Are we overly sensitive these days?

the millennial generation and gen Z and Beyond are incredibly emotionally sensitive with that sensitivity comes a black and whiteness like if I'm not feeling it I can't do it but the reality is there's an incredible capacity for an emotional connection okay friends The Story begins we are exploring the secrets of the talmud we're on brus raot 34b and today's topic is going to contrast the difference between the balua the penitent the person who had made the conscious decision to return to their faith and thead the righteous person the the uh person who kind of just remained innocent their whole life who's greater and what we're going to learn here is not just the not just the superiority complex that's it's it's a little bit deeper than that what we're going to explore here is number one the mechanics of tshua the mechanics of repentance we're going to understand on a deeper level the real purpose for existence and the role of reward and Punishment in this world so we're going to touch on a lot of core theological ideas in Judaism and this is important let's dive in and Rabbi bar ABA said said that RAB yanan said all of the prophets only prophesies their Prophecies of consolation of consolation there's all these positive Prophecies of like what it's going to be like in the future so the previous paragraph says that it's they're all they're talking about the Messianic era right so says no they're talking about with regard to penitence somebody who's going to be a balua they're going to chap they're going to tap into this incredible reward described by the prophets but with regard to the full-fledged righteous to theim to thead it stated that no ey has seen it God aside from you so a balua we know what their reward is going to be the prophets describe it but the Tad's reward Way Beyond right RAB ABA in the name of RAB is essentially saying that AA somebody who does tsha somebody who repents has good things coming for him aad has even greater things coming for him that we can't even yet describe okay that's opinion number one but then there is the counter Sage RAB Abu RAB Abu disagrees and the gar notes that this statement disagrees with the opinion of rabu who holds that penitent Bali T those who do CH are superior to the righteous as who said in the place where penitents stand in the place where the boua stands even the full-fledged righteous do not stand as it is stated peace peace be upon him who is far and him who is near peace and greeting is extended first to him who is far the penitent and only thereafter is peace extended to him who is near the full-fledged righteous so we here we have a debate between RAB Yan and rabu raban says the tadik is on a higher level than the Bala and R who says the B was on a higher level than the sadik question yeah um chronologically speaking in terms of time when was the Tanya written relative to th to that discussion and the reason I asked is because you know before when you brought up the subject I raised my hand because I thought I knew the answer immediately based on what we learned the Tanya right because if we learn in the Tanya that it would it would uh I'm not going to get the Hebrew quite right the the the one who returns yeah um is I don't Mighty is not the right word is is closer to Hashem right because of because of the effort required to return as oppos sadic who lives in this space it's I don't want to say it's effortless but it kind of is the Assad doesn't know what it's like to return turn uh in that in that way that he's never tasted the forbidden fruit right exactly exactly so so that's why I thought I knew um but now the question is what my question when was the Tanya written relative to that discussion so so the the Tanya is correct right from the perspective of rabie aou right and uh the Tanya was written let's say 250 years ago roughly the talmud is roughly 1500 years ago maybe 1,00 years ago so but let's take a step back for a second whenever you have a debate in the tal and over here it's not really a debate it's more of a theological debate right but nonetheless whenever you have a debate in the talmud how do you know which path to follow right so the answer is I don't know I'm not that much of a scholar right so I have to rely on Scholars who do know so I would look at the authorities whether it be the or whether it be the r myties or others and see who they follow and it's the same with theological discussion as well my Mones in his compendium has a whole section on the laws of tsha and I am prepared to share the screen with you because I want to show you this um if I could find it hold on you guys see it you guys with me okay number four a Bala should not consider himself again this is like the my's like Encyclopedia of Hala where he takes all the the and basically codifies it so it's it's in an organized way and you just have the law without the discussion and he says in section 4 abala should not consider himself distant from the level of the right because of the sins and transgressions that he committed this is not true he's beloved and desirable before the Creator as if he never sinned furthermore he has a great reward for he has tasted sin yet separated himself from it conquering his evil inclination our sages declared that in the place quoting the talmud right in the place where the Bala stand even the completely righteous are not able to stand the level of Bal tra transcends the level of those who never sinned at all for they overcome their evil inclination more so myones is clearly saying that we're going to stick with RAB a who's interpretation not RAB yanan's interpretation and he gives a reason the reason my Mones gives is because they had tasted the forbidden fruit they've decided to separate from that forbidden fruit and thereby conquer in their inclination whereas the righteous person and I I guess what we mean by righteous righteous can mean different things can mean different things but let's say the the innocent person right who maybe didn't have the same level of exposure doesn't have the same level of Yater Hara doesn't have that same drive that same passionate drive for things he shouldn't be passionate about to him okay of course you didn't sin of course you're innocent right this is what the B says um similarly by the way you have a similar idea but let let me take a step back I want to quote another reason another explanation of why the balua would be on a higher level why the rern would be on a higher level and this is from the Zohar and this is what the Tanya was quoting by the way when you're referencing chapter seven of the where it talks about the balua coming back with an even greater fervor and even greater passion so the Tanya is actually quoting the Zohar which says that that the Bala the penitent is more passionate the sadik the righteous person is you know he's he's doing what he needs to do and he might even do it with love and feeling and he's genuine but there's a certain intensity that the boua has I see the comment over here the right the guy who never had water right and he's even more thirsty he's even more ready to drink more than the guy who had been more hydrated the whole time right the guy in the desert who's parched knows how precious the water is how important that water is the balua has been deprived for whatever reason whether from his y Sahara or circumstantially has been deprived of the beauty of the Torah of the beauty of Judaism and he comes back with a certain passion he comes back with a certain um intensity the Tanya takes it a step further and says that what is motivating this passion his negative past what's motivating The Thirst the desert so post facto the boua is actually elevating his past because his past is bringing him closer to God sin is actually getting him closer to God not further um quite ironic right and that's why the talmud in a different section in tractate Yuma which is the tractate that deals with yum kipur It quotes rabish shim bin Lakes who says that toua from Love Takes sins and transforms them into Merit a real boua is not just moving forward and not letting his past haunt him a real B Chua is changing his past literally changing his past and the reason is because his past he's allowing his past to change his future and now those sins become merits if he has real tshua from Love and uh I'll share with you two stories from a different section in the talud that emphasize this idea Story number one is from tractate of odara there was a um a dude name was elazar binaria and he had a very strong Yahara he had an incredible lust and he would hang out with women of ill Rapport let us say and he would he had an addiction I guess I mean I assume these days we'd probably classify this guy is having an addiction um it says in the talmud there was not one woman who he didn't spend that was in the vicinity that he didn't spend time with who he shouldn't have been spending time with and certainly not in that capacity the talud says there was one woman whom he discovered across the sea somewhere that he uh I guess she was a famous woman of ill report and would seduce people and and he wanted to engage in that and he went Great Lengths to go find her crossing the sea and whatever it took to get to that Journey you could see how committed he was to sin and how careless he was about his soul and Wilder amidst the act just to show you how low this guy was she was grossed out by how low he was even though she was also obviously a person of ill Rapport because she herself is engaging in seducing people and she says somebody like you is never going to do tsha somebody like you is never going to get close to God and that statement rung very loudly in his ears and he was he just like says to himself what am I doing what is going on and he stops and he goes to the corner and he says said the the talas says he looks at the heavens and he says Heavens save me and the heavens say we're not going to save you um the commentators explain that this isn't literal that the heavens were necessarily talking to him but the heavens might mean like he's referring to God because then he says afterwards to the mountains save me help me the mountains say we're not going to save you the commentary say it's referring to surroundings you know he's blaming his surroundings it's because of the environment I grew up in no no we're not saving you take responsibility and he's he's going around trying to find somebody whom to blame and nobody's taking responsibility and finally he realizes that he needs to take responsibility for himself the talud says he sits down and he begins to cry and he ended up expiring he ended up passing away and the talmud says that he that then references him as a rabbi Alazar as a rabbi even though he wasn't the rabbi but they call him Rabbi Alazar because a rabbi is a teacher and he taught a powerful lesson to the world about the power of tshua and the tal says that he was able to it says some people acquire the world to come Heaven over a lifetime and some do it in just one moment in that one moment at the end of his life he was able to elevate his entire life his entire life of grossness his entire life of sin and instability led him to an incredible passion and desire to connect to God and because of that level of Tashua his entire life had become elevated another thing we learn from here and this is just a parenthetical Point um I I think it's just worth mentioning um and I honestly I'm not even saying saying this for you guys but forever might be watching um the recording the broader World whoever might be listening to this toua repentance is something we have to take responsibility for in contrast to other religions where they're told that somebody's going to come and save you and that you're incapable but Judaism strongly believes based on the Torah that we are capable and God does Believe in Us and which is why we have to take agency and responsibility for our lives and maybe we need rabbi or people guides who can get us there who can Inspire us but we have to do the work ourselves and we are capable of transforming our life and even transforming our past this is the Pala who's greater than the tadik the guy who just been perfect the whole time okay Story number two I almost forgot the second story story number two is from track they TI It track that deals with fasting I may have shared this story in the past in one of our sitter lessons you had this incredible scholar he was a Yeshiva boy learning in Yeshiva and apparently again this is in the age of the toas this is going back thousands of years ago or or some some at least close to 2,000 years ago he has this incredible lust and again there was this famous woman woman maybe it was the same one of ill probably not of ill Rapport whom he was pursuing right he plays hookie in Yeshiva a break from tomwood study and goes to this forbidden address engage and is ready to engage in elicit behavior in appropriate behavior and apparently the Talma describes this quite graphically this woman had layers to her home leading to the bedroom and each layer in each room he'd get closer and closer um removing another garment getting closer to engage in sin until finally he got to this point where he's sees his tius and he looks at his tius and he goes what has happened to me what am I doing the Torah says yes wear tius in order to remember the Mitzvah of God right they they serve as a reminder and he's looking at his tius and he goes what is going on and he's like I'm out of here and she's like what do you mean he says it's not you it's me no sorry I'm gonna get canceled for that right he says it's not you it's me and he he he he like ducks out of there she has no idea what just went on um I I I think he ended up explaining to her like it's what the tits are and what's going on he ended up leaving he slips back into Yeshiva opens up his book and continues [Music] studying in comes to this now comes to this yiva this lady shows up to the Yeshiva looking for him she's intrigued who is this guy of Incredible strength incredible values and she shows up to the and she says to one of the rabbis I'm looking for so and so and he says uh yeah you probably come to the wrong address because this is Yeshiva she says no I want to get to know this person this is an incredible person of incredible values and he says you know you can't marry him you're not Jewish she ends up converting to Judaism they end up marrying each other the talmud then says that those same sheets bed sheets that were going to be used for sin ended up being used for a Mitzvah to connect to God the T brings the story to illustrate the power of tsha to take something that is sinful or potentially sinful and transform it into something positive The Passion of the baluba has the ability to really transform the world in many ways and and certainly the balua can transform himself however I I I want to be fair to Rabbi yanan's position defending the tadik right why did he say the tadik is greater so there's a fascinating Talk of the re describing R Yan's position that the sadic on a higher level they're talking about things here I I want to give you some preface in the rebis later years and really in many of the rebis talks there's incredible incredible Paradigm shifts where you see certain things and it's like whoa I never thought about Judaism that way and the Revit points out that the Bal choua does have certain limitations that the sadik does not you know what the problem with the balua is and again I'm I'm we can't choose our life circumstances always but what we're really talking about our mindsets should I have the Bala mindset or should I have the tadic mindset mind set is incredible because there's incredible passion but I want to read I want to reference back to the Ramba back to my Mon's text for a second I'm going to read it again this is text four Bala should not consider himself distant from the love of the righteous because of the sins and transgressions he committed this is not true he's beloved and desirable for before the Creator as if he never sinned okay that's beautiful furthermore he has great reward I want you to remember that word reward okay we'll get back to that in a second for he has tasted sin yet separated himself from it conquering his evil inclination our sages declared that in a place where the batua stands even the completely righteous are not able to stand the love Bal Chua transcends the level of those who never seen that all for they overcome their evil inclination even more the Bal Chua is greater in the context of reward he's going to get greater reward than the tadic but in context of our mission and purpose in this world and in the context of worldly impact which is what RAB yanan was referring to the sadic is actually greater and the reason is because the focus of the boua Conquering Conquering the evil inclination rejecting the evil inclination which is why there's that intensity right there's that almost fear reverting back to your old lifestyle I got to separate from it and I got to connect as best as I possibly could the focus of thead he's not conquering his evil inclination or his animal Soul he's engaging it with the world in his service to God God I if I may put it this way and I'm paraphrasing the re's words here the balua often has to reject his feelings and Human Experience because they haven't been in the right space so he could better connect to God and with that is going to come intensity with that is going to come passion with that is going to come incredible admirable commitment thead is going to engage his feelings in human experience in his relationship with God so which one of the two is going to bring God more into this world right not the one running from the world but the one who can have space for God in this world you have a comment or question Yeah question so I don't remember the the Tanya discussion on this and as I recalled it was like um even for the sadik uh the yerar is there but it's been completely silenced right and and and so when you so I'm a little bit confused when I mean you said he's uh you know that sadic is engaged you didn't use the word Yater Hara but um uh it's a uh what what may maybe I Mis misunderstood um were you trying to convey that um well sorry I'm not very clear on this this question um when we were learning Nat Tanya you you were saying okay the ultimate ultimate place to be is when you have uh conquered the Yater Hara to the point where the Yara is participating in the Mitzvah yes so it's not it's not like it's it's not like the Yar is gone it's it's there and it's you've converted himed You' transformed him exactly transform so so in the terms of the sadik how do you refer to sadik Sara was it never needed to be transformed because it was always pure well yeah it's not really a Yahara it's more of [Music] a it's an emotional capacity it's not bad it's a Yater it's just not bad right Yar means a bad yatzer um let me put it this way I saw this in a teaching from the alter he says that very often in life we have to fight our animal Soul sometimes again these are different languages to sort of understand the same concept but he says we have to fight our animal Soul because it's trying to get us to be more self-centered right at some point we have to ride the animal soul and embrace the fact that this relationship with God is actually meaningful to ourselves that's riding the animal Soul rather than fighting with the animal Soul the B is fighting the animal Soul the tadic is riding the animal Soul so I'll tell you a story I heard this from Rabbi Manis fredman Rabbi Manis fredman has um ran a school an educational center for college age students and this one girl had it this was back in Minnesota and this one girl had attended and was super inspired on fire about her Judaism and she comes home and the mother is freaking out and it's not uncommon she calls up Rabbi Freedman and I guess this girl didn't grow up with a strong Jewish educational background and she calls RAB fredman and says what did you do to my daughter he says what what do you mean what happened she's come home and she's gone crazy what do you mean she's gone crazy she's keeping shabus uh-huh tell me more she's keeping kosher keep going she's committed to marrying exclusively Jo whatever you know okay what's the problem my daughter's gone nuts he says to her let me ask you a question you're Jewish right yeah and who gave birth to her I did so what do you want for me what did I do you're Jewish you gave birth to her now you're blaming me that she wants to connect to her judism what does this have to do with me but then Rabbi Manis Freedman when conveying this story added at a very important point if the mother called and complained and said my daughter lost her sense of humor because she's so religious she wouldd have a very valid complaint because rather than engaging her personality in her relationship with God she suppressed her personality at the expense of God and that's not why God put us here in this world you could do that in heaven right you leave your personality here right our mind and heart stays and we go up to heaven and we reconnect to God but the point in coming down to this physical world is to impact the phys physiological world but also the psychological world how can I allow God in this world physical world if I can't even make space from in my own heart or in my own personality my my thought processa may have a certain discomfort with his yeter like the rambam said he's conquering his yeter but the tadik has a certain comfortability with God from the P the again these are mindsets it's not just you know we all have life circumstances which don't dictate always you know what we're going to be but but in terms of the mindset how we're approaching our service to God approaching it like a sadic means I'm engaging my heart and mind not just running away from it it it it's like a marriage I think a marriage is a beautiful analogy to understand our relationship with God because in a marriage you can live in constant one can live in constant fear of the marriage of something going downhill of something going south so I'm going to put extra effort I'm G to constantly put in more work I'm G that's necessary that's a good thing right that's the B I'm gonna be better and then you have the tadic approach to the marriage I'm going to make this a very comfortable experience for both of us not out of fear but out of love out of connection not just okay I'll do whatever it takes I'm confident this is going to work this is fine we got this right which one is healthier which one is more sustainable which one is more connection right so going back to our relationship with God which one is going to bring bring God in this physical world in terms of connection to God and reward and Punishment the Bala is on a much higher plane but in terms of the impact and bringing God in this world that is very comfortable with God which is what we're here to do make this world comfortable with God now I'll share with you something interesting going back to the Tanya because the the point of the Tanya is very much that not everybody's going to be a tadic right manage expectations properly because the tadic is for thead but not everybody's holding there so let's understand who we could really be and in one of his talks the Reb says well then how is this relevant so the Reb said that as we get closer to the Messiah era we have to start living from the Messiah perspective the Messiah mindset and in the Messiah area era in the Messianic era we're all going to be like sikim our heart is going to be filled with God the whole world will be filled with the knowledge of God right as the Earth CS as the sea covers the earth like Isaiah says and we have the capacity to start experiencing that now on some [Music] level that's the Messiah mindset and I believe truth is I shouldn't say it's my belief I actually saw this Source now that I'm thinking about it as we get closer to the Messiah ER the Messianic era there's a reason why people are more sensitive now emotionally sensitive and fragile more than ever than before historically speaking or certainly you know compared now not to to the past hundred years Our Generation and especially the millennial generation and gen Z and Beyond are incredibly emotionally fragile and I would say not just fragile sometimes it's fragile but it's sensitive it's sensitivity um very and and with that sensitivity comes up black and whiteness like if I'm not feeling it I can't do it right how can I take this job if I'm not passionate about it whereas a previous generation may have said brings in the money pays the bills what do you mean right there's been more divorces now than back in history because people are genuine I'm not saying it's a good thing necessarily it has its drawbacks but it is coming from a place of wanting to be genuine in the relationship and we're not just going to have a political marriage and again all of these are are can be debated have their pros and cons but the reality is there's an incredible capacity for an emotional connection as we get closer to the Messianic or to as we start to live and and that's because we're supposed to live with that sadic mindset to the degree that we're able I'll leave you off with this thought I think this is interesting the rebit pointed out in this teaching that I've been referencing that Israel had been divided up into territories based on the 12 tribes which will be reinstated when Messiah comes which portion was the Bas of mikdash on which tribe it was on the tribe of Yehuda with most of it was on the tribe of Yehuda there was a split the altar the M was on the tribe of Benyamin of Benjamin what's unique about Benjamin compared to all the other brothers all the brothers sinned they sold ysep they ratted ysep out they did toua they became balet toua they became penitents b y he wasn't even born yet innocence complete innocence where is the altar going to be in the Innocence the emotional innocence that's the Pinnacle where the fire of Heaven's going to come down and where we're going to channel God into this world the altar in our own heart lies in the innocence and even if we had a life that wasn't so innocent right we all do we're all nobody's perfect but we can tap into that space of Innocence deeply within ourselves okay that's my story and I'm sticking to it