Ten Minutes of Meaning (Part 78): The Powerful Draw to Promiscuity - Mesillas Yesharim

tove thank you for joining again together learn even if it is over technology for now but spending went mornings together is always a privilege and a pleasure and I look forward to when we will be able to do so in person with coffee and donuts and of course having just finished Avenue together ten minutes of meaning for the year has been generously sponsored by a honey money grunting memory behind his father was Dan Tambor our own vanity Atok whose neshama should have an Aaliyah we are learning miss Alyssa sharm the great formula of the rom power of moshe haim lutz Otto who charted a court a course forward for us about how to live the best version of ourselves how to tap into our greatest potential how to live our best lives how to express the best within ourselves and that's frankly what the time we're living in so desperately needs we remain in quarantine we're still on top of one another many are trying to balance work home homeschooling and so much more and it's testing it's truly an incubator that's testing all the things we've worked on our whole lives will we lose our cool will we blow up and get angry we would be envious of others who seem to have it so much easier will we be Garrigan tanned it's just the whole Nesta everyone has to fall and step and work exactly our way will we be humble all the different areas of our life that hopefully throughout our lives we've been working on this is a pressure cooker sort of testing all of those qualities will we come through is this the best version are we achieving our most are we actually growing from this experience growing ourselves growing closer with others and growing closer with Hashem so the entire machinist ishara based on the statement of the pinnacles Ben Yair is how to achieve human perfection we began with Z heroes a life of mindfulness and vigilance and caution how we can pre present and conscientious in every thought and speech and action which sounds like it should be a basic human function think before you speak think before you do it's hopefully what we were taught since we were young children it should be obvious and basic only it's not look how many relationships have been sabotaged look at people's own personal health and wellness that's been sabotaged look at the things we say that we don't mean to were look at people's own lives that have been ruined because we fail to really be conscientious conscious mindful to be intentional with what we think and what we say and what we do if only we would learn how to pause and reflect and consider for a moment before we run in to do something our lives would be so much letter better zeroes and then we move to the character trait of Jesus alacrity and zeal and enthusiasm how to set goals with ambition and aspiration and then pursue them not just as a wish but making a resolution and a plan figuring out how will measure and track our progress how will celebrate our success Zuri's us to live a life of a lakh Radian zeal and that has brought us up to this third character trait called Nikias Nikias literally means cleanliness but what them how drives that is it means don't just confront temptation and try to overcome it eliminate it purge it from our own repertoire from our own instinct from our own intuition don't even be drawn to think to do to look at to go to say the thing we shouldn't it's one thing to be drawn and to have a self awareness that i'm engaged in that battle at conflict and to have the wherewithal the courage and the resolve to defeat the temptation and it's another to set my standards so high to make my own ideals and my own drive and my own lifestyle conform to what's right and what's best so much so that I don't even have temptation and in that world of Nikias we spent all of our time until now until now I'm just reviewing talking about gazelle because the Gemara says rove the guest though that most people struggle every day with having integrity and being honest you'll say what are you talking about who's breaking into their neighbor's home who's reaching to their wallet or pocketbook who's stealing from somebody else of course we haven't act pretty the answer is if we spent a lot of time review entirely now we struggle with that integrity we say I'm going to meet you at a certain time or I'm gonna call you at a certain time and we failed to do so we run late we've stolen someone's time and we don't come through with our promises we've stolen someone's trust if we abuse the copier at work or we make morning distance calls in the old days or when we are recording what we're building our clients we round up and stand around or being entirely accurate if we oversell and under deliver the product of the services that we offer and there were countless other areas where Rothberg as though if we think about it every day most people struggle to be entirely accurate honest have integrity do we exaggerate our story all of these are areas of honesty and today we move over to the second area whether I'm house says basing himself on a statement of our rabbis the rabbi said row of the Gaza most people have trouble having honesty and integrity and the next category that we struggle with is arias promiscuity sexuality there is a basic human Drive God simply created humanity to have this drive to be drawn to sexuality to promiscuity to the pleasures of the flesh when adapter Adam in her eyes she got a Menaka mood in a machine in my dragula Gaza they too are and appeal their draw and there are second only to honesty and integrity now now is not the time but I challenge you to think about - interesting consideration is that an accurate assessment in our time the row of big SL and mute bar is most have trouble with honesty and integrity and it's only a minority that struggle with promiscuity are there factors in our time which perhaps have reversed that the internet the access to imagery the access to acting out of the proliferation of addictive behavior the stress in which we live under that has caused people to have challenges in this area in their life and so much more perhaps it's changed but nevertheless Hazama right to identify two of these as core human drives the need from money and therefore the drive for gayssot and the need for for arrives promiscuity the enemy show you totally not Khosla got me miss out Hague I want to start from a local alone with us and if you want to work on purging us from ourselves if we want to perfect ourselves if we want to be as elevated and enriched as as most perfected version of ourselves as we can then we need to not only overcome the urge or struggle to act out in this area we need to eliminate it to the best of our ability altogether and this is a pasta close to guru legato serovar that one shouldn't come close to revealing irva to uncovering nakedness it means that there's a boundary I'm not a college bar who I'll tomar however obsolete Amish be showering me Joseph in the oven IRA make a properly in the oven or shot an inertia pan in the oven this is where we left off last time a person shouldn't say to themselves here's the edge of the cliff you know actually acting out fully actually engaging in the full active of immorality of promiscuity of justness and lewdness that's what's prohibited but up until the edge of the cliff up until that line who does it harm if I look who does it harm if I think who does an arm if I fantasize who does it harm if I flirt who does it harm if I secluded myself with someone of the opposite gender if I don't fall off the edge of the cliff if I make it just up until then who does it harm can't you look but not touch can't you think but not act can't you a rabbis the Torah itself God who designed us know so much better imagine somebody designs a technology platform someone divide designs a device and you think you're gonna know better than them you're gonna outsmart them about how to best use it how to best utilize it how to avoid damaging it and they said you look buddy I programmed it I built it I invented it I designed it I know intricately the details of how it works I know the viruses that will bring it down I know what will make it overheat I know what will make it implode I know what will sabotage it from working I know I built it I designed it God says that to us he says I know your I know you better than you know yourselves the human psyche and not all humanity are the same key shame shame parts of Fame just as our appearance differs so to our personalities and our drives differ but the universal human drives God says I designed you I built you I know what makes you tick and I know it's gonna bring you down and therefore one of the things I know is when this drive kicks in you lose your judgment you lose your ability to think in fact your judgment and ability to think become so distorted and perverted literally and figuratively that you actually use that ability to think to rationalize the very behavior that's going to destroy your lives and if you look at me what is he talking about he's nuts can't people behave themselves be dignified can't people control themselves I encourage you to simply look around the world that we're living in look at men and women of great distinction of success brilliant minds geniuses accomplished personalities and leaders in every other area of life and yet this drive so clouded their judgment that it made them believe that they were above the law or they can get away with things what makes them elected official who has great oratory skills who's bright what makes them think that tweeting or sending pictures of themselves from a locker room is an intelligent things to do what makes someone think that certain behaviors in an oval office or in a White House is not going to come and catch up with them what makes celebrity athletes think that they can act above the law and without reproach with anyone anywhere and that it's not going to bring them down how could a freeze the frame of any one of those individuals and say do you think this will end well do you think that this is not going to destroy your life and a person who would analyze that objectively of course would come to the conclusion it will be disastrous the problem is that's the power of this drive that in that moment that says stop thinking stop thinking this is what you want you deserve what you want and now in fact conform all your thoughts to only support to get what you want and any thought against that turn it off stop thinking hold your judgment that's the power of this drive God knows it and therefore God says once you get to that moment once you're in that situation it's too late americo's vertical caching she knows English Tatiana Salah fell another nomination Misha son of McAuley Oh - me - aye yai in Rome Haase says we have so much to learn in this area from the precedent of the nausea the Nazarite the individual takes a vow not to drink wine not to cut the air not to have contact with impurity with tumor now points out the ROM how the most fine will tap at though the Nazir's vow is not to drink wine and yet we don't let him eat or her eat a woman could be another - we don't let them consume any great product fresher draw my grapes grape juice any derivative of grapes see say well what's the problem why can't the nausea enjoy a nice cluster of grapes lie in the couch and have someone feed them the grapes they're only prohibited from drinking wine the vow was to abstain from drinking wine what would be the problem with having grapes so that I'm hostas no God understood the human nature if you eat a grape and you have the taste that's similar that reminds you of wine you're gonna come to consume wine by Bateman if you differ my mother says Ellen noisier I'm sure alpha P shaker is there ain't no LSD as the ioan Austral Toro commercial chakras in my ayan if you give an inch we're gonna take a mile we know how they ate Sahara that drive works if it tastes the prohibited take it just wants more it's not satisfied by as Ellen would she limb the turtle of a famine a shiatsu in sea agua terrible mishmash limb some eodum las astonish Marta can yomo do man another lesser maverick Academy law we learned from the paradigm of the nausea and we applied to every area of life that don't give an inch or a person will want the mile we know what the rabbi's they put a fence around the Torah and by the way this is not a rabbinic idea it's on a Jewish uniquely Jewish idea I always give the example why is there a stop sign at an intersection to protect our lives with that the stop sign would fly through and then be head-on collisions we would literally die so why are we put the stop sign exactly on the corner right at the intersection the answer is because people tend to roll through a stop sign people tend to see the stop sign and not stop before the stop sign they stop at the sign and if they're distracted maybe a little bit after the stop sign so therefore American law we place a stop sign before the intersection knowing that if in fact we roll through it our lives are still saved we won't have yet that head-on collision in the middle of the intersection why can't people control themselves can't they break in time can't they stop before they get to the intersection the answer is when your life is on the line when innocent lives are on the line children in the back of a minivan and playing on their way to school we don't trust you to always get it right people are distracted they're tired they're aloof and therefore we put the stop sign a little before we create a sad CI offense we put a buffer in margin in to protect us and God says this area which can so undermine and destroy your life you can cause such pain to others and violate the trust you can ruin everything you've built your entire life we can't afford to tell you yeah come right up until come close and then stop we know that's not how the drive works so the rabbi's put the stop sign several feet before and they're a by say in this area just like the Nazir who's not allowed to drink wine we also say you can't eat a great product because if you eat grapes you'll come to drink wine so too in this area we say it don't seclude yourself with someone of the opposite gender when you're not related - why not because you can't control yourself not because we're trying to put women in an inferior position they can't have access and being alone and so on not because we're trying to discriminate trying to protect and preserve and elevate the opposite we know that once you're in that sense in that situation of temptation we know you're secluded the door is locked you're attracted to one another there's an energy there's a romance we know that it's too late your human brain has turned off and say what are you talking about women in particular will say if men the human brain is never turned off just control yourself look around the world we have obesity we have area of people struggling we could either acknowledge the reality of the way we were designed and therefore make our lives strategically adapt to the way we're designed so we can live our best selves or we can continue to be in denial of it not have those extra buffer margin protective measures and then see what happens in a world like that what happens are inappropriate relationships what happens are destroyed lives what happens as well even is a me-too movement not - god forbid let the let off the hook the perpetrator or blame a victim but to suggest that given that's a human Drive and we need to protect people from it let's set up parameters that protect people from it and that's what the ROM howl is telling us to live them as best version of ourselves and to be able to elevate ourselves so we're not struggling in an area where universally humans struggle don't wait to be in that position and think you're going to triumph and overcome you need to protect yourself in advance by setting up protective measures please we'll begin with this next time have a wonderful day living with em you know begins in 15 minutes you