Rabbi Gavriel Friedman - Food for the Soul: How to Deal with Temptation

okay so the question is if a person is going to do the wrong thing should they just you know call spade a spade and just they're they're bad let's just be honest and we'll just be who we are or should we maybe uh put on a facade of us actually being good and then just do the wrong thing quietly go on what does that mean a lot of girls dress knees but they but they're not exactly tender right compared to girls who wear jeans and a t-shirt and are acting way more minus than they are right that's heavy yeah i was talking to someone last night about this somebody asked me a question which i don't want to say what the actual question was lest i give away their identity however somebody was asking a question that uh i guess i could say what the question is perhaps no i would have worded it definitely i could have but i can't anymore but okay somebody asked let's use modesty it's an example of that they said you know i'm not really feeling the idea of modesty you know so i want to like let's say start wearing just pants and even i'm not even saying pants necessarily are they might be more modest sometimes pants than the skirt sometimes some people wear but um shorts shirts and like above the knee and things like that like what i'm not feeling it anyway you know whatever i think that if you a person starts i hate to use this term but the slippery slope is a very uh crush of a term if somebody starts dressing a certain way that is only going to aid them to continue living in that way all right does that make sense what i'm saying so you're saying should a person should persevere you know this whole question i don't remember i don't want to say that because i don't remember the exact thing but there was a discussion the guy says that hasidis again said he wants to go to a disco okay yeah sister of moshe feinstein says i want to go to a disco should i take off my yamaka i'm going into a nightclub that'll take off my yamaka right this is what it seemingly sounds similar it's i should check before i answer but i'm going to have a semi-answer right because i don't remember what it is but something along the lines of he should wear it yeah he's going to say but it's going to cause a desecration of god's name yeah but if you take it off it's going to just cause worse things in terms of uh what you're going to be doing i'm not answering that as lucky because i don't remember right i have to look at it again so probably close to 20 years ago when i when i first saw this question about that but in any event if you're asking me just in terms of uh take a look at psychology when you start you know dressing a certain way that opens up to do a lot more things the gemara talks about what should a person do if they start to feel an urge this is not your question at all but i just want to point out the gemara says what should a person do if they feel an urge to do the wrong thing they want to do the wrong thing so you you learned about it what it said what to do right don't do it right what should you do if you start to feel temptation that you want to do the wrong thing what you do what do it once really get out of your system before you know it you're full out crackheads i guess that means what yeah um what do you say mike um you have a temptation you want to do the wrong thing what should you do i guess you should fight it okay good so the gemara says fight it right that's the first thing the talmud says is to fight it what if you can't what if it's like it's too much you know you can't what do you do do it with a friend video it and sell it all right so what do you do so so there's uh two different gummiers i'll share with you one is wiggs your good inclination win over your evil inclination and what happens if you're not able to do it right it's just it's too strong so that a person should go and they should say shema says and then what happens that doesn't work then a person should go and they should uh they should think of yom hamisha think of the day of death a person thinks of the day of death now all these things whenever the gemara says things it means not it's not superficial it means really right it goes okay i think the day of death didn't help but no really think about the day of death in other words you got to think about like the end result of what's going to happen what's going to come from this is it worth it you know such a thing although the command condition says what should a person do get dressed up in black travel to another town and go do it there doesn't say go do it this is then if you feel the need to whatever then you do it then then get dressed up in black go to another town and i don't forget the exact lush the words but go do it there essentially and the hope is that when you're changing your clothing and you're putting on something else and you're starting to you know when you act upon if you what happens when we have the urge to do the wrong thing when we have the urge to do the wrong thing we usually we then have our our yatzer tov which comes in our our we'll call it the conscious right comes and says don't do it right you have a temptation you want to do the wrong thing but then you're like but i shouldn't do it but i want to but i shouldn't but i want to but i shouldn't so what happens is when when the good thing comes i want you to actually think about an example mike uh on this side of the room uh do you uh have you ever had a time where you felt like you wanted to you had a temptation to do the wrong thing yeah but you also knew it was the wrong thing and therefore you had this kind of battle where i really shouldn't do this but i really want to what do you do at that moment i uh outweigh all the positives so you've obviously never actually experienced this based on what you just said that was a very intellectual answer you just gave me i want to know a real answer in other words you're alone you're in a room there's a let's say a classic example is the opposite gender is uh deciding to have what to do with you obviously they just want to talk if you know what i mean right so let's say so do you then think to yourself hmm let me think excuse me one second let me make a checklist over here you know the pro is the con is or is it like right or is it like i i i right you understand what i'm saying right at that moment yeah when you want to do the wrong thing you're like very hard to say like let me think this through yeah right right so much of the gemara says i think i told you the story once uh somebody not perhaps you heard this about a guy who was once tempted by the fruit of another shall we say and as soon as the temptation began he started yelling fire and he ran you left right this time it says you should run away from sin like you run from fire you don't run from it forget about it you know you know what the temptations are you didn't stand up powerful i mean we know right it's a very very powerful thing gomorrah says ain't nothing but tropislarias there's no guardian when it comes to physical promiscuity right now i don't i don't mean to only talk about this example but this is a very strong example like monkey duchenne talks about a story like you think like okay i'm already older i don't have whatever mars has a story about a fellow a fellow one of the one of the great great stages that uh there was a woman in the attic now the attic back in the day the way they used to get up to the attic you had a ladder and you'd bring the ladder over and you'd set it up and you go up and down and there was a woman this ladder was so heavy you needed like 10 people to carry it and this this older man who saw got a glimpse of this woman and he went and grabbed the ladder by himself lifted it up and put it up but you know what adrenaline is yeah it's pumping right and he starts walking up the ladder and he starts then he starts yelling fire so back in the day whatever people do when there's a fire everyone came running with buckets of water right that's how you did it right we've evolved a little bit right especially in lake george right but uh you basically what they all came with a bucket of water and they ran in the house and they find him up on the ladder and they're like you know where's the fire you know and he said sorry you already put it out right you put it out of it there's a fire in my heart and you put out the fire it's very heavy very heavy so what do we do i want to i want to share with you what i think and uh jay saul and i want to know what you think of this is true what's your name alexander that was exciting okay so alexander the great was pretty uh exciting though is that are you named after uh yes yeah probably okay so so alex it goes like this you're about to do the wrong thing and you feel like i really shouldn't do this but i really want to but i really but i really so what we do fine what i do is i quickly do it the wrong thing and then afterwards go oh why'd i do that and i've never done that yeah do you understand whatever you want to say now yeah right we quickly why why quickly do it because i know that if i give it a second then i might not do it and i want to do it but i know it's wrong and i don't want to do it but i want to do it so what i do is i quickly do it to not let my conscience get the better of me as soon as there's a lapse of a moment then we start to think and then we start to think it's like torture like oh should i do it should i not do it i want to do it i don't want to do it etc makes sense okay so now so what should a person do that's why the gemara says what do you do if you feel like you have the temptation you want to do the wrong thing okay change your clothing put on all black so first of all you probably don't have all black at home right so you have to find it yeah but then okay you have it put it all black then travel to another town get what's going on in the meantime whether you like it or not inevitably you start to think because we're like i don't know maybe i shouldn't i don't know right if you've ever had a temptation to do the wrong thing and it's not right in front of you but it's like say a mile away you have to get in your car you've got to drive over there you have to whatever the whole way you're thinking i really shouldn't they really shouldn't really shouldn't until finally maybe then you can overcome it got it so now question is should a person be who they are should they uh you know fake it in particular that question i think if a person starts to you know be who they are so then it just drops them down to the next level and then it opens up the box to be able to do anything okay it's much harder to improve yourself if you're like kind of superficial and doing things if you're honest with yourself you know what's going on there's a reality of this is a reality of rock bottom right there's a reality i don't know that we generally recommend rock bottom i think rock bottom just happens when a person hits rock bottom that's usually when they're able to lose themselves up right so now do we say to the guy you know he's having a hard time he's getting involved with drinking you know he tried drugs that one time you know and he's he's on a slope down so what do we do now do we say to him all right man you're on a slope down we probably should help you get to the bottom so here's some smack he's a little bit of crack pcp lsd heroin weed a little bit alcohol no saying pills ajax do we aid him in that slope or if he gets to that slope okay when he hits rock bottom yeah you hit rock bottom let's let let's start working you know it is true that there are times when a person is going down that you start to see like okay maybe it's not even worth starting working with him because he's not going to be able to even hear anything until he gets it out of his system so to speak but do we then go and buy it for him right do we then recommend you should probably do x i don't know it doesn't sound to me like we should personally right i think that possibly a person is able to maybe raise themselves you know rock bottom is a dangerous place because rock problem could be dead yeah and rock bottom could be dead physically it could be that spiritually a person goes hits a certain point perhaps if we can equate it to pyro we spoke a little bit papyro that pyro what happened he lost his free will he doesn't have free choice what's going on the answer is when a person goes so far there's there is a concept that a person can can kill themselves i don't mean physically right you can you can literally kill yourself and have any connections or something i was speaking with somebody last night somebody last night who came to speak a lot of people last night this is a different person someone last night who said like they want to grow they want to be spiritual but they don't want to grow but but they do want to grow but they're not sure if they want to grow but they don't want to grow right but they want to well that's the only way i'm talking here right i think you want to go yeah you wanna you don't talk about because you're talking to her also right but uh but you wanna you don't wanna why don't okay i'm not saying this girl or this guy whoever they may be is dead but it's dangerously close right and if a person goes too far then what happens then it's over okay so that's the quick and easy this is the idea person has to understand we've got to think about these things so that's why just to go back to the discussion that we had about adam and java about the snake situation when the snake comes along and speaks with you right the best thing to do when the eight sahara comes the evil clinician comes is to not even be glorious it not even listen to what he has to say like i'm not even talking to you right don't even open up that box don't remember that box as soon as you get into conversation with the evil information you're done right as soon as it comes to it's like hey why don't you try busy sorry right and walk away because if you're like what should i try what what do you have in mind right whatever mind now that opens up things and the things go quickly things move quickly and before you know it we fall to things that maybe we don't want to be falling to all right so that's number one we shouldn't even talk about that what happens if you do get into conversation about it so then be real about it then be real about it that's the example like i've spoken in the past when we talked about the chocolate cake my uh classic chocolate cake um love okay and every time i talk about it i think about it and i want to do it all right that's the idea of speaking it out and saying chocolate cake i want you to know you look delicious you look lovely you look very you look fine you look fine but you know i just can't do it we can't be doing this again we can't be doing this again okay we can't be doing this but but don't like play games with like okay maybe really it's not okay speak it out be clear about it that's again the cost-benefit analysis of everything in life you got to be able to have clarity and what it's about okay now says the gemara cola anyone who's greater than their friend their evil inclination is greater than them the greater one is the more you rise the more you rise the greater you become the greater you the horror becomes the greater evil inclination becomes you hear the idea the greater you become the greater evil nation becomes why very simple there's a big misunderstanding about what is the eight sahara what is the evil inclination many people think of the evil inclination as this evil thing and you're right it is evil however the reality is this evil inclination is actually there to aid you we didn't have an evil inclination if we didn't have uh you know something which is driving us one way then we don't have drive we can't be driving the other way if we're not being driven one way you can be driven the other way how does a person become strong how does a person become physically strong work out work out what resistance resistance building yeah if you do not have resistance you don't have any growth if there's no resistance there's no growth which is why when a person says oh i just wish like life could just be chill you know let life just be chill then you'll never grow right you'll never grow a person wants to grow let's be clear in a physical analogy you need to have weights that are pulling against you okay we find this very interesting by uh esther mcgillis esther or someone called miguel ester we're coming up in a couple of days uh the world's favorite holiday right getting drunk and hal is called purim i will discuss more about that as we are closer but the idea of the holiday of purim that um there was a the mean one of the main characters is esther that's just one of the main characters in purim if not the main character and there comes a point where mordechai says to esther you got to go to the king guy you got to speak to the king you got to go meet with him that's like but i can't i wasn't called or summoned i says you've got to do it you've got to go to the king but mordechai please all right you gotta do it girl you gotta go right he's like but you know if you don't get called you get killed and whatever he's like okay we hear the options the whole jewish people are about to be destroyed you understand human boo set up this whole decree now what he wants to destroy the jewish people you got to get in there you got to do something about it and then he says a fascinating line umiode and perhaps where is that dope dope and who knows if for this particular reason you came big okay anyway who knows if if this is the reason why you became the queen maybe this is the whole reason why you became the queen how many times you have in life that there's challenges that come up and when a person has a challenge in life what ends up happening we have a challenge a lot of times people like oh this is too hard forget about i want to stop now right i want to stop yeah i'll give you an example i'm talking about if somebody here is let's say in the beginning stages of their journey let's say in terms of judaism someone's checking it out is anyone here not grow up observant not grow up observant not not okay now if you didn't go i'm sorry about that my friend right but uh if someone did not go observant a person starts looking into observance usually they look into it either because they're intrigued in other words some sort of intellectual curiosity or not necessarily intrigue but some sort of emotional experience right intellectual curiosity or emotional experience either way if you came with intellectual curiosity then you might be better off than if you came in with the um emotional experience and the reason being that the intellectual curiosity you don't necessarily have any expectations you're just curious you want to learn and see what it's about if you come with an emotional experience you already have some sort of expectation and that is wow this was really nice you know there's i know a certain rap i don't want to say who but who said that you know a lot of times they have trips uh what they call outreach trips cue of trips h you know what who'd you come with uh these are 2.0 what's with that guy first how's forest doing that's forest i know he hates me i know he hates me with a passion okay anyways so uh center my best um but uh you come with a trip and this rabbi said you know when when these trips come and they have did you ever go one of these trips any sort of queue of trips tug leads birth right it wasn't really a cure what was it just touring and chilling right messing around having a good time a lot of you to hers right maybe a few anyway so you were on the other side of the trip right right okay fine so then you won't have it as much as i'm going to share with you now but uh you ever been one of these trips before a lot of times you ever been one of these ships before high school in high school what was it ncs1 right so these trips make judaism very exciting and they make it very uh attractive and one of the things they'll do is let's say shabbos shabbos is a very powerful tool to use in reference to bringing somebody closer to judaism what's the problem the problem is then a person who grew up secular sees shabbos what do they see it as singing and dancing and amazing food and tons of people and excitement and talking and touring the old city because shabbos means you tour the old city and and and everybody hear what's going on right and then what happens then you go home and you're like oh shabbos let me go find my nearest shabbos uh party right and really that's that's beautiful if you want to do that every shabbos but that's not generally what happens you don't usually walk into a religious home you're on a friday night just pop open the door and you see the whole family like little cake sometimes it's quiet and sometimes the challah isn't exactly you know the most incredible chala ever it's a little burnt and sometimes you know they don't have 12 courses right there's one or two yeah in which case what ends up happening when you have that excitement it's like then it's very hard to get that it's like it's like starting cocaine right it's like a person not that i know i'm just whatever it's like a person i have a friend you know it's like it's like a it's like a person who gets involved in drugs and they start with coke you can't start with you can but once you start with coke nothing else is going to excite you please don't answer it correct me don't correct me i don't want to know right but a lot of money is you don't go to the top it says we go shopping the highest turn the emotions all the way up it's a wonderful thing because it gets people excited et cetera so this one rabbi said what we should be doing with these trips is bring him to a place where like there's no heating like in the middle of the winter and like stale challah and you know just sit there solemnly right because that's what shabbos is that that's how tough it is but point is if you start judaism with this excitement it's beautiful but beware what beware it's not sometimes it can be challenging what i mean by that is especially if a person is starting from the beginning and you have a whole lifestyle again behind you so it's very challenging for a person to go ahead and shift that uh and i'll give you an example what i'm talking about in a moment so here we go here we go you should know that when we start getting involved in judaism the beginning is uh is is great but then it becomes a point where it starts to get a little bit challenging now as anybody here ever experienced in their life the following if you haven't then perhaps you will um right when you want to grow and you decide you want to get involved with something it then starts to become a little challenging it starts to become hard and you think to yourself one second god i don't really get this uh when i wasn't really into you or doing this jewish thing like if i wanted to it was pretty easy now that i'm interested in it now you're making it hard for me like what's with all these challenges i'm having has anyone ever experienced such a thing before yes yes experiences you think before right they could be either psychological challenges or it could be actual physical things happening right uh certain uh personal losses a person will feel they'll lose their job just at that moment right person's like i'm gonna start keeping shabbos the next day they lose their job like and what do they automatically do you see if you keep shopping you lose your job is it worth it forget it right we start making these equations okay now let's even say you can equate them let's even say you can't equate them god what's going on at the very moment i'm asking for growth for help and growth that's when you make it challenging for me it seems a little bit backwards however jason pointed out is it backwards at the very moment you want to grow then god makes it challenging what's how does he that make see if you really want it okay good right it's completely straightforward here's the challenge good very good excellent right you say this is what essentially somebody being troubled by this is the same thing as a person working out and they have a trainer and they're doing this thing i don't know what it's called when you grab the bars over here and you bring them behind your head what's that called what's that lateral pull down lateral pull down exactly what i was thinking right so you're doing some lats yeah you're doing some pull-down lats and you're doing this and you have a trainer so as far as i remember because i used to whatever i used to have a personal trainer i know you were thinking the same thing but they have in the back of the thing there's these weights like stacked and there's a pin you pull out the pin and you can put it to 10 pounds 20 pounds 30 pounds 40 pounds if you don't know pounds 10 kilo 20 kilo 30 kilo 40 kilo right and if you don't speak hebrew english then it's israeli okay you get it so you're doing your 10 kilo thing yeah you're doing 10 kilos you're pumping pulling down 22 pounds yeah yeah slap into a slim jim and as you're doing your thing you say to your trainer you know what i really want to grow more i i want to be bigger he's like okay so he takes that from 10 and he puts it to 20. right well 44 pounds whatever somebody says 20. and then you're like what the heck i said i want to grow it now you're making it hard for me why would you make it hard for me i want to grow why would you make it challenging the guy goes are you what is wrong with you right i made it challenging because you said you want to grow everybody get it when we have challenges in our life we're like god i said i want to grow and now you're making it challenging no i have to stand here because so if you if you go ahead and you say that you want it you want to grow so god says okay i'm going to give you a challenge let's see how it goes comes along esther and says to mordecai i can't i can't i can't i can't go to the king you know i i'm not called maybe i'll be killed whatever it is i can't i can't go to the king it's fine it's fine leave it i can't i can't go to the king so he goes and he says um mordecai says back to him he's someone had to stand there for you i said somebody says to him who knows maybe this is the reason maybe this is the reason maybe this is the reason that you came to the kingship in the first place this is why you're the queen you're here because of the fact that now you can grow it makes sense everybody get it oh but what do we do what do we do what do we do what do we do we have a challenge many of us shut down it's too hard i need a break i'm just gonna take a break do do this thing one time with my friends you know just do like a little break and then i'll come back to it what should you do if you start to feel yourself that you need a break push yourself in the turn okay or not because you might rip your muscle but it could be that's what this depend has anyone you ever felt a little bit burnt out as they say right a little burnt out a little bit overload a little bit overload you take on something it's just a lot of pressure right you start to feel like this is too much i gotta i gotta chill i gotta stop this what should a person do and they start to feel the fact that they're not feeling it so so um there's a safer called alishore alicia was written by volby somebody explains the followers he was he was a rabbi passed away not long ago within uh i think in 2003 if i'm not mistaken and he was known as the mashikiyak of the masjid is supervisor the literal definition of uh if you go to a restaurant you want to know if things are coached or not kosher if you go to a nightclub you want to go uh restaurants you don't have things of course you're not coaching right so what happens you go you speak to them you see he's the one who's running over overrunning the whole thing et cetera but there's something else called the a spiritual supervisor in other words you go to yeshiva then you have someone who oversees the students their spiritual growth you're familiar with what i'm talking about does anyone know who rav gil is by any chance yeah you know of gil no in the other another building of gil so anyway there's a rabbi named above gill he's the musketeer yeah he's not checking of your kosher of here of telstra right the mash right exactly we call them exactly so so um ravobi was known to be the mashiach of the masjid he was the spiritual supervisor of all the spiritual supervisors are you a very wise man very big thomas great great sage and people who go and speak with him when they had questions so he wrote a book and the book is called ali short which literally means arise ox more than that another time and in this book on page 34 if you'd like to check it out yourselves he has a chapter entitled you may ahav days of love days of hate and despair now what are what is he talking about have you ever had when you wake up in the morning you're pumping you're cracking you're feeling good you're excited you want to do you want to grow you want to go you want to be you know can you take me higher no no no no you just want to get i don't know it's a little old-school creed a little move over there but right do you want to go you want to go higher and higher right anyone ever had a day like that mike you had a day like that you wake up and you want to be a better person you are you do okay good right yeah those days yeah and maybe even in judaism right have you ever felt that before perhaps you want to do more in judaism you ever thought such a thing you could be honest with me you could say no not a chance i don't know what you're talking about man what are you doing god connection mike what do you say are you my second mic on the scene here yeah okay you ever have a day where you're just not feeling it yeah i'm not interested i do not want to wake up what's that it is a song it's like the words are literally today i don't feel like doing anything i just want to stay in my bed who sings it really singing today i don't feel like doing anything i just want to stay is that right i love these songs they're so intelligent you know what i mean it's like a guy woke up he's like i don't want to do anything he's like hey i don't want to do anything it's the top of the charts you know like it's really like you got like the number one it's like stone temple pilots i don't know that band's stone temple violence you know where they got their name from they were stoned and there was a a a um uh tour it was a when you fill up a gas uh canister okay where you fill up the car and it said on an stp that was the company sort of like stone temple pilot right and then like that's it now that it's on tumblr this becomes like this is i love this brilliant okay in any event back to our program um sometimes i just leave a message at the tone right so when when uh you wake up you're just in the mood you're not in the mood you're not feeling it right you've had a day like that sam yeah well of course the first time i have to think about it did i ever feel like i want to grow right second yeah i've had days that i don't want to do anything you know what do you do what do you do when you wake up you're just not in the mood you just don't want to do it so let's think about it back to physicals anyone ever worked out before yeah it worked out before to me it's natural but uh the rest of you naturally a keg but if you've ever worked out before you'll know that depends what you're doing but you're not supposed to be doing the same thing every day right alternate days and uh with an alternative we have muscle building um i don't mean cardiovascular right i'm not talking about just like staying healthy all right cardiovascular is do it every day go ahead do the elliptical okay right get on that thing you know what i mean ski uh but i'm talking about let's say weight weight training you don't do it every day you need to let your muscles rest and then go to another thing etc what do you do though let's say you do it sunday tuesday and thursday sunday tuesday thursday and mondays and wednesdays you do your little skiing thing okay but sunday tuesday and thursday you're doing weight lifting what happens if sunday you do it tuesday you do it thursday do it you do it for a couple weeks and then sunday do it and tuesday you're just not feeling like it what do you do i would do something that you do feel like doing or something different from what you don't feel like doing in reference to weight lifting like all right so what would a trainer tell you to do if you say one day you don't want to do it you want to take off one day that's productive good i.e playing cards with your kids that's productive like stretching uh even a physical activity don't just mean like an activity okay good right oh very good in other words what they would say is do something whether you like it or not because if you don't do one day what happens but you start to lose forget we can start with just momentum psychological momentum you lose momentum right but even putting his hands together physically you lose momentum and it becomes that much more difficult to do it on thursday and then what happens slowly but surely you break down until it ends up you stop doing it which means you got to do something even if it's not the same weight training you've got to do some sort of thing where you're continuing with it so he points out the following at least your first says the following idea number one you should know because a lot of times we don't know something it kills us if you don't know something it kills you if you ain't ready for something it's going to knock you out i'll give you an example i'm talking about i was playing basketball when i was in eighth grade i tell you the story something with me with my regular gears and creamer i'm playing basketball and uh my rabbi was a phenomenal basketball player you know when you have someone who's a good basketball player you have all the rumors he's from l.a he got drafted by the lakers but he didn't but it was shabbos or whatever yeah so so he was a phenomenal basketball player and uh and he was also pretty uh physically fit i wouldn't say he was he wasn't but he was very cut a rebbe in yeshiva he said he taught gemara right but i'm just saying he's happened to be in very good shape and and uh we're playing ball once and as we're playing ball somebody set a pick does anyone not know what i just said right so for the uninitiated in the basketball world a pick means that if i am playing does everyone know what basketball is okay now i'm playing basketball and let's say uh he he's on the other yeah let's do it yeah come come get up here here you're playing also yeah okay so now you're on the same team whoa fellas i got no money okay so now yeah you're uh you're on we're these guys are on the same team okay he has the ball right over here is the ball and he's coming this way and he goes this way now hold on a second we got no room here we got to make room okay someone get a basketball please something good okay so it goes like this now you come stand over close over here i'm playing on him i'm watching him the hoop is over there he wants to get around over there so what he does is he goes go for it and then and then he goes like that and then this guy sets a pick so he blocks me if he blocks me i can't see now if he's on my team what he what are you supposed to yell out okay help right pick left oh he up to one pick left right and always i don't see it because he's behind me i don't see it so what happens is now when he goes he sees it he knows his way he's standing there like this like sucker he's going down i don't even know what's going to happen to him that would happen and i go and if i'm not ready boom if i'm not ready for it what happens i want to check no i was kidding what is that thanks for playing right so that was uh you didn't score um but what happens then the rabbi set the pick on me the rabbi set the pick and i was going for we were just playing with a slow over here but i was he was running so i ran like this and i ran into the rabbi like full force i felt like i hit a wall like he's i felt like he hit a wall i went straight down i went straight down and you don't get the wind knocked out of you right it was like wait he stands up and he's like that's right don't mess right now he didn't really say that that would be child abuse and he would be arrested but he goes and he said next time learn toast flows better right so i'm on the floor and i was like he's like need help i'm like oxygen you know and okay i was able to get it back what happens if my what's your name again if alex alejandro nato really sander would have said to me pick left what would i have done around him or stop when around him stopped or if it's too late i'm go i'm gonna hit him lower your shoulder lower my shoulder and try to knock him out yeah or brace for impact in other words get ready for it so i see it coming i could huh get ready to hit him so now it won't knock the wind out of me makes sense so number one says the lady short and he's quoting robin uttam the safer yoshi a great sage from about a thousand years ago who says the following this is normal in life it is normal that there are times when you love things and times when you very much don't love them but in the words of the la short that you hate them it means that you love it and things that you hate it yeah did you ever work for the fire department you just have the shirt you just have the shirt okay if a person let's say there are days when i was thinking like that person goes works for a fire department where it just goes to work they they work and let's say they enjoy their job there's some days you just don't know what to do it i'm just not in the mood i'm sure these musicians that go on tour for whatever their days are just like all right you know everyone probably thinks it's so exciting to get up there and tour a new city you know whatever it's like it's the same old same all right you just got to make mistake make sure not to make a mistake and say the wrong city you know you're like thank you detroit and then it goes silent because it's like welcome to new york you know so there was a snickers commercial like that like i was like thank you detroit and quiet goes not going anywhere for a while grab a snickers right so over here is that if you've got to get ready brace for impact know that there's going to be challenges and what do you do when you have that challenge number one if you know so now you've braced yourself you're ready for it you can handle it if you know what's coming you can handle it so i'm going to let you know that the challenge is going oh so what i'm pointing out to what i'm telling you is and how do you you don't necessarily know when it's coming you don't know when it's coming but the day when you feel it which you will right when you wake up that morning and you're like oh i'm not in the mood i didn't see that coming is it unexpected or you expected it it's the same muscle you could use in basketball you weren't expecting anyone to set a pick on you the whole game well you still were surprised about it because you didn't know what's happening right then so why wouldn't you why wouldn't you embrace or impact the entire game oh that was good i like that you totally nailed me on that one yeah i could pull schtick on you and say that uh it's different okay but it's it's different that stands very different okay okay now moving along so now what's the answer to your question you're right it's the same a person who doesn't brace for impact because you're not bracing the whole game this is silly right you're not gonna be but when you go on the court you know this might happen what happened to an accord you had no idea there's an idea called the pick and you get blasted you're on the floor let's say two guys each of them get they hit the the guy at the same speed same velocity same and they hit the floor and then he got the wind knocked out of them one guy understands the concept exists the other guy didn't even know it existed which one gets up quicker same no the psychological understanding of any impact on your physical well-being okay get it so the guy who gets hit very hard they both got hit hard but the guy who was like i was like shoot i should have saw that coming he still has the wind knocked out of him but he's like all right time to get up the other guy's lying there thinking what just happened and everyone's still playing he's like i don't get it and once i get up he's like but how could that be it was like he's like i don't want to play anymore right i don't want to play anymore the guy who knows his company he's like all right let's keep going and i'm going to set a pick on that sucker i'm taking him down right and then the guy does set a pick and he lowers his shoulder gets like that again but we find that underst i always wanted this reminder i was playing ice hockey i used to play ice hockey when i was a kid and and i was going once i uh it was i was in a camp it was an ice hockey camp i was 13 at the time and this guy there's a punk counselor these punk counselors so so at one point okay it's not right but i wanted to nail this guy right and he's not wearing any equipment i'm wearing full equipment and i'm like i'm going to nail sucker he doesn't even know what happened to him i'm going to knock this guy out you know with no business right he don't mess with me boy right so i come at the guy and right as i go lower to hit him he goes like this he bends down and when i go i was already over him and then he lifts up and he flipped me over him he killed me he saw the whole thing coming he just played like he did it so he's just standing like this i came from behind he's like uh look right he threw me over now you get nailed but when you know it's coming it will hurt it will be painful but you can get up much quicker get it so we're gonna have days we're gonna have days when we're gonna if you haven't felt this yet if you haven't had any excitement in terms of idea of of growth in terms of judaism god willing one day you'll have it and then what happens one day when you're pumping and things are going well and then things don't go as well and you're like i don't really want to do it anymore because i just don't feel it understand that's why i said you before if you're coming from the emotional experience that's a lot more dangerous because from the emotional experience that means to say what happens if you don't have that emotional experience anymore all of a sudden it's done from the intellectual curiosity intellectual honesty of thinking if something is true then even if i don't feel it if it's true then it's true the example would be medicine nobody feels like taking medicine when i say nobody i'm speaking generally right fortunately there are people that are into that but nobody nobody feels like they want to take medicine but the reality you know you take a pill you got to swap whatever nobody wants it like today i think i'll choke on a pill right no but you do what you got to do but i don't want to do it but you know it's the right thing to do right so you do it anyway what do little kids say i don't want to and what do they do they don't unless you make them do it right unless you make them you have to force them there's a whole little trick i'll share with you now with little kids is a reflex that if you blow in their eyes they swallow it's a wild reflex so if you want to get your kids to take medicine right so you hold their mouth open you put it in and then blow in their eyes and they'll be like right sucker that's not so nice but maybe i do but anyway canadians what that we don't want to take it but we do it anyway we do it because we have to do it that's the concept of being intellectually honest okay so let's recap this sucker and then we'll end off if anybody has anything so inside of the idea what do the person do they have to feel the concept they didn't send enough feelings to be honest with the fact that they're not actually religious and just live it out or should they maybe fake it a little bit the answer is could be multiple i don't know i would suggest that a person who goes and starts getting involved with doing the changing the way that they're behaving that's only going to cause it to become even worse but isn't worth it to rock bottom okay if they do it they do it but i don't think we recommend that a person goes and goes ah here try this as well you're already messing up your life mess it up more then we'll start growing yeah okay but what should we do if we're starting to feel the fact we want to do the wrong thing well think about it it's very hard to think about it this isn't going to the person everyone starts thinking about the fact that the only arguments are totally our personality will come if that doesn't work if that doesn't work no think of the day of death but don't just think of like oh death i still want to do it now think of the day what's the outcome what's what's going to come from this is it worth it what's the end result it's going to be for this think of the day of death if that doesn't work with conversation conditions the person to do is get all dressed up and put on some black clothing and go to another place and then what happens then go and if we still want to set it why because when we want to do the wrong thing we do it immediately like oh why'd i do that yeah in which case that's what you have to talk to the it's our cake you look delicious and then you walk away but you have to at least have this conversation what's the best thing don't even conversation in the first place run away you're boring happy birthday right away looking right away from fire fuego and get out of there quick you get out of there make sure it doesn't actually happen to you okay then we got to the concert here i have a feeling that tonight's gonna be a good night i woke up in the morning and i didn't feel good so i went to sleep and i called my friend in the hood yeah yeah after the tone leave a message on my phone okay yeah so so it happens you know some days we wake up and we're just pumped and we're excited we want to do things other days we wake up and what happens we're just in the mood to do it all right so what do we do number one says the ladies show he says it is normal right because we said no but i was like oh hit the floor and what happens over there bottom line is understanding the fact that you know it's coming it's still going to hurt but psychologically speaking you can get up a lot quicker because you know that it's coming you understand that it's coming okay after that what's the position just stop no if you stop what's going to happen be very careful don't stop because if a person stops believing what's going to happen then it becomes very hard to start again right what happens is muscle sunday tuesday the stopping tuesday wednesday it's going to be very difficult to get started again in which case don't stop because stop puts us to the bottom don't stop keep going maybe take your foot off the gas the way i like to explain it is if a person let's say is driving 100 miles an hour maybe it's much 60 miles an hour they're feeling burnt out there's two things you can do you could stop the car or you could just take your foot off the gas take your foot off the gas allow yourself to float a little bit right but don't stop the car because that stops the momentum and once you stop the momentum you stop the car then the momentum unfortunately ends up going the opposite way and perhaps this is what mordecai was saying to esther who knows if this is the reason you came to the kingship the whole reason you're here is in order to have this challenge you're going to say oh it's too hard i'm going to stop that's ridiculous this is it man this is the this is why you're here this is life life starts when challenges begin when a person has a challenge that's life if a person says is this challenge too hard i'm gonna just take it easy now that means you just said i wasn't living before and now that i have life i'm not gonna live now either now is your chance for life this is what's out now you've hit it this is the ultimate i'll end with this one muscle there's one analogy wow one analogy that uh if i were to tell you if i were to tell you alex that in your backyard there is a treasure chest filled with gold filled with gold like hardcore gold i'm talking about each bar gold is worth a billion dollars right and there's like 50 bars of gold in there i think it's like about 50 billion what would you do where do you live los angeles do you have a backyard yeah okay in your backyard there is a treasure chest with 50 billion dollars in there what would you do with what shovel whatever shovel so you get a shovel and you start digging and you're digging up your whole backyard your mother's like alex what are you doing you're like mom it's worth it right and you're digging and you're digging and you're digging and nothing and you go to the next place nothing you go to the next place nothing you go to next place you hit something hard you go too hard so then you go to the next place and you dig and you go next week they idiot of course it's too hard you hit the treasure chest what do you expect those days we wake up and it's hard and we're like too hard let's move on you just gave up 50 billion dollars when it becomes challenging that's where life starts don't go dig somewhere else my friends dig around the area check out the treasure chest any questions comments stories jokes attacks please keep them verbal and non-physical yeah you never i don't think fully explain why the more you're growing the bigger you oh right we didn't explain that you're right you're right okay remind me i'll have to talk about that okay okay everyone until next time it's been a pleasure to see you when i see you take care have a great day bye