116: Managing the Fire Inside

good morning I hope everyone's enjoying your cup of coffee this morning I am very excited to announce that as of just a few minutes ago our amuna sheer for the year the series is now sponsored with great gratitude to doctors Ai and Bella Morgan who sponsored the amuna series for the year nishmas Dr Rabbi Dr Brian gabet who lived a Life field with Tora and Amun so we're deeply deeply grateful to them also grateful that this week is sped still by Greta and Jeff bom in memory of Greta's beloved grandmother roer whose should have an Aliyah we are beginning a new peric a new chapter in last week we completed the chapter we had been studying it's on page I invol and it's two sides of the one page I just gave you the first two pages of it I don't anticipate getting through more than that uh today and what rol is going to talk to us about what we're going to learn together is about the impact of amuna on our mid we've been talking the last several weeks about amuna as a Mida the fact that having faith and living with faith is not an ideology or a philosophy or something in the abstract but rather it is a quality that we have and just like we work on our patience and just like we work on our generosity and just like we work on different qualities that we're trying to improve upon amuna is a Mida it's a character trait it's a quality that needs to be expressed it needs to be worked on that it's not something which is uh is is dealt with in the University classroom it's not something dealt with in the sh or the b medish or the sh but it's a Mida that we Express within our everyday living within our everyday living in other words what that means is just like when I find myself in a situation where I'm growing impatient so my child is testing my patience or my spouse or someone else around me they're testing my patience and I need to stop myself and take a deep breath and remember I don't want to be that person I don't want to yell and scream and look like a maniac I don't want to be a person who demands it has to be my way or the highway I don't want to be that impatient person patience is a Mida it's a character trait and true we can reinforce it and we can grow it by the things we listen to and what we read and reinforcing it by being around patient people but in the end of the day it's an inner quality it's a character trait and I need to find the ability The Willpower I need to find the courage to stop myself and say I don't want to be that person I hate that part of me I want to be the patient person and I have it in me I just need to realize that quality that so what's true for patience said ra is exactly true for amuna it's exactly true for amuna too it's to stop myself when I'm growing I don't know if impatience is the opposite of patience what's the opposite of amuna imuna imuna yeah so if I'm growing if I find myself lacking amuna where I think something is random or chance or I'm saying woe is me or I'm growing in my anger or frustration then just like I have to stop myself and realize I can be patient and my life is better and it's the best version of me when I'm patient the same is true with the character trait of amuna is to stop myself and say I have amuna and therefore it's not a big deal last week I was playing tennis with her by mascots a rare opportunity to get out and exercise a little bit and um I ran for a drop shot and I heard and felt a pop in my leg in my calf and uh fell to the ground I'm not telling you this for your sympathy and empathy I'm just fine thank God I'm just giving you an example I always give you these examples not because I think I've arrived but to tell you how I am that every week I still need to give you examples of how much I'm still working on amuna so I fell to the ground and the first thoughts racing through my head were I can't believe this is happening again I'm going to need surgery I'm going to need a new scooter I'm going to need a this is miserable the rehab I cannot believe that just happened I am an old man this is impossible this is miserable I started picturing everything that happened while I tore my achilles and as we were wobbling RAB Motz was kindly helping carry me to the car because I couldn't even put pressure down on my leg those were the thoughts running through and then I stopped literally stopped and I said what am I doing I teach this I mun here and I lecture about this and learn about this and work on this what is going on here and I just it was a total paradigm shift I just changed the way I was thinking and said this is fantastic I don't know why or how but this is for a reason and it's all good and it's going to be great and I plastered a smile on my face like we spoke about this past shabas don't wait to be happy and then smile smile and you'll find that you're happy put a smile on my face and I said okay this is wonderful this is G this is fantastic this is amazing now it happens to me it's easy for me to tell you the story now I didn't know then but I could tell you literally one week later now that a micro tear in your calf happens to heal very quickly and uh already by Sunday I was dancing at a wedding so I'm still limping it's still sore but it's nothing it's it's m gourish and my point in telling you this is there was a there was a Mida inside me that I needed to work on right I could have yelled and screamed and cursed when I hurt myself but I had a better maida than that I didn't do it at least out loud so but so the way we react is a Mida but auna is a Mida in that moment do we catch ourselves is our amuna muscle so strong that it catches us and gives us balance the weaker your muscles the more imbalanced you are the more likely you'll topple over and the stronger your muscles the more of a foundation the stronger your core that's the word that we use right in the exercise world the talking about your stomach but the stronger your core the more balanced you are well for us there is no greater core core than our amuna the core of our muscles in the spiritual world is our amuna and the stronger our core the more balanced we are the more we can sustain a hit the more we can sustain tripping the more we can sustain and recover from faster we can recover from an injury so again I can't emphasize this enough and maybe you'll tell me I I have and I should move on but amuna is a Mida it's not an ideology we get lost and we get stuck debating it right having this philosophical debate give me evidence for God's existence and well how could that be if this and that proof doesn't work for me and if only he spoke to me or if only I saw Miracles then I would believe and we get stuck but we get stuck because we've created this artificial boundary or border we've made this wall we get stuck because it's a copout and because we don't want to we're scared what life would look like if we lived with amuna but we need to overcome that we need to get past that that it's not an ideology it's not a philosophy it's not a debate we don't offer arguments we don't put together evidence we could and I think early on in Aruna many years ago we talked about some of the pieces of evidence and that it all adds up to overwhelmingly being a proof that God exists but that's not that's not in the end of the day what's going to do it what does it in the end of the day is that leap that Amun it's that recognition that if I look and I listen I feel hasm all around me if I work out that muscle and I have that strong core then I realize and find that it gives me greater balance okay so let's start Alid is talking about the influence and the impact of living a life of faith of am on our mid on character trait and says the following V was the great tal of the V of the sorry of the V told us the following and he he says we're going to build this idea this notion that we work on our we work on our mid by working on through understanding this Insight of I don't know how many people have heard this the truth is a traces itself back maybe not popular to say but it traces itself back to Greek philosophers but vital in our tradition we see it as a cabalistic notion now that I have a full Gray beard and head of gray hair I'm allowed to share some cabalistic ideas so in teaches the following that man and when I say man I mean generic man Humanity human beings we are composed we are comprised of four Yodo we are made up of the four elements and the four elements from which we are formed and I don't necessarily mean biologically or anatomically although there are Illusions and hints to these four elements even within the very structure of our body but we're made up of four elements fire wind water and Earth a fire R wind May water and and Earth cast and and these four elements within us the four elements from which we are comprised or that are our roots are the source of the mid of the character traits that we exhibit so his tradition was that is is the foundation of fire is G so what does that mean you know we describe this if somebody flies off the handle if somebody explodes in a fit of rage we say about them they have a fire in their belly somebody who's very anim at and somebody who's very charismatic very loud they have a fire in their belly what does that mean if you put them through a CAT scan you'll see a fire in their belly why do we use that in the vernacular we describe a fire in their belly the fire in their belly means there's an element there's show there's a shish within all of us which is characterized by fire and that fire inside us leads to GAA to arrogance and C to anger anger anger is the result of that fire that fire which is Raging and is fire good or bad yes the answer is yes fire is good and bad if fire is used to illuminate or to provide warmth or to create energy and fire or to construct or to melt in order to build fire is an amazing amazing resource but if fire destroys and it burns down and it scars a person it hurts a person then fire is bad so the fire in our belly can go in both directions when we Channel it correctly so therefore it's not raging wildly but we're channeling it and controlling it then the fire can be used to build it does amazing things but unabated and and misdirected then it is the source of gu of arrogance and of C somebody flies off the handle they're they're on fire there there's a fire raging inside them and it's not uh it'll destroy anything in their way you ever see someone fly off the handle in a fit of rage they lack absolute judgment they lack they forfeited their Humanity they're actually sabotaging their unhappiness and success they are running over and destroying people people around them they claim to care about anger is the most self-destructive character trait we've talked about it endlessly I'm not going to get into it but anger the the ra both describe that anger we have to categorically Purge it doesn't belong in our repertoire or our recipe of character traits of mid in any measure whatsoever Midas a measure all character traits belong in some Mida in some measure anger doesn't belong in any measure because it's purely destructive and we self-sabotage self-destructive so when a person just how do you translate means baseless speech just just speaking for no reason what and gossip is separate she is lying distortions of Truth is gossip but is just when you just idle chatter when you sit around and you're just talking you're not saying anything you're talking for no reason you're wasting your breath it's so all these things are that's wind the character trait the element within us of wind is responsible for idle chatter lying gossip the source of our craving and insatable appetite for money and for things is May is water sadness Melancholy which by the way is a bad character trait just as an aside again we talked about it last shab and now as you say sadness is not a quality or a character trait it's just how I feel it's a feeling it's a feeling it's not my fault sad things are happening then I feel sad and I'm not in control of that why are we talking about it as a character trait isn't it a feeling so no we don't view it as a feeling we view it as a character trait being happy or being sad is not a feeling it's it's a decision it's a decision that we make it's a decision that we make it's not an emotion now of course it is an emotion I've been to way way way too many funerals in the last few weeks and and when you lose somebody precious you love somebody Irreplaceable of course you're overwhelmed with sadness and mourning and grieving is appropriate and if you don't feel sad at all you might be psychotic and you're certainly insensitive and the rambam calls you AAR you're cruel to lose someone and not grieve or mourn or shed a tear is actually an act of Cruelty it's an act of Cruelty so we're not talking about in an acute situation of loss where of course it's natural and normal to feel sad there the feeling of sadness comes but we're talking about when everything around you is is going good not even necess going good but is even killed but you're just a sad person you walk around sad right what we talked about on chabas the fabis upon him you walk around miserable and sad and negative and depressed everything's always wrong nothing's ever right so that sadness that's not a feeling that you have it's a decision that you make if we decide to be happy if we smile we'll find we're happy and if we're foris it brings us down and we're sad it's not a it's not a feeling it's a decision it's about making the right one and the evidence the proof are the people who do it it there are people around us who have every reason in the world many many manyfold more than we to be sad but they've chosen to be happy nonetheless and they live and find genuine happiness and there are people around us who have every reason in the world to be so happy and so thrilled and so blessed but they've chosen they may not put it in those words it's not a conscious choice but subconsciously they've chosen to live a life of sadness negativity and pessimism fabis everything's wrong you're wrong everything's wrong anger so that's sadness Melancholy being miserable Fab to to that that is not a feeling it's a choice it's a decision Aus is laziness laziness people who procrastinate and delay and lazy I'll get to it and eventually and I'll do it and if I have to I'm dragged there to do it not to live a life we're learning in in our 10 minutes of meaning precedes this class all about alacrity and Zeal and enthusiasm how to set goals and pursue them to them and to set new goals to live a life of drive and aspiration to be able to even when we hit that wall the proverbial wall to run through it to run over it to run around it so atus that's also a decision do I wake up there are people who get less sleep than you who are more tired than you who have more pressure anxiety than you but they've made the choice to live with with zus with Zeal and enthusiasm and alacrity and there are people who have all the time in the world and no pressures but they've chosen to live with atess laziness and procrastination and the lethargic yush what's yush Despair and hopelessness giving up giving up Shalom has a whole discussion if a person loses an object are you allowed to keep it well you can't keep it if they didn't relinquish ownership over it if they still own it and they're looking for it when you keep it you've stolen so when are you entitled to keep a lost object when you believe that they've given up hope of recovering it well I'm not trying to all of uh all of B with you right now but very quickly so what that means is if it's an object that has a Simmon if it's a lost object that clearly is identifiable discernable the person probably did not give up hope of recovering it their diamond ring but if it's something which is IND discernible so a dollar bill assuming they didn't memorize or write down the serial number of every dollar in their wallet they probably gave up hope so in order for you to be able to acquire something then the other person has to have had yish they have to have given up hope the has a about and Shalom can you give up hope if you don't even know you lost it Shalom so it's been famously said by the B that Y is Shalom anytime you have Yos it's shalom if you given up it's a voice of insanity in your head never ever give up never despair never be hopeless there's always hope there's always hope so that voice of Y of despair of hopelessness that pessimism that says that it's not possible it's just not me it's never goingon to happen I don't deserve to be happy I don't deserve to be married I don't deserve to have good health I don't deserve that voice of Y that voice of Despair it's shalom it's not coming from a good healthy place in you so all of these this last grouping which is sadness Melancholy laziness procrastination hopelessness despair they come from the earth the component of Earth within us so told us that we have these four ele El from which we are comprised cabala here is very excited we have these four elements we have these four elements from which we are comprised we're made up of fire wind water and Earth and each of these negative character traits can be traced back to an unhealthy balance in that element within us so all four of the elements can be channeled in a healthy way but if they're channeled in an unhealthy way if they're left unabated if they're not uh if they're not um being used for good then they result in these negative things this a very very important so what R is going to do now is take this of of the four elements and the character traits that result and show what's the antidote what's the medicine how do we take the four elements and get healthy within them and balanced the answer is amuna the more faith the more amuna that we're living with the more the more the more connection with Theon the more we heal these foundational elements and the more the elements are healthy the now I want to just digress for one moment there's an amazing set ofum called bavi mishan bavi whose author said out originally to be anonymous his first several volumes were written anonymously and ultimately he was revealed he actually spoke in AR several years ago it's before he was even as famous as he is today and they've translated several of this form in English it might be actually after we we finish with It's a Wonderful It's a Wonderful study and he has a whole section in one of his books where he's talking about this also this notion of's the four elements and the MOs that result and he makes what I think is such a critically critically important point of it which is the following which is the following in life we can treat symptoms or we can treat disease and when you treat symptoms it's like playing whack-a-mole you ever play you ever been to a fair you play wack-a-mole you've been to Chuck-E-Cheese been blessed to spend an afternoon that Chuck-E-Cheese so you know what wacka is it's a game and you have a hammer and this holes it's you know like a grid of like 16 holes and moles little fake animals stick their head out and you have a time limit and you have to whack them down and when you knock one down another one pops up and then you knock it down here and another one pops up and you knock it down here and then it pops up here so when we treat symptoms in life but we're not solving the cord disease it's like playing whack-a-mole so I took care of that symptom but now it's going to express itself here then I whack that symptom with medicine or treatment or surgery and then it expresses s here you know where this comes out I've uh been studying a lot learning a lot about addiction and recovery and it comes out in addiction someone with an addictive personality often can express itself in different ways so let's say the person had a problem with alcohol and they went to they solved their alcohol it might then Express itself now with gambling and they took care of it with gambling and now it expresses itself with and if you're just treating the symptoms and the disease is allowed to metastasize and grow and becomes more toxic it will continue to express itself and present in a new system right he doesn't use this metaphor this language but I am so what he says the is what is really telling us is you can't solve arrogance or anger by focusing on arrogance or anger what do you need to focus on the fire in your belly you can't solve the fact that you have idle chatter and gosip and you have a you're a pathological liar by just taking care of your of your predisposition I to lie what do you need to solve you need to solve r that sense of wind within you and I don't mean again physiologically there not necessarily a doctor you see to solve these things although there definitely is an energy and physical component to it but I'm talking about within us we're made from these elements and the more that we have a mindfulness of self-awareness of them and the more that we're regulating them and that we're in charge of them then the more that we can solve the disease and that will solve all the symptoms rather than try to put out a symptom which is is whacking a mole and then it comes out somewhere else right I I wrote an article I think it was last year where I talked about in life I don't remember where I originally saw this it wasn't original but we can be either a thermostat or a thermometer a thermometer you remember tells you what temperature you are so let's say you're flying off the handle you're filled with rage let's say you're jealous as anything he doesn't give jealousy as one of them but I think that also comes from fire you have a jealous you have a rage of jealousy a jealous streak an Envy streak inside you so you could be a thermometer which says I know that I'm right now I'm you know between a 1 and 10 I'm a 12 I'm angry I'm jealous I fire is Raging it's burning I'm stressed I don't sleep I'm not eating everyone around me is upsetting me everything in life is upsetting me but you could be a therom you could be a thermometer and you just happen to have a self-awareness about your own temperature which is good by the way because most people in life don't even have the self-awareness of where they're at but we shouldn't be happy you're satisfied with just being a thermometer we have the capacity Theon the almighty designed not to be a thermometer he designed us to be a thermostat what's the difference a thermostat you can control not here in sh you can't but I can but at home maybe you have to battle others in controlling it but you're a thermostat you can lower the temperature and sometimes you're too cold you have to raise the temperature sometimes the fire can be it's barely a pilot light and you need to fan that flame a little bit to get that fire going a little bit better so we have to realize that not just have the self-awareness to be a thermometer but to be a thermostat to control and to regulate those things within us so so he says the based on this teaching which is essentially what is about to get to which is we're not going to solve the symptoms by focusing on the symptoms you can but you're just going to be back in the doctor's office you're just going to miss more work and be back sick in bed you're just going to be back or we can get to the core which is the illness the disease and by solving that we will take care of the symptoms that surrounded he quotes a great katar the katar we love the katar so the katar said that people try to break their bad mid bless you people try to break their bad habits that's the L the language that we uses to try to break a bad habit so the kutser said you know what happens when you break a bad habit you just have two bad habits it's a great kutar that by the if you understand the kutar everything the kutser said was it was biting but it had truth he was a cynic he was I would have been scared as anything to be around him five miles of him everything he said was and the truth is he had to isolate himself because he was he had no tolerance for people he couldn't deal with not not that he didn't love people like AB is he couldn't deal with the fakeness of people he couldn't deal with people's fakeness he couldn't deal with the Persona that people put on he couldn't deal with he couldn't deal with it and he was he was like a fire that could burn anything his path he had to isolate himself he withdrew he isolated himself we should do a whole class on the kutser he was fantastic I love the kutar kutar is the greatest the greatest diat so the kutar said people try to break their bad me they're bad habits and you know what they're left with two bad habits in other words you can't break a bad habit you're not going to break it can't break it you solve it by understanding not the symptom but what is the disease what is the illness what is the core and when you actually change then the bad habit won't Express itself so if you think you're just going to train yourself and thereby break a bad habit how long will it last how long will it last rather the real solution is not to break the bad habit and have two bad habits it's rather to transform on in our core okay so back to R so now we're going to go through each of these R is going to go through them so we're starting with fire and what fire produces remember what did fire produce unregulated fire unchanneled unhealthy fire produces anger and arrogance arrogance I keep figuring out why can't I read clearly and then I remember I got to put these things on again you could distinguish this mid from the beginning of when we enter this world from the moment we enter this world from the moment that we enter this world we think that we are something we think we're something now why do we think we're something because if with my one hand I touch my other hand I feel something so if I feel something I'm a something if I look in my mirror there's someone there if I eat food my body goes through the experience of digesting it and eliminating it so everything about the physical world in which I live and interact only serves to reinforce the notion that I am something that I am a yes that I exist and that I am a something now what happens when you think you're a something says for the length of your life the more we grow the more we mature the more phisticated we become the more we accomplish and Achieve we only believe and buy into this illusion more and more and more so when I was a baby I cried and I heard my own cry and I ate and then I had my diaper changed and I I thought I was a yes I thought I was a somebody and then the older I get the more I think I'm a somebody because now I own things and now I drive things and now I make decisions and I earn things and I accumulate things and that just reinforces more and more and more the sense that you know who I am I'm a I'm a somebody I exist and I'm a somebody I'm a yes I'm a yes the truth is are we a yes are we somebody are we something sort of sort of on the one hand weim we have a Godly soul and a Godly spirit in us and to the degree that we nourish that and we nurture that and we express that we are an expression of Theon in this world we are somebody what are you going to tell me I'm a nothing I'm a what are you talking about made the whole world for me I'm such a yes I so deserve to exist that I should made the whole world for me on the one hand bless everybody and there's truth to that and there's and there's truth to that and there's truth to that that I'm a yes I'm a somebody on the other hand the somebody that I am is Just an Illusion It's Just an Illusion so there's really a behind the scenes reality all that really exists this is very deep it's very heavy I hope you had your cup of coffee all that really exists is the everything else that looks like and seems like and feels like it exists is only an illusion that has enabled us to have that we exist but the only reality the only lasting reality is him so he's enabled us to have that illusion we're grateful to him for it we're in a play and we're actors and we feel like we're on a stage that's a reality but really behind the stage is a writer and a producer and a director and and really we're just living this illusion when there's a reality behind so when the actor gets confused and forgets that they're just in a play that someone else is directing and they think that they now are they real they're real on a stage but they're part of a of a play that has a a director and a writer so we mistakenly go on throughout our life we think more and more I'm a somebody and as a somebody I'm entitled and as a somebody I deserve and as a somebody I'm in charge and the more I think I'm a somebody the more I think that the world has to bow to me and the world has to honor me and the world has to defer to me and the world has to fit into my image and view of it a letter to his son maybe we'll learn that too on our list here is so beautiful it appears in the back of m s it was printed thean whose life was a journey he moved to Israel to aka the ran wrote a letter back to his family to his son in particular and he told his son to read it with regularity and frequency and in the letter it's a short letter it's a short letter we had great rabbis the gro wrote a letter to his family we had great rabbis they wrote letters we write blogs and Facebook posts they wrote letters to their family they didn't by the way they didn't post that letter for the world to see they just wrote it to their family we post it for the world to see and if our children happen upon it you know I guess we're okay as long as it got a lot of likes and and follows and and attention so ramban wrote this letter to his son such a worthwhile letter to review over and over again by the way what does he begin the letter by saying what should we overcome which Mida anger he tells his son just don't get angry how do you how do you not get angry speak to who made this a famous song A freed most famous most one of them one of the big two made uh made this thear ran a famous song so the ran tells his son you know how you can train yourself to not get angry if you make a commitment to always speak to everybody pleasantly everywhere and at all times doesn't matter who you're talking to what buttons they pressing you how frustrated you grow and become how much you deserve to lash out and yell but if you train yourself to never lose your cool to never Raise Your Voice the result will be that you don't get angry now isn't it the opposite isn't it the opposite if I don't get angry I won't raise my voice says thean no don't raise your voice and you won't get angry this is a theme I've been building on all week because we said on chabas don't wait to be happy and then you smile smile and you'll be happy and I said it this year before this one don't wait to be excited about doing something go do it with excitement and then you'll be enthusiastic about it and now this is a third example don't wait to not get angry and then you'll speak calmly always we speak calmly and then you won't get angry so if we train our Behavior then the feelings will follow we don't wait for the feelings to generate the action we do the action and that generates the and that generates the feeling so ran writes to his son the truth is that existing being only only is true for the Creator the created we accept and we receive everything from and if we feel the feeling of arrogance then you know what we're doing you're putting on God's uniform Theon the almighty has a uniform he so to say has a uniform what's his uniform his uniform is that he's in charge he wears the uniform of authority K is singularly exclusively the one in charge but when we think that we're in charge when we have a sense of of GAA of arrogance then we are competing with Hashem it's hashem's world and we are competing with him we're competing with him that arrogance foolishly this is the tum theas translates into Aramaic we say every day in DAV aash familiar the aash we say every morning what is the word is is arrogance so how does English translate itay you tried to compete with God you stole only God deserves to be arrogant now is not arrogant of course not not in the way that we think of arrogance but arrogance means that you the one who's really in charge the one who's really in control is the one who's entitled to feel that they're in charge and they're in control so when you try to put on his uniform you could try putting it on if I steal a badge from a policeman does it make me a policeman if I grab a policeman's uniform and I put it on can I issue tickets or arrest people I don't get the authority just because I'm putting on the uniform I don't gain their power just because I've stolen their badge so K has a uniform he wears a badge his badge says I'm in charge it's my world I created everything and I'm in charge of it so just because we steal his Badger his uniform doesn't put us in charge how we know that cuz the most arrogant people self-destruct the most arrogant people they're wearing the uniform they're fakers they're impost they're impersonators Impostors they they've stolen the uniform and they've stolen the badge but they're still not in charge just because they're wearing the uniform how many arrogant people that we know who's self-destruct you know we have names for our great rabbis and teachers we have a is a Moshe is Renu Yos isad you know who in the Torah is called who in the kazal is called harha the wicked one the evil one anyone know who it is the rabbis identify one person and we say of all the characters in our history there's one La was wicked but you know who's called har Ham's also Russ but refer to him always as Titus they don't call him Titus the name Titus the Roman who destroyed the B mikash they call him Titus Titus Russia he's always connected with that appalation with that with that name the wicked one the wicked one why he was the most Brazen and arrogant we read in the Kos on Tish what did he do he came into the B mikdash he took his sword and he pierced the Paras the curtain that separates the holy of holies and through the curtain blood came and then the gamar says and I'm not going to elaborate because we're in a Sho and because I'm not comfortable describing but it describes the type of woman he took into The KES he unrolled the safer Torah and the act that he did with her on the Torah in the holy of holies he was arrogant you know what did by the way yeah he did nothing it's quiet says says who is like you God who is means among the powerful among the strong and the rabbis tell us don't read it among the strong the rabbis tell us read it is a mute someone who doesn't speak why real strength is not responding and yelling back you know what the greatest strength is shash you don't say anything so someone's losing it on you someone's fire is imbalanced and they're raging and they're screaming and losing it at you you know what the best thing to do not only for your own dignity but it's actually the best payback to that person there nothing was silent the says the greatest blessing the greatest comes to somebody who is being mocked ridiculed yelled at gossiped about injured and you know what they do in response they don't get revenge they don't yell back and match the decimal level and Elevate and escalate the whole the whole conflict you know what they do nothing look the other way silence where did we learn that from now in that moment hasem showed the great strength of being silent and we should too In the Heat of a of a conflict where somebody who trying to drag us into a conflict but when that moment pass passed did pay him back you know what he did you know what he did you know what he gave Titus AR Russia he didn't give him a massive heart attack in public and he didn't give him some horrific tumor that the world can see you know what he gave him there was a tiny little bug that crawled into titus's ear and didn't stop ringing and ringing and ringing we have a disease that's named after him in fact when I T about this many years ago when I T about this I found a medical journal that actually acknowledges and traces the root of the name of this illness to him what's the disease tontis tontis that endless ringing in one's ears comes from the story in the gamar in G Going Back 2,000 years that a bug crawled into his ear and was ringing endlessly and Titus harasha Titus never got relief from that ringing and why did do that he could have had some lightning strike he could have some miracle cuz what he was showing Titus is you think you're in charge you destroyed my holy basa mikdash you conquered my people you think you're in control you've stolen my uniform and you've stolen my badge but you think you're in charge here's a little fly a little ant is going to crawl in your ear and you can't even overcome that a little gourn ant a nothing a fly a nothing and you can't even overcome that so when we steal his uniform or his badge and we pretend and act like we're in charge it doesn't put us in control or in charge how many people do we know who have enormous wealth but yet when their health is compromised emotionally physically spiritually mentally all the money in the world can't solve that problem it's like a little fly that comes into one's life and whatever we throw at it we can't solve it because we're not in charge even if we've stolen the uniform now some people have a very they've stolen a uniform that looks nothing like a policeman it's really a crude looking fake uniform and others have the money so they've a uniform that looks you can't distinguish it from the real policeman it looks exactly authentically like a real policeman no matter how much money no matter how much you make the uniform look just like the real one it's not the real one so no matter how much you make your life look like you're in charge and you're in control no matter how much you spend and how much you make it look authentic and real it's not the real one it's fake and without the uniform and without the badge we are not in control so how do we translate these words GA we say it every day inash unish transl as the uniform the badge they are only hasem so who says to the Arrogant person you've stolen my uniform you've stolen my badge I got to get it back I'm going to take it back I'm going to remind you that you're not in charge I'm going to show you that you're not in control I'm going to punish you and throw you in jail for impersonating a police officer just do a little bit more NRA so if you live with them so what's the big problem Revol is now set up that what's the problem is when you have that fire raging inappropriately inside you and it it builds within you this idea that you exist that you're something that you are independently something that you don't rely or depend on anyone that you are a something you're a yes you exist the more you feel and the more it's reinforced the more you promote the sense that I exist then you start to think I'm in charge that I'm in charge so when you live with auna so what's the problem in other words the the symptom is arrogance but what's the illness is that you feel you're a Bor you feel I'm a Creator I go to work and I make deals and I make this and I do this and I do that and I'm a parent and I've got 7,000 great-grandchildren I created generations of people when you start to make the mistake to think I'm a Bor I'm a Creator so what's the antidote not to the symptom but to the root illness is to realize I'm not a Creator I am among the created I'm the created when you live with Amun marish you feel that I'm just among the I'm just created I serve at the pleasure of Hashem I serve at the pleasure of Hashem I'm not competing with him I'm not better than him I'm not equal to him I'm not I'm just I serve at his pleasure all of my limbs and all of my faculties and all of my capacity and all of my material possessions everything I have is just I serve at his pleasure it's un loan from him it's never owned by me I didn't create it i' I'm a partner in it but I'm the junior partner every breath that comes is from hem we fulfill the words of our rabbis that with every breath we should thank hem we we uh I wrote the article recently about spending three minutes a day disconnecting taking deep breaths reconnecting to what's important several months ago so I quoted in their this we say in our d so say don't read it every living being should praise God read it with every breath praise God not every soul not Nish it's not a it's not a coincidence the word for soul is the same word as breath Anda with every breath I Praise You Hashem meaning every breath I take part of my automated system I don't take for granted I don't take for granted you spend time next to somebody who's on a ventilator who has to walk around with an oxygen tank don't take for granted that we have the capacity to fill our lungs with with with air that our respiratory system is working spontaneously with every breath that's working I realize I'm not a Creator I'm created I don't own it I'm on loan I'm not in charge I just serve at your at your pleasure with every breath we just finished the paragraph so as opposed to the m the believer says I I only I exist because I'm connected to you the moment I'm disconnected I stop my whole existence depends on you the Arrogant person thinks my existence depends on you you God depend on my existence if I recognize you and I acknowledge you and I bless you and I serve you then you exist and if I ignore you you don't The Arrogant person thinks because they've stolen the uniform and the badge that they're in charge was not a fool when he said the Nile is mine and I made it because we all at times have that voice of parro inside us we all it could be you cut an amazing business deal you gave a great closing argument in front of a judge you did a successful operation or you made the greatest potato cook of all time or you gave the best that's ever been given but we then think when we have success we confused we become confused and we think the success is a result of us of our intelligence our Ingenuity our creativity our hard work and we can take pride in the success but what gave us the talent and the skill set to get that success that's from Hashem and it's un loan because you know what the next operation could be a blunder the next potato cooko could be a flop the next druss could be a strikeout the next closing argument could get nowhere in that land so what what determines the success of the failure we can take pride in our in our part in it but whatever we've contributed to it is from it's un loan from him so when you work on amuna when we're controlling the fire inside us when we're solving the not the symptom but the cause what is the what is the cause stealing the uniform borrowing the badge thinking I'm a Bor cuz I'm dressed like a cop I'm a a cop we're not a cop no matter how authentic our uniform may look we're not in charge we're not in control and the more we realize I'm a nivra not a Bor I am created not a Creator I'm a partner but I am a junior junior junior junior partner who serves at the pleasure of the senior partner and whatever talents and blessings and skills that I have they are on loan they're not part of our permanent collection and the more that I concentrate and think of and flex and work out that muscle I'm not going to get arrogant that I'm not going to get arrogant so I can spend all day talking about arrogance thinking about arrogance working on arrogance and maybe I won't be arrogant for 24 hours or I can work on this other which is the root realizing I'm a Nia not a Bor and as a result of that as a consequence of fixing the cause the root cause I'm not going to be ar how could I be arrogant I'm not going to be arrogant who's arrogant to the policeman you have stupid morons like that they end up in jail right there's a whole law if you talk about right what is it uh what's the law resisting arrest resisting arrest or whatever if you mistreat you're arrogant towards a policeman you can't be arrogant to Authority there's a consequence and there's a consequence to being arrogant to our Authority so the more I realize he's the authority and I'm not then arrogance will solve itself and that's what was saying let's work on fire the core realizing I'm a never not a bore and then that will arrogance we will Amir T pick up with this next week