Shaarei Teshuva 1:29-30 with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

[Music] welcome back to the shari trouba kabura we are actually hashem we are in short aleph right the first chapter first major shar and we are in paragraphs 29 hopefully we'll get to 30 as well tonight or this this session so we're now talking about a new principle we all we spoke about humility or being of humble spirit but now we're going to talk about practical application right wouldn't that be helpful if we knew how exactly to make this applicable so the robina yona begins by letting us know yes we discussed the seventh principle that was dealing with developing this humble spirit but now we're going to deal with what we call actually behaving in a humble manner which will hopefully prove quite useful hashmini this is the eighth principle that's going to be the key words in actuality how do we put humility or humbleness in in practice that one should behave vietnam in when they respond softly they speak softly um he uses the word gentle speech so look we all are full of emotion and whatnot i mean maybe there's a difference between men and women i find women are generally much more patient than men that's what i find but i could be maybe i'm over generalizing so maybe this is much more harder for a man to do i'm not sure but let's just say right i know that we know we talk about this even in the torah right the word the difference between lagi and omer right so to say to the children of israel and speak to the daughters of yaakov right basiacov this idea already there is a concept that a man should anyway speak gently to a woman but the truth is he should speak gently to everybody i'm just generalizing right so i'm sure there are women who have issues with um with this idea as well okay so that's the first thing that if someone should do now he's always referring to a pennant in person now the truth is everyone should be a pennant in person everyone should be about truva right everyone should be in the state of trying to rectify their middles so that's how a person should behave now he has a proof verse right a proof text and he's going to bring it from proverbs initially 15 1 a gentle reply turns away wrath that's how you get john that's how he translates it as well right a reply an answer is a soft answer is yashif khama now interestingly enough because you would think that in a conversation with another human being that if you speak gently you know there's ways also to tone down right sometimes things get heated up and a lot of times broken sham i'm able to if i have my head on straight is bring bring it down a ton i understand i might have said something to provocative or the other person is trying to arouse uh every an interesting response so the best thing is take a deep breath turn it down a little bit and even made me say let's tone it down a little bit right to actually verbalize that idea but this is also referring to hashem not only is it true in the actual physical world when you're dealing with another human being to try to tone it down but with the way we behave the way we speak in general could god forbid if we don't do it right can also um bring on a heavenly judgment we'll call it wrath from hashem as well so in mishlai when it says a gentle reply turns away wrath is also referring to hashem's wrath not just the person you're engaged in a conversation with and then he continues now that would mean like a low voice but he translates it as a soft voice so i get it as opposed to being something high a softer voice kizer me derek because that is of the way of hashville somewhat again the word chef el is low like the lowlands or the shephelah hash this is this is a character trait that we should that we should embody in ourselves commotion mr as it says in isaiah chapter 29 verse 4. now remember i just want to reiterate the prophets don't come and make up anything new right there's nothing new under the sun the prophets are there to rebuke or to correct or to guide us in the ways of the five books of moses the revelation of mount sinai what we know our fathers had known if a prophet cannot reveal to you something your father's had not known so when he comes and tells you and you shall be humble hello that's something that we should have known from the earth you shall speak and from the dust shall your speech be lowered your voice shall be like a necromancer from the earth and from the dust shall your speech chirp okay now what does it mean and from the earth you shall speak it shall appear as though the speech that comes out of your mouth comes from below the ground okay try to envision this we're talking about you know and i'm projecting and people can project but you're you're talking and we'll discuss this idea that one when somebody is in a humble spirit they think their luck is you're supposed to walk with your head a little bit down okay not too perched and your shoulders a little bit obviously you have to have good posture but you should not walk there's a luck it says you're not going to walk with your head held up high you know your nose is up in the air which obviously some people have different postures but it's an attitude right it's it's really you know an attitude of haunting us and you're better than everyone else your nose is up you've heard these expressions i'm sure so that's the idea and when it says and you show your speech chirp and this is to supplicate to supplicate to hashem this rashi explains and because of your supplication my mercies will be aroused so the word which literally means like to beep to chirp is an expression of a whisper a weak voice like the voice of small birds that's that's why i think women have an easier time uh with this but okay we're not going to call them birds this is a yeah this is a women's class of women's kabura but you get the idea so romano yona goes on and says this would be the opposite of what people who are very wealthy now obviously not all wealthy people okay so you have to forgive me not all wealthy people in this category or people who are specifically wealthy and they're haughty right not all wealthy people are haughty i know some very fine wealthy people that dress like everyone else right they can afford the greatest the best brand names and they don't they don't flaunt it they don't show it off and there's there's good reason for that um besides not gardening and not gaining attention from other people which is always the best thing um but there's a passage that says like this this is in proverbs 18 23 michele azus is brazenness so here but the rich one responds with brazen words obviously not all rich people do this but it's a big test right it's such a test when you have gained now i'm not talking about people who um necessarily okay i was gonna say you know they called old money people who have um didn't really work for it people who work for it okay let's just say like this no matter how you gain the money it could be you you think i did i had a part of it right i was so lucky i was born into this family somehow my soul right had some part of it whatever the haughtiness is i don't really understand because i'm not rich right so i don't really know in that sense so i don't really understand but if a lot of times they would attribute the wealth to their might to my own power that i did it and the truth is god granted it to them and for whatever reason okay even the the the smarts the intelligence to create something right if you created something that produced or um was able to be sold for a huge amount of money right people being get involved in startups and they can sell for all kinds of money and well that was the brilliance of the startup right and the brilliance of the connections they made when they were able to sell to the right people at the right time but that's hashem's gift and to recognize that it's from him and to take the credit is is a mistake okay and that's where the hardiness the ego comes in so basically what i'm trying to say is that rich people have a bigger test that's all i'm trying to say it's a much bigger test so but the the plastic says but the rich one responds with brazen words and that doesn't mean that every rich person does but it's a bigger test for them now another area of practicing humble you know humility again referring to about true that hopefully we all are is you shouldn't involve yourself with [Music] right with really fancy beautiful clothing the takshi team and very um let's just say um you know gaudy or very expensive jewelry things that that um you know shine so to speak and get in people's face okay now i wanted to mention this because i brought up today with my students the idea that before i became religious i was a very proud reformed jew and many many many jews who are of the let's say less observant type there's all kinds i'm not trying to put everyone in one category okay but when i was growing up and i went to synagogue when yom kippur uh it was it was like the one time of the year that everybody who's anybody came now there's all kinds of reform synagogues in the wealthy neighborhoods not so wealthy neighborhoods there's all kinds but i happen to have gone to a synagogue in one of the most wealthier neighborhoods of philadelphia right in oakland's park and god wasn't there i mean everybody was dressed to kill like makeup which we you know what are you putting makeup for yum kipper uh cologne galore i mean and the best jewelry maybe nobody had that experience but that was my experience right so when you're like think about yom kippur is the day of pentenance right it's the the balchuva's day of glory right to really to really want to do true because that's what the yom kippur is all about feeling the forgiveness of hashem and getting into the whole spiritual atmosphere that that yom kippur is affording you towards forgiveness and unfortunately many of the jews missed the boat i mean they couldn't come to one you know what we do in in the orthodox circles is we're not putting on makeup we're not wearing our best clothes per se maybe underneath we wear our shop is closed but the men are wearing a very simple white it looks like a lab jacket so the men i'm sure men the women also like to wear white and you know look you can't always buy them the most expensive clothes in white for women so they whenever they put something together they they're wearing simple white clothing the men are wearing kittles the same type of uh clothing that they're going to be buried in right and there was a bit of decree because there was a lot of competition what's going to happen the resurrection of the dead some people were spending a lot of money on tahrir on the um on the clothes for the burial and it was a gazer no you can only bury people in the simple white stuff and right linen simple linen clothing and therefore all on yom kippur now okay there's different types i i happen to wear a very shiny one it's a little bit on the more expensive side when i say expensive just a few more shekels i spent to have a little bit of a nice one but the idea is that on yom kippur in an orthodox synagogue so yes you dress like shabbos right like yantif but on top we wear our talus our simple palace our white tahrikan the kitto we're not trying to out do right everyone else like what they call out uh something about the jones but i say the shorts the schwartz's right trying to out to the schwartz's there must be an expression so anyway that's what yom kippur is a day of yes it's white and it's spiritual and it's cleansing and it's forgiveness and it's not about going to show off oh i haven't seen you since last year this is what i got look at my rock right or look at my newest you know whatever fancy clothes anyway i wanted to add that in so basically if someone's in the process of doing truva they shouldn't involve themselves wearing fancy clothes and adornments and we're going to see even in the torah itself where after the sin of the golden calf we were stripped of our jewelry now the jewelry could be spiritual jewelry we talked about the medrush crowns of torah were placed upon every one of the jews every one of the israelites in the desert and they were removed because of the sin of going calf that was our jewels but also if you look and i'll tell you there's a few verses here so the verse i want you to look up is in in exodus chapter 33 verse 5. that's the verse he brings but if you look at 33 verse 4 and 33 verse 6. it's it's very similar in the fact that these jewelry was removed from us because of the sin of the golden calf so let's go quickly to exodus 35 and 33 33 verse 5. actually let's read four first the people heard this bad tiding they became grief stricken and no one domed his jewelry the verse he wants to look at us to look at is verse 5 and hashem said to moses say to the children of israel you are stiff neck people if i ascend among you i may annihilate you in an instant and now remove your jewelry from yourself and i shall know what i shall do to you and verse six so the children of israel were stripped of their jewelry from mount clarem so in the process of doing chuva i imagine we should take this to heart on yom kippur we don't need to take all the jewelry we haven't worn all year round and stick it and stick it on ours on sticking on ourselves so that everyone can see that seems to be a little bit uh anti-climactic for yom kippur but i just remember the old days okay here we go so now he's referring to this idea after the jews committed the sin of the golden calf hashem said to them like the verse we just read now remove the jew from among from upon yourself now another text proof he brings is from king achav king acha was an evil king but apparently he did chuva not complete sugar and aspect of truth so you should know that it's not all or nothing if you can do some truth it's better than no yoga and king achav was very evil did some truth as first kings chapter 21 verse 27 mentions it says there is one thing i want to get back to in a second uh in first kings chapter 21 verse 27 and it was when ahav heard these words from elijah the prophet he tore his garments and put sackcloth on his flesh and he fasted and he lay in the sackcloth and walked slowly so the hebrew very interesting the yasem sak the word sack sak like sackcloth which means a very simple it's not even something you normally wouldn't wear you put potatoes or rice or vegetables in before plastic right i'll bust a rope on his flesh the atsum and he fasted the yishkov basak and he fell asleep he went to he lay in the sack ate and he walked slowly these are physical aspects of trying to be humble so even though he was a king he tried to be humble now in two verses later elijah the prophet even responds and says have you seen that is submissive to me not not me as in me elijah the prophet but as in me hashem because he has humbled himself before me i will not bring the disaster in his days so whatever punishment was supposed to come to achav was delayed hashem is merciful and he said i'm going to take it out on his children if they continue in his footsteps in his evil ways in the days of his son i will bring the disaster on his house keep this in mind there are two verses that are very seemingly contradictory in the torah that people are not held accountable for other people's sins like children are not held accountable for the sins of their parents as a specific verse on the other hand there's another verse that says children are responsible and will be held accountable for the sins of their parents so the gamora brachos i don't remember what page but it specifically says that's only if meaning they'll only be held accountable if they continue in the footsteps of their fathers so hashem he's giving like enough rope to hang oneself so someone has the time to do truva and maybe they're making increments which ah apparently was and god says i'm not gonna give him the punishment but if his sons don't learn the lesson and continue in his evil ways they will receive the punishment but it's not that they're receiving the punishment of someone else they're receiving it because they should have learned therefore they're receiving a double punishment yes the punishment that was not given to the father and yes the punishment that's coming to them because of their their evil deeds but because they didn't learn it was like in their face they could have learned and they didn't okay i want to go back to one other idea it's called the aguero taramban um nakhmanides is a famous gareth famous letter that he gave he sent to his son regarding specifically at the act of humility and i'm only going to read a very small portion of it i think it's important um i'll just read the introduction first this letter of the ramban was he sent from his city to his son his son was living in catalonia that i can only tell you is somewhere in spain regarding the act of humility and instructed him to read this once a week and teach it to others very important right one of the biggest rabbis of the time taught his son the the character traits certain character traits how one should behave how one should talk and it had to do with humility not only teach it to others learn it by heart in order to train them in in their youth while they're still young to fear heaven the ramban assured him that on the day that he read this letter his wishes will be fulfilled from heaven and whoever will accustom themselves to saying it will spare themselves upon from all the pains that they are sure to inherit the world to come okay so this and i'm sorry and they are sure to inherit the world to come this th you can buy this book there's a book but it's really just a letter you can read the letter but it's better to understand what the letter is saying so i i recommend it's a very small pamphlet you can buy it online igarit haramban basically he starts with a verse listen my son to the thought of your father and do not forsake the teaching of your mother that's a quote from proverbs chapter one verse eight like i said i'm going to just read a few sentences just to get an idea because this is in line with robina yona which by the way um if i'm not mistaken robina yonah married the rambans daughter or granddaughter okay they were a little daughter i think they're related accustom yourselves to always speak all the wor all your words calmly right this is in line with what we're talking about this is what he tells his son to every man and at every time always speak calmly in doing so you will prevent your anger from flaring remember how we discussed maybe the other person's anger maybe hashem's anger but even your own anger because if you can put it down a notch right you can be consistent and not get upset and not get angry which is a bad attribute in a man and which may cause him to sin right we know that when you get angry when people get angry it's like worshiping idols i mean you can break things you could say things that you don't mean to you lost control and it's not a it's not only not a good thing it's a very bad thing right and he brings it down according to a rabbis in gamora nadarian 22a anyone who gets angry all of gehennan holds sway over him and there's a verse in cohes cohes is um ecclesiastes is that right chapter 11 verse 10 and remove the anger from your heart and take away the bad from your flesh now there's a gazer shava from the word bad because you look he says that the word bad can only mean gehenna and i say it's this is the gemara nadarim that the word bad raw for those who don't know what gehenna is it's like hell obviously we don't have hell it's a very short but maybe painful period of refinement before eternity and it says in proverbs 16 4 and the sinner here he too will have his day of bad and that in proverbs is talking about the russian is talking about gehenna so there's no question that this is not a good thing you have to speak calmly as much as you can so you don't get angry because that's a very bad trait okay now we're going to go back into in this idea but king achav it says the um he got even said to him and this would be in verse 29 which we did read god meaning through elijah the prophet that he saw that had humbled himself fine the indian the art the fact that he walked slowly right the idea that walks slowly this is the opposite of what kings do how do kings walk okay maybe they walk slowly but they have a large entourage and they have a great fanfare right i'm sure you've you know the king is coming so they start blowing the trumpets the horses run in front of them right you got a lot of we'll call it a bali gun right the big thing is coming to the small town or wherever it is so usually they don't walk slow that's the idea here it's the opposite of what kings do shame mahal kimba they walk with a lot of people big entourage the coal hamula and great fanfare chaos um so when we're talking about he humbled himself in the manner of walking as well as the way he dressed that's clear from the verse um i just want to mention about the comment here that he didn't do full truva the comment brings here that he it's better than nothing put it that way his his true was not complete but it was enough for god to hold back from punishing him in fullness and of course we saw the verse where he said he would take it out on his future children okay let's continue so by you tamir enough now this is where one's eye should always be focused downward now the truth is in halal in in prayer to fill up that one's head should be tilted downwards but his heart should be upwards your heart should be up but your head a little bit down now i did speak and maybe i'll if i can remember i'll put in a uh the description box below the class i gave last night i gave on the 48 ways it's actually humility another and i spoke about in a totally different way how hopefully this nava will bring one to meaning having meaning by getting rid of their ego if you get rid of the haughtiness which is the ego you'll be able to be truly searched for meaning in an objective way but the rosh yeshiva of north weinberg described the um he began by talking about misconceptions you think that someone who is unenough who's humble is his head is always down and he's always very meek and he's just apologizing i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry and he says that's not at all that's not it at all when you are able to get rid of your ego in such a way where you're really searching for meaning in life you'll actually become charismatic okay so there's gonna we know plenty of people are charismatic who are full of you know bs as they say you know and you can see right through it right so we're talking about real charisma not superficial uh movie star charisma okay we're talking about someone who you know is real and has meaning in his life and he says what he means and he means what he says and he's not you know a flatterer or a faker right that's the humility modest and patient in fact that's what rashi how rashi explains um humble modest and patient now you can have a true leader who's modest and patient right and hopefully but like we talked in in this class about moshe remain emotional better was most humblest of all and if you you know maybe in the beginning you know he he couldn't speak and he even said so i'm not i'm not a i'm not a speaker i'm not a great orator yet he wrote all of deuteronomy i mean he spoke all deuteronomy and that was just at the end of his life just imagine what he did for 40 years i mean the truth is god's voice went through his throat and it's hard to imagine but he was charismatic there's no question that moshe who was the most humblest of all was charismatic so we have to get out of our head on one hand being humble is being like this meek uh bent over petrified person a terrified person no but in in prayer you just bend your head a little bit down and your heart is going up okay so the so it's like this in job says this is in job chapter 22 verse 29 and he will save those with downcast eyes okay what does it mean you're not like looking at the pavement the whole time you're walking right but your your head is a little bit down okay robina yonah points out the advantage of behaving in this way the semanium are signs outward signs of humbleness he's going to explain would hopefully bring forth what you need to have on your heart so most things in judaism there's so many things that are let's say seemingly dry rituals i promise you there's nothing in judaism that's dry yes there are rituals and people maybe not may maybe they'll question why why do we do this but if you ask a qualified rabbi a qualified teacher your parents hopefully if they know ask why that's that's the strength of judaism we encourage questions now if you don't know the answer say i'll find out for you or refer refer the person asking the question to a qualified person but every seemingly weird far out strange ritual has such depth and meaning i promise you that and if you if you come across something where you don't have an answer you can always email me call me whatever come all the way to jerusalem and ask me i promise you i don't know the answer i will find the answer for you because anybody anytime i've been asked and i myself inquisited i've always found depth i promise you there's depth okay so behaving with the outward signs of humbleness such as all the things we just described the soft voice the casting the eyes downwards yaz ki rohu lakhni slibo it's all there to remind you to humble your heart okay it's all there to and bring about this internal feeling of submissiveness i'm wondering if i should uh i'll just mention this because since we're now we started this uh paragraph 29 some people are questioning is this a subcategory of the previous thing of humility in other words now we talk about humility now we're talking about in practice is a subcategory or is it a category all on its own so i'm not going to get into the different sides um it's easy to understand i think it's quite easy to understand that it actually is just a higher level of humility humility you can understand on an intellectual level right and perhaps even try to implement it but when you're given the steps and these discussions how to implement it it's a whole nother level you've just like put on a booster rocket right you put on that more more energy into doing it it'll bring you to a higher level of relationship with hashem let's go now to paragraph 30 which begins the ninth principle we're not going to finish it tonight and we'll finish hopefully paragraph 30 but actually this goes on until 34. so we'll at least start the ninth principle okay starts like this hachi the ninth principle shivra the breaking of the physical desires remember we're talking about how to reach penitence how to reach how to become a balchuba how to do truva so one must to figure out a way to break their physical desires yashiv el libo place on your heart pay attention okay you should take it to heart it's the physical desires that induce you that seduce you that cause you to transgress the limbs and actually it's like pulling on you like chords of nothingness of emptiness the the yasaygadder lishma but one should create for themselves offense to to protect yourself against unnecessary or let's just say you want to protect yourself your own path towards trueva therefore um now the word pirous means to separate but i want you to know there's a famous everyone knows what a pharisee is well i want to get rid of your pre your misconceptions right if you look in the webster's dictionary a pharisee it says is a hypocrite i want you to know something that's anti-semitism okay ramon gamliel right all the tanayim oh rabbi yakiva or rabbuda nasi these were pharisees okay and the word pharisee comes from this word pirushim they abstain they separate themselves this is who modern day jew the modern israeli nation we all come from this group called the perusian because the sadducees were the other group and they're gone they're gone with the dust of history and they're like with the romans and the greeks they hellenized they didn't believe the sadducees did not believe in the oral torah they only believed in the the the written torah whereas the pharisees of course these are the people all the rabbis the great rabbis mentioned in the talmud they're all pharisees okay so the whole definition of webster's they should take it out scratch it out start over make an apology whatever it is but it's because of the the christian world has everything upside down okay so they're called they were called perushim and he's discussing this idea by abstaining from unnecessary not to be drawn after your physical your um your desires this is a crazy idea even that which is permissible now if i had a big chocolate cake in front of me and had a but that texture was kosher couldn't i eat the whole thing it's kosher why not no just because it's permissible doesn't mean i have to do it so i wanted to refer to the ramban the ramban on parashat kadoshi that's in chapter that's in leviticus chapter 19. the very beginning it's actually verse 2 but the idea is that speak to the entire congregation of the children of israel say to them you shall be holy the true the children of israel jewish people you should be holy god says for i the lord your god i am holy just like kadoshim to you you shall be holy it's like a command what does that mean you shall be holy so the word holy by the way kadosh means separate that's what the purushim were right that's what the jew is we're separate god says be separate be it be a pharisee that's what he's saying to you okay now the way the ramban expresses it is that even that which is permissible to you don't over indulge don't be take a modest way remember we're talking humility is modest and patient do everything in a modest way we call the golden means right don't be too extreme about anything i shouldn't say that but in general let's just say the general idea we can get into specifics later but the the golden rule the means is trying to in terms of character traits in general is to go for the middle root so i'll just privy you because i know this is a women's group many people are watching this and i'll try to do it in a very modest way that he speaks like this i'm only going to read just a few lines and this is from the ramban first of all rashi on that verse basically says um you basically should separate yourselves from sexual immorality and from sin wherever one finds a barrier against sexual immorality you find holiness this is a famous expression if you can guard yourself against sexual immorality you will find holiness very important okay let me read the ramban again just certain parts of it so he says what does it mean you should be holy one should be separate from sexual transgressions and from sin he's quoting rashi for any place one finds offense before sexual transgressions you also find holiness he says this is the language of rashi but i say this you shall be holy meaning you like it says you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy for i am holy that's in leviticus 11 44 so it says it again just like i am holy you should be holy just like i'm separate you should be separate but according to my opinion the separation is not to separate from sexual transgressions like the words of rashi but rather the separation is the one mentioned in every place in the talmud where its practitioners are called those who have separated themselves the purushim the pharisees and the matter is that the torah prohibited sexual transgressions and forbidden foods and permitted sexual relations between husband and wife husband and wife and the eating of meat and drinking of wine so if that's the case we're not how can you say anything forbidden i have to be careful no you're already not even indulging so he wants to say if so a desires person will find a place to be lecherous with his wife or as many wives were to be a guzzler of wine and with gluttonous meat so he's telling you that which is permissible for you that is where you should find your medium just because it's permissible doesn't mean you should do it you shouldn't be like a uh i've used his words i might have deleted it from my my sheet here but um you don't hang out in your bedroom the whole day with your wife like a chicken right get out get out don't don't don't over indulge in that which is permissible okay just because wine is permissible do not over indulge right only on special occasions right okay i got i got i think i got the point across we are let me find out where we are okay so now like it's a proof for this he says right you should accustom yourself to the ways of the priesthood meaning the the pharisees through abstinence uh meaning for example loyoco rocklessley of nasho the kim gufo the only time you should be eating is to satisfy your soul and to sustain your body and that's it and we have a verse to prove this this is in proverbs mishlach chapter 13 verse 25 it says a righteous person eats to satisfy his soul i'll just read the comment here meaning enough to sustain your health which the soul needs because if the body dies the soul is gone so you need a healthy body around as long as possible so that you can continue to do mixes and serve hashem and not for this physical pleasure of satisfying your body okay then he goes on the gosh limits now again i'm going to try to be very uh modest about this that one should not approach a woman uh his wife except to fulfill the myths of producing children or the mitzvah now i want to explain this in a broad sense okay because of course relations are permitted when your wife is pregnant so it's not for the sake of of uh producing children okay i know there might be religions that hold that would be a sin no i'm gonna talk from a man's point of view okay you have to forgive me women a man when he signs his ketubah he's signing that he's going to provide for his wife all her needs food clothing roof overhead and i'm going to say i don't know if it's more important less important it's just as important whenever she has a need okay a spirit a sexual need he has to of course we're talking when it's permissible now that he's to drop everything and take care of her needs okay i'm not saying a man cannot be satisfied but he is there to satisfy her it's a very strange thing because people have very a lot of misconceptions about judaism they think that women are second-class citizens like i'm talking about people from the outside they have no clue the women of the queen the men of the servants we're signing away everything right they don't sign they don't have any obligations really i mean in a certain sense and it's all coming from the goodness of their heart okay so the man's journal it says it's specifically talking about the night that she goes to the mikvah but it also means anytime that she has a desire that he has to uh he's committed to fulfilling his obligations i'm using the word obligation loosely okay kiko's we're now like in the last few lines of paragraph 30 that um the whole time that a person is chasing after his desires nimshak he's actually being drawn after further um inclinations of his physical being it's all it's all very physical guess what the yeerhaq midar khanna as long as you're following the physical right the physical desires you're actually distancing yourself you're being drawn away from the we call it the spiritual intellectual side the spiritual side and then the person's inclination is even stronger you're like giving it fuel right when you run away or distance yourself from the spirituality and you go involve yourself with the physicality you are feeding you're giving a power to the yetzer and there are quite a few verses let's just stick with them it's in deuteronomy chapter 32 15. now we say this every day right um the yishman yeshua in viebat so that um it's talking about israel jesus yeshua and you sure to rebel this is the problem with too much physical riches if i told you earlier on that it's a big test it doesn't mean you can't pass it as long as you attribute it to hashem but you attribute to yourself and you become fat and you rebel this is a problem and then it says also in deuteronomy chapter 8 verses 12 through 14. this is uh right unless you eat be satisfied and build good houses you're doing all these things to acquire acquire a massive amount of riches you build good houses you dwell there in your herds your flocks multiply your silver and gold increases and all that you have increases and your heart grows hardy and you forget the lord why do you free only if you say it's because of me but if you're in a constant state of gratitude and knowing that it's from hashem how could you forget us how could you forget hashem so there's nothing wrong with riches per se it's the test what are you going to do you're going to attribute to yourself and therefore build up your own ego and think you're right this is hardiness as it says you will forget the lord your god your heart grows hardy you'll forget the lord your god has brought you out of the land of egypt out of the house of bondage and the um the next verse he brings is in mishlai chapter 30 verses 8 and 9. distance yourself distance falsehood and the lying word for me give me neither poverty nor wealth provide for me this is like king solomon he wanted wisdom he wasn't interested in wealth god could have given him every all the wealth in the world right he said what do you want he said i want wisdom and you know what god granted him the wealth as well you go for the wisdom right to know and have clarity of where the wealth where the wealth is going to come from then it's worth giving the wealth to king solomon so he said this is falsehood and the lying word for me give me the poverty and her wealth provide me my lot of bread lest i become saved and deny and i say who is the lord unless i become impoverished and steal and take hold of the name of god this is um words of wisdom now it ends this paragraph ends with the gemara from sukha as um just to like now you know put the nail on the hit the now on the head again this is a little bit geared towards men i have to admit uh we'll have to figure out how a woman will will consider this but in the gemara sukhas 52b we were since we were talking about the physical desires the more right it says like a rich person always dies i shouldn't say a rich person but someone who has desires for money he always dies with half of his desires fulfilled right a guy has a 1 million dollar he wants 2 million right hopefully it's for the good reason just to give more to dhaka and to be more productive in society and to give it away but anyway the general idea is that if the more you have the more you want well here you have this state famous statement so of course i think married women hopefully can understand this but anyway it says there's a small organ in man when he say she hates it he is hungry in other words if you keep feeding it then it wants more but when he starves it he is stated meaning again back to the original idea when you the ramban had said when you just because it's permissible doesn't mean you should overindulge keep it in check okay be modest meaning uh you know don't overindulge and this is something that you have to meditate on and think about maybe speak to your husbands about i will read the comment so we have a better understanding this refers to the male organ when a person indulges in relations his desire grows but when he abstains from them his desire dwindles this is toast the same rule applies to all physical desires all physical pleasures the more a person indulges in them the stronger the desire for them becomes therefore abstaining from unnecessary pleasure even when it is permitted is a way of guarding against the law the lure of forbidden pleasures and protecting the path of truva the whole idea was to protect your path of trouba we're on a path so we see that even ahav was walking slowly got rid of his fine clothes put on sackcloth this is the way right this is the way that we should always be hopefully right we're in a constant state of true truth means to return to or to be where we really truly are it's not just for sinners okay so for those that came out there completely righteous people whoever you are listening right you can also participate in this way of life our nikon was probably one of those types of people he didn't sin right he wasn't involved with the sin of the golden calf he was so righteous and yet he had this desire to come close to hashem so he was like like about suva because it's from here meaning a master of true truth means to return to be at one with hashem so mizrat hashem will end here and we'll continue next week with uh paragraph 31 bizrat hashem so i want to just say it's tavis and the bizarre here's some good news from all over the world right meshiach is on his way the building the base of mikdash all of our jewish brother and sister are coming back to israel and when there's peace here there's going to be peace everywhere it all emanates from right here over and out have a great life [Music] is