Ten Minutes of Meaning (Part 130): Give Your Heart - Mesillas Yesharim

good morning boca tov and welcome back to 10 minutes of meaning hoping everyone had a magnificent and wonderful kabbalah satora that everybody received the torah with ahav and bepnemius with love and deep inside the recesses of their soul i want to thank our generous sponsor of the 10 minutes of meaning series for the year khanialani khani and leni grunstein in memory of haney's father mr and tambor aron ben yitzhak we are as always very indebted to the grown students for the generosity for this series and for so much else and anyone who wants to sponsor a particular shir this or other can email lee at brsonline.org lee at brsonline.org and we thank you for your sponsorship we are mesila sasharam the great work of the ramkhara of ludsatto who taught us the path towards self-perfection how we can become a better or a best version of ourselves and we talked about living a life of mindfulness and then zereza's alacrity and then the key is purging from ourselves our negative instinct or inclination and then the media of precious how to live with discipline and now tahara how to live a life of purity where what matters is not only our actions but our drive our motivation why we do what we do or as we've been saying not only to do the right things but to do them for the right reasons so we're finishing the sixteenth chapter but bayer midas atahara the virtue of purity why it matters not just externally not just going through the motions not just behaviorally doing the right things but why what we think about and what we care about and how we focus and our mindfulness why that matters too our great rabbis in sanhedrin teach us the almighty wants our heart he doesn't just want our hands and feet he doesn't just want our actions it's not just about doing the right things but he wants us emotionally invested he wants us emotionally involved he wants us to be mindful and conscious and present in what we're doing he wants us to be doing it for the right reason liba it's not enough to just mail it in it's not enough just to externally get it done but if there's a motto or bumper sticker for our time in which we are so fragmented and distracted we're so driven by the technology buzzing and beeping and vibrating so you say but check i davened and check i stayed up shavuous check i eat the cheesecake check i did the particular mitzvah belieba boy he doesn't want you checking your phone he doesn't want you distracted he don't want them why are you doing it out of peer pressure or for the sake of honor or glory or to get more friends or followers liba boy he wants our heart he wants us to be emotionally invested emotionally present in the relationship in what we're doing and in this way the emotionally almighty is no different than any other relationship that we're in in every relationship what the other party wants is our heart so it's not enough took out the garbage check spend time with you check answer your text message check where's your heart where's your sincerity where's your authenticity where is the real you don't live it's not enough for god that we go through the external motion that we technically performed the mitzvah allah what he wants is for our heart to be so pure that we are directing it for god that we do what we do in our marriage or in our parenting or in our friendship that we're doing it not for our own sake and not for our own glory and not to relieve our own sense of guilt and not to overcome our own shame and not to keep up with others but we're doing it for the other party we're doing it because we love because we care because we're concerned because we're involved because we're invested liba boy hashem cares not only about our actions you can't say leave me alone so i don't subscribe to this world of panemias i'm not invested in understanding the deeper meaning to deeper reason so i never think about hashem i never think about god i never connect with him i never feel his presence but what do you want from me at the end of my life you can look at my ledger and you'll see check check check check i did all the right things and who cares as long as externally i'm doing all the right things as long as i can put all the correct check marks who cares about the rest god cares your spouse cared your children care your friends care your colleagues and your employer care everyone around you cares not only about putting the check mark and doing the right things but about doing it for the right reason about giving our heart about giving our soul about giving our mind about mindfully being present in what we're doing the you know what really rules you what really is in control the organ that's in charge is not the brain it's the heart the brain is the place of thoughtfulness it's the place of intellect it's the place of rational thinking the brain matters and the brain is important and the brain shoots neurons to tell us what to do and how to behave but the heart the heart do you have heart do you give it all your heart even in our vernacular we use that language of applying all your heart or giving with a full heart vimeo maybe atma al-avodasa but if your heart is not in the relationship even if your head is you can read on paper it all looks right and your head can rationalize and explain intellectually argue why everything is makes sense but if your heart is not in the relationship if your heart is not in what you're doing if your heart is not in the actions you're taking then they're empty then in some ways they're counterfeit ain't avodah evaram klum if your heart is not present it doesn't matter what the rest of your organs and limbs are doing because they will go wherever the spirit of the heart takes them we are wherever our heart is not where our physical limbs and organs are yesterday we gave a shear the final closing shear of our theme of torah and technology of shibuyas last evening about the positives and the assets the wonderful things of technology and the challenges and one of the challenges is this it fragments it distracts it divides us it makes it very hard to give our heart and to put our heart into everything that we are doing psychologists sociologists coined the expression absent presence when you're physically there but your heart is elsewhere so a couple's out to dinner and supposedly they're marking a milestone celebrating an anniversary or simply having their date night and next the date night next to anniversary they're putting check done had dinner but if each of them are sitting there with their phones they're each looking and scrolling and texting and checking then they were absent present physically they were there but their heart wasn't in it and if one's heart is not in it they're not really there a father or mother are pushing a child on a swing at the playground check spend time with the child spend time with the grandchild check but even if you could put the check mark for having physically been in the playground having physically pushed the swing if your heart is not there then you're not really present you're absent present you're not really invested you're not really involved you didn't really have that experience davening urine is really racing elsewhere all the to do list all the things you have to get to we missed two days this week because of shavuot got to get to work got to catch up got to get back into everything so you're not focused on davening so you made it through and at the end check said chakras turn the pages of the sitter uttered the words check but if you said check but your heart wasn't in it did you really do it so we tend to think it's the brain or the limbs we tend to think that externally as long as i went through the motions i took the actions that's what matters says that no we follow our heart not our head the rest of the limbs follow the heart wherever our heart is what our heart is in what our heart is invested and what we give our heart to that's what's real um and this is an explicit verse in the book of mishlai the book of proverbs shalom king solomon the wisest of all men teaches my son says god my daughter my child give your heart to me give your heart to me don't just give me the actions you know the child who sits at the shabbos of your hunter table who doesn't want to be there and they have a frown on their face afterwards they're playing the board game with the family even though they'd rather not and they're sitting there off abyss and miserable and negative you say you know it doesn't really help if you're playing roma cub if you can't smile if you're not going to laugh if you're not going to enjoy if you're going to be miserable if you're not giving your heart it doesn't matter that externally you're putting a check mark next to the fact that you were here it's not just about the check mark it's about the heart it's about giving our heart and that is the media of tahara the media of tahara this media of purity is not just doing the right things but doing them for the right reasons it's not just going through the motions but it's about giving our heart because that is the measure of the relationship that is the measure of our investment in the relationship it's true in every relationship in our lives and it's true in our relationship with hashem we'll begin just the first sentence of parakeet zion we're on to the next chapter making our way through missiles to sharon 10 minutes every wednesday morning and in 10 or 100 years we'll get through it acquiring this quality being mindful and present doing the right things and doing them for the right reason is really not that challenging to those who've been working on the earlier qualities we've been discussing zehiro's caution and being present and zarez's alacrity and zeal and uh nikias purging and ridding ourselves of the negative instinct intuition and precious living with dignity will bring you up to tahara so if you're skipping right to chapter 17 it's going to be difficult but if you're making our way incrementally if we're growing and we're adding aspiration and inspiration then it's not that hard when a person contemplates when you examine and think about the nature of the base pleasures of this world kamoshika lamala as we've discussed earlier you will be repulsed and you'll regard them only as defects of this corporal obscure and crude side of human nature when you think about the cravings for unhealthy food cravings for unhealthy self-destructive self-sabotaging behaviors if you actually consider and you're contemplative is there pleasure lasting does it even carry forward or is it fleeting does it disappear is it something that makes us feel good or immediately after do we feel guilty and ashamed if we would just be contemplative and think about those worldly and physical and hedonistic pursuits and pleasures and we'd realize how unfulfilling they are we wouldn't crave them at all the problem is that we're taking we're smitten by them and the way they win the way it defeats us is we don't even think about it that's how it wins so the cheat the key is to be present is to be thoughtful contemplative to think and then we won't even crave then we'll be able to live this life of purity we'll begin with this again uh next week we continue in approximately 15 minutes living with a moon at 8 45 tonight you don't want to miss behind the bema tonight we're going behind the bmw with rabbi grossman the disco rabbi of mig dolor magdala emek an amazing amazing amazing person who built a city and he built an institution that has transformed the lives of thirty thousand youth personally he's an amazing person you don't want to miss at nine o'clock tonight until next time stay happy stay healthy