Ten Minutes of Meaning (Part 121): HIIT Spiritual Workouts - Mesillas Yesharim

good morning boca tov welcome back to our weekly 10 minutes of meaning music the great ram khal has provided for us the brilliant formula the prescription a guide how to live our best selves how to make the most of our lives i want to thank our generous sponsors for the 10 minutes of meeting series for the year our dear friends hani and lenny greenstein who sponsored in memory of hani's father mr aaron tambour aron ben yitzhak who's in the shama shadow and aliyah thank you for your generosity thank you for your friendship thank you for your support we are on the 14th chapter and we have been learning about the medical apprecias the concept we're up to the quality of precious we began with zeros how to live a life of mindfulness conscientiousness how to be present in all of our thought and our deed we then moved over to the world of zurichus of alacrity and zeal and enthusiasm how to set goals and pursue them then we moved over to nikeis what are the impediments to those goals what are the things that we need to struggle with and try to move over from the area of the battleground to conquered territory and that brought us up to the medius to the concept of abstinence or transcendence how to live a life in which we are living without even that which we're entitled to live with in other words even that which is permissible even that which is allowed just because it's allowed it doesn't mean it's good for us and mikhail preaches in the 14th chapter that has been telling us about the elements of abstinence abstinence has such a negative connotation abstinence is a word so connected and related to other religions not our own so i don't like that translation of abstinence but i like the notion of precious of the idea that just because something is permissible doesn't mean it's good or it's right we're trying to grow and we're trying to flex that disciplined muscle discipline is freedom the more discipline with money the more financial freedom the more discipline with time the more free time the more discipline in any area of life the more of it you'll have and so precious the quality the notion of living without is not punitive it's not to punish ourselves but rather it's to prove to ourselves who we are and what we're made of it is to exercise that disciplined muscle so that ultimately we can achieve the freedom that we crave nathan travel safely greensboro north carolina that says my soul has not been defiled what does it mean my soul has not been defiled shalom rabbis derive i have not eaten from any animal that required a rabbinic decision i have not eaten from meat that had to be slaughtered quickly in other words maybe it's permissible maybe i can get away with the bare minimum maybe it's legit maybe it's good enough but this great comment by the prophet yeshua was an area of virtue was i didn't get away with the bare minimum we talked about last week with mezuzah's they should be parallel to our car do you have a car with no bells and whistles are you still rolling down your window are you a car that is the bare minimum or do you like a few uh luxury do you try or indulge in a few benefits so whatever you do for your car is true for your mezuzah what you have to spend on your mezuzah so just because you can have it just because it's permissible doesn't mean it's good for you necosia mutter human vada technically something is allowed strictly speaking it's good enough but since when is good enough enough since when is good enough good just because it's good enough doesn't mean it's good or it's right it's not what we want from the people around us can you imagine if god told us look i didn't give you everything you want but it's good enough it's good enough your legs kind of work it's good enough your eyes and your ears and your mouth and your heart they kind they work good enough they work well enough we don't expect good enough from others and we shouldn't be satisfied with good enough for ourselves and therefore part of the area of discipline and growing in discipline is to challenge and to push ourselves to demand of ourselves to have high standards for ourselves and even when we can get away with less to ask of ourselves more uh israel is says this is a very high level and we're not saying it's what required and we're not judging those who don't meet this expectation what we're saying is those who crave and want more isn't this amazing just because something is strictly permissible just because there's a leniency to rely on just because good enough is in fact technically enough doesn't mean it has to be that way for everyone so one has to look in the mirror and want us to evaluate themselves and want us to decide who am i am i a good enough person in life it's good enough i get a decent enough paycheck i barely pay the bills but it's good enough or do i have ambitions and aspirations do i want to grow in my health and wellness do i want to grow in my profession and career do i want to go in my relations my marriage good enough my parenting is good enough and the things that i have they're good enough and my livelihood is good enough is it all good enough or do i want more and can i channel can i take can i box that wanting more and redirect the wanting more not just to wanting more things into wanting more extravagant experiences but to wanting more of myself to wanting more for myself can i set goals and pursue them can i demand of myself and achieve it live at that higher level and live at that higher plane and live in that higher place because the reward of the effort and the reward of what i've given up is manifold and multi-fold the benefit the joy the satisfaction the fulfillment the purpose the meaning well and far outweighs what i had to give up in the effort to achieve it and this was a comment that marooq for one of our great sages says in the he says i am like vinegar the son of wine my father was like wine his vigilance is scrupulosity i am like vinegar i'm a step down why because my father when he ate meat waited 24 hours in order to have dairy between meat and dairy imagine some people very close to me have a fear of fleischek syndrome never ever want to become a felicia because what if i crave something milk one of the most liberating things i did for myself several years ago is i taught myself and i transitioned to the world of black coffee aside from the fact that it's much healthier and aside from the fact that dairy is not so good for you to begin with i don't know about vegan but dairy can make you congested all kinds of other lactose intolerance ashkenazi stomachs but if you get off of the dairy if you learn to drink coffee black the way it's meant to be drunk the way real men drink uh black coffee then you'll never ever be desperate or worried about when do i become milk when do i become dairy you'll overcome your fear of fleischick if you can learn to live to drink a good delicious black coffee lean into the black coffee so he describes marukwa he says my father he would wait 24 hours between meat and dairy can imagine the fear of flaccid people 24 hours he said he was like wine but i'm just vinegar i'm vinegar the son of wine because i don't wait 24 hours i don't eat dairy in the same meal as meat but i eat it in another meal and in fact this is the source of the great debate of how long does one wait because he said i wait between meals so how long is between meals six hours five hours three hours one hour how long is between meals and we have different customs but for our purposes the point is of course the the law is not like his father did one need not wait 24 hours if in fact that were the strict law marukwa would never violate it he would never go against it he says my father he lives at a higher level he demands more of himself yes it's enough to wait between meals my father waits 24 hours he has meat days and he has dairy days le fish loya purish says i'm not on his level i don't expect the same of myself but i can admire my father i can look and admire and acknowledge with great affection his level that he lives on that plane and in that place so that's the idea the idea is that we're not meant to necessarily be there forever you know we have this notion of what are they called like hit workouts high intensity interval training so you do that religiously and spiritually too high intensity interval training you can't necessarily maintain that resistance or that cadence for long term but you can have bursts you can have intervals you can have output of intensity and then you come again back down so spiritually too we can demand of ourselves an intense interval output a burst we do that a serious machine for the 10 days of repentance we have certain practices we don't have the whole year we introduce slikhos gets us to shul earlier in the morning we don't eat past uh akam we have certain practices and stringencies those 10 days it's a high intensity interval training for our soul not just for our body so yeah you have sometimes you're working out hard and then you have periods of recovery and spiritually there are times that we push ourselves hard so even though that's permissible i could learn to live without even though that's allowed i'm in a disciplined place there are people and i'm not endorsing it there are people who go on juice diets or liquid diets or intermittent fasting diets and they do high intensity for an interval in order to get a certain result and in order to prove to themselves i don't need it and then they can go back to indulging relaxing and recovery and that's what this parent that's what this quality is all about it's not what's required it's not what's demanded and yet if we want to become the best version of ourselves if we want to push ourselves to be our best then we can push for high intervals for high intensity for the soul what are the periods pesos coming and this is a high intensity interval right now cleaning preparing cooking shopping persevering i'm going to talk about next monday night i'm doing my pre pesach workshop pesach made easy and if you listen to it pesach is made easy i know there's a popular woman right now who wrote a book on pesach in five days i got pesach in five hours i didn't write a book but you could listen next monday night and what we're going to open with some some teachings of maya morgenstern of the notion of that high intensity of heir of pesach gets us ready for the cherish for the freedom of pesach so mark our calendars the calendar has periods of high intensity intervals comes before roshana comes before pesach there are certain periods we gear up we get ready we get excited and what we accomplish and what we learn about ourselves we then take with us into our recovery period so this is not necessarily a standard or level which is expected of us permanently or all the time but rather it's something we can achieve so we can learn about ourselves and take it from there we'll pick up next week learning more about ourselves and the quality of how to exercise this disciplined muscle within ourselves 8 45 stay here for a living with emunah if you're living on the podcast of course rate and review if you're watching on youtube i beg of you take a moment and subscribe you see the little button below press subscribe to the button below and you'll be notified in real time every time we go live to be able to learn together 8 45 living with a moon tonight 9 o'clock we go behind the bmw with jeff swartz the former ceo of timberland brilliant brilliant charismatic fantastic inspirational hope you'll join us then until next time stay happy stay healthy