyone on board and uh you know, you can come in at any point. I certainly with the Daf Yomi, right? And certainly with the Mesillas Yesharim, I give enough of a background that you know where uh where we're holding. Um and uh you um can contact me. You can contact the website if you're interested in uh the shidduch pro- program that we may be starting. Um if you are interested in um uh sponsoring the live event that's going to take place uh uh the week of Lag B'Omer in America, uh please contact us and uh that's it. That's it. After Pesach, have to catch up a little bit. So, it's great to see you all back and uh hope to see you next time. In the meantime, I am David Alansky and this is the Rabbi Alansky Show.