Shaar HaBitachon Lesson 38 with Rabbi Shais Taub

we are starting a new chapter hashem tonight chapter five and before we proceed with chapter five which is a much shorter chapter than three and four remember chapters one and two are kind of short and 3 was really long and 4 was really long chapter 5 is fairly short but before we go ahead and learn chapter 5 i just want to go back to the very end of the preface and if you remember at the very end of the preface rebecca gives an overview of what the seven chapters are going to be about if you remember that so chapter five he says is bahafresh it's about the difference between the way one who trusts in hashem employs the means of obtaining a livelihood and the way one who does not trust in hashem employs means of making a livelihood okay so that's what we're talking about and we've we've spoken about it talking specifically in the context of parnosa uh at length in other contexts but now we're going to speak about it again in a in a specific way um and that is we're focusing on the practical difference um at the end of the day as they say you have two people and one has been talking one doesn't have the talking they both get up and go to work and have a job or you know have investments or business dealings or something they both have caleb for parnosa so what's the difference really between the two of them right and that's what we're going to talk about today chapter 5. the difference between one who trusts in hashem and the other the other guy the guy who doesn't in terms of their involvement in employing means for a livelihood what we referred to before as calim as the vessels of a livelihood. that the one who trusts in hashem is distinguished from one who does not rely on hashem in seven ways and i've told you before that rebeena bachaya seems to like lists how do why do i say seems to like lists because he does a lot of lists so now we have another list and this is basically chapter five this is what chapter five is the list of seven differences in terms of how they go about making a livelihood the difference is between the one who has been talking and the one who does not and of course of course it goes without saying the one who has been talking goes about making a livelihood he makes again to use the the phrase he uses he he goes about making caleb employing natural means for a livelihood and as the table of onan points out obviously the bashem also employs natural means we've spoken about that at length already what we're learning now is the difference is how the table of london explains it we're learning now the differences in how they feel about those endeavors how they react to different things that come up while they are involved in those endeavors and that will be where you'll see a difference between the one who has been talking to the one who doesn't they're both going to go off to work they're both going to have calen but they're going to feel about it very differently all right let's talk about it mayhem one of them the first difference the one who trusts in hashem accepts his judgment under all conditions who may delay and acknowledges or may that could mean acknowledge or can mean thanks it's interesting and lush and kurdish acknowledging something and being grateful for it are the same word it's sort of a world view you know some people they will acknowledge something that they're grateful for but something that causes them pain and they don't like no they won't acknowledge it they'll be in denial or or even if it's not complete you know delusional denial at least it's like anger which is a form of delusion it's just it my father told me this joke i often say this um what's the difference between a psychotic and a neurotic so psychotic thinks two plus two equals five a neurotic knows two plus two equals four and he can't stand it right so person who says no this is not the reality okay so that's delusional that's you know in denial then another person says no this is the reality but it shouldn't be well apparently it should because that's the way hashem just did it um so the person who doesn't like something you know if he's not grateful for it so then he won't acknowledge it either he won't acknowledge it's real or he won't acknowledge that it's just but uh a yid which by the way is a yahoodi and a hoodie is from the word haida or to be maida is the exact reverse that because he acknowledges it therefore he's grateful for it so that word maide or maida ani that we say the first thing when we get up in the morning every day sort of sets the tone i acknowledge and therefore i'm grateful not because i'm grateful now i'll acknowledge that this thing is real or true no because it's real and how do i know it's real because hashem is making it right now therefore of course i'm grateful well what if he makes something that's painful or unpleasant okay but i'm grateful for that too because he has his reasons why that is the best good so he is maiden he is grateful and he acknowledges he accepts fully allah let's continue back inside the text on the good and on the bad except it's not really bad it's apparent bad but really it's all good kamehameha hashem hashem says hashem gave hashem took let the name of hashem be blessed so whether hashem gives or hashem takes it's all good even if we can't see it we don't need we don't need to see it in order for it to be so ukamesha kosov and also another verse says whether hashem treats me with khasid meaning kindness or mishpat judgment meaning severity ashira i'm gonna sing i'm gonna sing either way so whether hashem gives me a good day or hashem gives me a good day right there's two kinds of good days there's a good day that's easy and pleasant and then there's a good day that hurts like hell and it seems awful but that's also a kind of a good day and if i can't see it okay i can't see it but again just because i don't see it doesn't mean it's not so so therefore i'm going to sing either way and our sages of blessed memory have said ashira this is how they explain that verse in tihilam if it's kindness i i will sing we mishpatira if it's judgment i will sing and they say the sages say also of adam lavor al-hara a person is obligated to make abraha to thank hashem both for the bad or the apparent bad shame exactly like shahu mavarikhalateva he makes a blessing he acknowledges and he thanks hashem for the apparent good vaca whereas in contrast one who does not have beethoven he will congratulate himself for good not only he likes it but he congratulates himself for it because he thinks it's his prowess in the end he attributes it somehow to himself kamehameha like it says hashem a wicked man glories in his heart's desire a violent man exalts blaspheming god miss kim alera and then when something happens that is apparently bad meaning something that he doesn't like then he gets angry he gets anger commissioner like it says says when he is hungry he becomes angry and curses his king and his god turning heavenward so that's the first difference first difference is how they handle a situation that doesn't feel good doesn't seem good at least not the way we conventionally define it so the person who has betohen says this is also good right gamsula tayva this is also good and the person who doesn't have the talking so if it turns out well he takes credit to some extent at least if it doesn't turn out well meaning the way we define turning out well then he gets indignant how's this so how's this possible two plus two two plus two equals four well it shouldn't i don't like that number you know make it equal something else right okay okay the hashini the second difference his soul is at rest and his heart as at ease in the face of decrees decrees means uh kind of like we were talking about previously when hashem decrees uh you know a decree is usually something harsh something unpleasant ledaite knowing like he has peace why because ledaite in his knowledge knowing that what he gained hashem the creator will direct everything for his good in this world and in the next world so even when there's xado and even when there's a harsh development he is calm because he knows this it's all working out it's all working out you know i heard once i told you i already revealed one of my secrets that i get a lot of great vertila from uh recovery speakers so i once heard this lady from she was actually a jewish lady not not religious but a jewish lady an a.a speaker and she was saying how you know i look back at my life and all the times that you know things felt like they were falling apart everything was falling apart my life was falling apart she says but now when i look back i see those those times that i thought things were falling apart i look back and i see that they're really all falling into place the only thing is i had to get used to the falling so as a person the second things get destabilized and by destabilize what is destabilized mean how stable is anything i mean if you want to run life on self will you know and have the illusion of control so yeah and then the minute that you wake up to reality that you're not in control of anything other than yourself all of a sudden you feel destabilized right so if you're running life on self-will yeah so you have these moments where things are falling apart it's falling apart it's fun but if uh you have been talking from beginning to middle to end then even the falling is all part of the process it's all falling into place like let it fall let it just ride it out it's all good it's all good it's all good so uh so he's calm he's relaxed kamehameha david all of a sudden my soul speaking to a soul and he says wait quietly for hashem for my hope comes from him in other words just relax just stick around don't leave before the miracle happens it's all going to be good or they say akoliatovasof it's all going to be good in the end if it's not yet good it's not yet the end like by the way even that means if it's not yet good meaning in your subjective impression of things but obviously reality objectively it is good even now while it's becoming subjectively good so the one who doesn't trust in hashem is in a state of constant distress protracted anxiety and sorrow and sadness which never leave him whether in good times or in bad times see that's the curse the one who is lacking trust in hashem and whose peace of mind comes from the illusion of self-will being able to give you some type of control or some ability to expect certain outcomes you know so that guy's miserable whether things are going well or not going well see it's interesting the guy with batokin he's relaxed when things are going well meaning subjectively speaking going well he's also relaxed when things are not seeming to go well because like i said before it's like it's okay it's falling into place it's not falling apart it's falling into place even when it's falling but the guy without betaken he's miserable when things are falling apart for sure that's not a kiddish and he's also miserable when things are going well betheva when things are going well why is he miserable named because of his discontent with his situation it's never enough it's never exactly right ushifa say and his desire to add to increase into a mass so even when things are good it's never exactly you know it could just be just a little bit if it was almost perfect it was just a drop too humid and uh some guy next to me was breathing funny and it was distracting me but it was almost ever just really there was a lot of yeah yeah a lot of problems he fills out his comment card to hashem yeah he has a lot of complaints yeah and then when things go negatively for sure he's going to be agitated who cuts bob because he's disgusted by it he can negative because it conflicts with his desire his nature and his personality and that is what the wise man said the wise man is king solomon the quintessential wise man called yame ani the toy of leif all the days of the miserable are evil ani here doesn't mean a pauper like it normally means it means a miserable person all the days of the miserable are bad or evil and someone with a good heart a good-hearted person with a winner attitude so his life is a continual feast a continual party anything else isn't there a place to feel sad and upset with how things are going not really no but let me distinguish between being in pain and feeling sad you don't have any control over whether or not something is painful like the debbie used to say a situation when it hurts you say ow so you know pain is pain even emotional pain you know emotional pain is not a choice um suffering is a choice right pain is unavoidable suffering is self-inflicted what's the difference pain is something happens and it hurts whether you step on attack and it's physical pain or somebody insults you you know it's emotional pain um that's pain and that's you know an automatic response that you can't control so what are you supposed to do there's nothing you can do suffering is a second after the pain you go into your head and you start meditating on the pain and usually writing a story about it where you are a victim you know so it's you start you start to philosophize why me why does stuff like this always happen to me all right so now you're self-inflicting right that's the suffering now you're telling yourself a story a victim story and now you're causing the suffering you cross the bridge from pain which is unavoidable to suffering which is self-inflicted so sadness is definitely in the category of self-inflicted suffering so if i would tell you don't don't don't don't feel hurt well some things hurt there's nothing you can do you know step on attack it hurts you know you experience loss god forbid but it hurts and there's nothing emotionally unhealthy or spiritually weak about feeling pain in life the problem is when you allow your pain to get you down and to turn into sadness or anxiety or resentment or anger all the toxic emotions so um yeah you're allowed to feel i shouldn't even say you're allowed to feel pain how can you be allowed or not allowed to do something that you can't control that's like saying you're allowed to be hungry well i can't control i can control what i eat but i can't control whether or not i feel hungry right i can control the things that i have a choice over feeling hunger hunger or not feeling hunger is not a choice same thing feeling pain or not feeling pain is not a choice so yeah you you know some things are painful and again like i said acid to the schweitzman if it hurts you say ow but that's a lot different than sadness when you take that sensation and turn it into an emotion see the difference between a sensation an emotion a sensation is automatic it's a stimulus response something hurts that's a sensation but it's not a feeling like an emotion although we use the misnomer we say i feel tired i feel hungry i feel cold those aren't feelings those are sensations and even emotional pain is a sensation okay and and that's why we can't control it but then there are there are there are emotions but like tanya teaches us all emotions come from the intellect emotions are in the heart but they come from the brain so we don't have an emotion until we meditated upon something we don't think we meditated on it we did okay when you're lying in bed at three in the morning and perseverating on a thought that's called meditation and that's where the emotions come from so the fact that something hurts that happened automatically and there's no control that you have over it but the fact that it causes you to be sad or worried or depressed or anxious or angry that's because you went you meditated on that thing and and created the suffering okay um maybe not for now but i haven't been on this class for a week oh oh no this person said they just got up from shiva i'm so sorry they say i didn't realize getting up from shiva that i would feel so sad and this heaviness i thought things would be back to normal well yeah you know that's why hazal and their infinite understanding of human psychology told us that it's not just the weak it's the the weak and then the schleischen 30 days and then the 11 months and see him akaddish and then the 12 months the yort site it's yeah it's it's not surveillance lei eleno for a reason it's a year of mourning we shouldn't know of such things for for a reason um and it's a it's a process and this isn't something that um oh you know you're being a wimp oh you know just get over it if you had been talking it wouldn't uh wouldn't bother you no this is this is pain this is real pain and um you have to respect the process you have to allow yourself to go through i'm so sorry i'm so sorry um please send me privately your your father's name if if you're comfortable doing so maybe we can dedicate some learning to him um okay yeah yeah um a more general question about this don't you find that although this is the way we should leave live it's hard to find people that actually live this way you know i never liked that question i'm sorry to say that it's not like a nice way for me to answer that i never liked that question and i'll tell you why people can always say well you know it's a great idea but how many people do you know you know what you know what i i know that line of questioning and i know where it heads and it's nowhere productive it's not a productive line of question you know i imagine you would go to therapy let's go you go you go to the let's say you go to couples counseling and uh you know you have uh sort of a breakthrough of self-awareness and then then you say to the counselor says well you say well you know i definitely see how if i would practice this type of uh behavior in my marriage you know i would have a better marriage but realistically how many spouses do you know who really act this way okay so then forget it so we're done you already just are you taking a survey are you finding out what's popular are you're trying to find out what's right all right and and those two seldomly go together incidentally popular and right so i it's not a productive line of question don't ask me well how many people do you know it's like everyone who learns tanya always says well how many people are really on the level of banony you know what is that the question we should be asking you only have to ask yourself a question can i do something right now to be one step closer to the level of banananee for myself don't ask me are we taking a poll over here how many bane in him there are in the world what's the difference and what if you'd be the only one for all intents and purposes that would have you know no practical bearing on your learning of tanya if you found out you were the bananee that the altar ebba was writing to and that's it so i don't think it's a productive line of questioning someone's writes here they don't know the right people yes that's true also you know what thank you thank you for writing that they don't know the right people i want to tell you something there are some people who maybe they don't have a hundred percent battalion 100 of the time but they have some pretty terrific talking a lot of those people are on this class right here okay and don't even know what kind of role models they are because they're just you know they're humble people who are just putting one foot in front of the other and trying to live their lives but i want to tell you something there are people who are really dealing with all types of challenges in life with real grace and real poise all the time and maybe they don't make as much noise because you know complainers make more noise than healthy people but yeah there are plenty of great examples of people who are really using these tools on a day-to-day basis in a terrific way um okay all right i have the information for the name of the nifter and uh and i'll mention right now david levy ben maisha shama should have an aliyah and very soon with the coming of mashiach he should be reunited with his loved ones here in this world okay um we will continue to hashem with chapter more of chapter 5 next class okay all right good night