Ten Minutes of Meaning (Part 135): Going Above and Beyond - Mesillas Yesharim

good morning and welcome back to our 10 minutes of meetings so grateful to be back together to learn the words of the ramahara moshe and his messily this magnificent magnum opus that is an instruction manual to be able to become a better and best version of ourselves had a divine inspiration when he wrote this magnificent book that the commentary would walk across europe barefoot in order to meet in order to study these precious and prescient words that can so inspire us and illuminate and enlighten us to be able to pursue this vision this dream of who we can become i want to thank our sponsors for this morning's class of 10 minutes of meeting the diamond ginsburg and newman and berman families to mark today's completion of sloshing for their beloved husband father son brother brother-in-law uncle our beloved friend khaim diamond allah shalom was an amazing person a person of deep faith a person who had a lot of vision a person who applied himself and was growing regularly and inspiring us to do it as well may his love of education inspire the other to learn in his merit i want to thank uh the sponsorship as we mark the shloshim of our dear friend our beloved diamond we have been making our way through music going through these different qualities one at a time beginning with sahir is how to live a life of mindfulness how to be present and cautious in all that we do we then moved over to the life of zurich alacrity zeal how to pursue goals and vision how to identify what we want to be and how we're going to get there we then moved over nikias how can we identify the kryptonite what are the qualities within us that distract us that compromise us that knock us of course and that prevent us from becoming who we're meant to be we then moved over to the quality of precious we can prove we can live with when we can live without how can we ensure that we can transcend that appetite that temptation those desires to truly live without we then move to the media of tahara to not only do pure things but to do them for the pure reasons intent matters to focus on why we do what we do and to live with intent and that brings us up to what we're up to now which is the quality of chassidus we began before the summer and it's where we pick up this doesn't mean a furry hat and long pais and a long black coat that's the new hasidas as opposed to the normal modern neochasidis is writing the 16th century before the birth of the hasidic movement when he talks about hasidus and of course the ram khal himself is working off of the formula of repentance back to the gemara two thousand years ago means piety it means going above and beyond it means going the extra mile and then we last left off says that the general populations think that piety goes hand in hand when a person is is a boor when you're unsophisticated when you're unintelligent if you're intelligent you could be involved in learning you could be having sophisticated conversation when do you pursue piety when are you focused on being a pious person when you're not smart but says what a mistake it's the opposite you know you have to bring an attitude of alumnus of learning of intelligence of sophistication when it comes to human quality human behavior when it comes to self-improvement remember that was writing many centuries ago before there was a self-help genre before there was a field of psychology that was really unpacking these ideas so he continues and we continue under so we'll now explain this concept step by step at the root at the core of the quality of piety is what our rabbis say in the talmud and barack obama great song too praiseworthy ashrae fortunate blessed praiseworthy is the person whose labor is in torah that's what we're occupied and preoccupied with the torah is what illuminates enriches and forms inspires our day we're busy studying it and living it and through that osa yotsro through that we please hashem we give us this gemara in brachas by the way we don't often think about it in that way we think of mitzvos as check i did the mitzvah put on fill in check let candles check keep kosher check but the mitzvahs are not just about check marks any more than a child should say clean my bed check did my homework check imagine if you nachas a child at any age a child a child at eight and a childhood eighteen and even a child at eighty if their parent is a hundred gets a tremendous joy by giving nachasurach by giving a sense of pride lyotro to the one who created and i couldn't almighty designed us the same way that we get tremendous joy satisfaction fulfillment when we know we're giving nachas to the one who created us namely to hashem yazbara himself to stop and ask ourselves what i'm about to do does that give god dachas does god want me to do that does god want me to behave that way is that the right choice is that giving god obligation the 613 commandments they're well known we know what we have to do and we know the level of responsibility and liability we carry omni however if we're in fact involved and engaged in a real authentic relationship with god today's share is dedicated in memory of khaim khaim had an authentic relationship with god he wrote letters to god he spoke to god he wrestled with god he told god what he was happy with him about and what he was upset about if a person has a real genuine raw authentic relationship with hashem if we love god if we feel he is our creator he's involved in our life he sustains us so you're not going to take the easy way out and you're not going to get by with the bare minimum if one really loves god then there's no such thing as it's good enough picture a marriage you don't have to picture a marriage sadly we know of such marriages maybe someone's stuck in such a marriage where god forbid god forbid the parties don't have love and romance and energy and electricity they're mailing it in uh good enough i bought you the card i said the thing i spent the bare minimum time i showed you the least affection i offered the fewest compliments good enough bare minimum mailed it in what kind of marriage kind of relationship is that so a person who looks at mitzvos a person who looks at the blueprint for our lives and says god good enough mailing it in bare minimum bare minimum mezuzah bare minimum dollar minimum bare minimum i'm learning bare minimum understanding of my davening bare minimum time and she will bear minimum time in the sitter bare minimum in my jewishness in my judaism i'm mailing it i'm getting away with the least that i could do so that person that reflects everything about the attitude towards the relationship of instead the model the paradigm what we should be aspiring to is like a child who loves the father the parent sheila abhis dayton gillem if the father simply offers a hint the father alludes to something he wants something he craves [Music] in a wonderful relationship where a child admires and respects wants to give pride to wants to make the parent happy if a parent simply alludes barely references something they crave or they want that child now relentlessly pursues it tries to provide it tries to acquire it tries to get it even though the parent never explicitly said can you get this the parent never explicitly explicitly said can you do this half a measure half a half a mention but if the child is really in tune to the parent if the child really wants to give nachas to the parent if the child truly is invested in that relationship and the child gets tremendous satisfaction by knowing the parent has pride in them then all the parents has to do is say something in passing the child is in a store and sees something they know the parent will appreciate parent never asked buy it anyway a child runs to do a chore that the parent will so appreciate what's done for them without being asked lasso's gamma shalom affairs to do even the things that they were not explicitly asked because a person can say to themselves because doing it will give god such nachas such as that's the way we were designed when we get a yashikawa when we get a job well done by our employer by our parent by our creator that job well done that what a boy gives us tremendous satisfaction you know chapman has his five love languages not everyone's designed exactly the same but all of us have within us at least something that for some is even greater than a financial reward for some is greater than acts of service for some is greater than time for some is greater than some of the other love languages but when someone we admire look up to in some ways a superior task to whom we report when that person we've given them nachas it feels great a what a boy a what a girl from a mother from a father from a from a a mentor from a teacher from a community leader from god himself from our spouse someone we admire and look up to that means something we try to give nah that that means something we don't have to wait to be asked if we wait to be asked we're responding to the command it doesn't have the same value richness as if when we volunteer it ourselves because we know it will bring you joy wow you're going to come home to find out i did the dishes you're going to discover because you're going to get in the mail a package from amazon because i saw something and i knew you'd love it because you once mentioned to me that you always wish you had i got it done and let you have it that shows the relationship the investment the care of the concern so that is this quality of khasi this will continue on wednesday mornings over the next few weeks and months to unpack this meet of hasidis this is piety pili doesn't mean you know walk around empires piety means to go above and beyond to not mail it in to not do the bare minimum but to really be invested and to show god that we care thank you for the sponsorship and memory of our dear friend diamond all of a sudden if you'd like to sponsor a future class of 10 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