Shovavim: Best Tecniques To Guard Your Eyes - Live From Jerusalem {Senters Yeshiva}

Hey, it's a real honor to be here tonight. Tonight already begins the weeks of the par of Israim. Actually, this past Thursday, I've been looking forward to this for a long time. Most people um don't look forward to going to cemeteries. I like cemeteries. One of my favorite places in the world is Harazim. Okay, I've been there many many times. I actually like exploring and finding of that people rarely visit. This time I had a major discovery and actually I never really saw the safer before but one of the greatest farm ever written on chass the capoam. Okay. And I had never seen in one volume and and in one volume. Right after I went to the Kev, I found a one volume edition. Okay. So I found this Kev and Harim and this time we went to the Kev of Ra. Okay. Son of the Babas and he has an amazing idea. You know, we're here in Yeshiva. I assume most of the Tamidim come from America, >> North America. North America uh maybe some other places as well. And certainly the the atmosphere of Kadusha is on a much higher level here in Israel. And one of the objectives that we have in coming to we want to raise our levels of kaduca overall in general. So says where is kadusha found? Kadusha is found in the eye. the way we perceive our eye, the way we treat it, what we do with it. That's where kadusha is found. So I would like to share with you this evening a few good strategies that I personally find to be helpful in the area of and I hope it will be helpful for you as well. The first is as follows and at first it's going to st sound a little bit unusual but I'm going to explain to you the psychology of why it's so effective. Okay? So, you ever see Friday night? Hopefully, you're ready by then. So, your mother's going to go to the candles and then she goes like that. Now, never ask why she does that cuz nobody actually has a real answer to that. But just let them do it, okay? They go they go like that. What they they'll they'll say they're being don't I'm telling you, don't ask. They're going to say they're being macab. Don't ask. Just let let it be. Okay. But and she lights the candles and then she's going to sit there. She's dabbing. What's she dabing? She d before what's she dabing? She's ding for you. Why is she dabing then? Like who decided that's a good time to dav? You don't randomly say, "Oh, wait, wait a second. She doesn't like stop in the grocery store, go like that, and then cover her eyes. Who decided that's a good time to?" It's actually very interesting says in par that that time is anat. Why is an a sign? Because she just did a mitzvah. If you're a mitzvah, the mitzvah becomes anat. So it's an opportune time to din. This by the way is the source that if you're mitzvah, the time of mitzvah is an aat. You know others say when you give sodaka, it becomes an asat. It's the per time of a performance of a mitzvah is an aat. It's interesting the says you ever notice at the end of you have all these you know what what are these at the end of so says because you just were a mitzvah of so now is an opportune time to be mispo for different things that you might need so Aaron says as follows is a very powerful idea but I'm going explain to you why it's so powerful he says if you're walking down the street or you're in a situation where you're tempted to look at something, you know, you could say, "Hey, you know, there are a few things I might need. You know, I need uh I want to dive in for a I want to dab in for someone to get a I want to dive in for and learning. I want to dive in to have a good year in yeshiva." At the moment that you have a certain temptation, if you say, you know what, if I conquer this, if I so to speak away and don't indulge my eye, I'm a cay mitzvah. You know which mitzvah that is? It's a mitzvah of and then the moment your mitzvah at that moment it becomes anat. So you could dive in for whatever you might need at that moment that becomes an opportune time to dive in. So there's been there's this thing you really want to dive in for maybe for yourself for a family member for a sibling for a parent for someone in cl. Think of it instead of the making your life difficult. Theam is giving you a gift. He wants to give you something. So he's giving you this opportunity to so to speak overcome the you what you do is you say okay I don't want you to take this away from me. I have an opportunity now to get a great from I'm going to take advantage of the moment. I'll tell you why this is very effective. Because part of the psychology sometimes of why it's difficult is the says you know just look you look and nobody will know and nobody will know the difference and it won't make a difference to you. It won't make a difference tries to speed up the situation and make you ignore the gravity of it. But what you could do is you slow it down in real time. You say wait a second. What do you mean? You're just going to like shove it through the door? slow down over here. This is a this is a milestone occasion in my life. I've been wanting XYZ. I'm going to take opportunity now to say I'm preparing myself now to be of and please could you help me out with whatever I'm going to ask you for. So that's I find that to be a very effective way to overcome the Sahara. Here's an idea I think is very connected to the par we just read. It says became old. Uh, it says like this. His eyes became heavy. He couldn't see. His eyes became heavy. He wasn't able to see. Something to myself. His eyes became heavy. He couldn't see. No kidding. What else happens if your eyes become heavy? I need to say, it needs to say that he couldn't see. Obviously, that's what the Torah is saying. His eyes became heavy. He couldn't see. So this is out of this world. This is a great principle that writes in many many places says did you know that you have two sets of eyes? You thought you had two eyes. You thought people see you like a regular human being that you have two eyes. You actually have four eyes. Say what? Where are my other two eyes? The Gomorrah tells us that when a child is in in uter. So all of his orphases are closed, the mouth is closed, the nose is closed, the eyes are closed, and it says there's a candle on his head. He could see from one end of the world to the next. Could somebody tell me how in the world if his eyes are closed, could the kid see from one end of the world to the next? and then explain to me because when the kid is born his eyes open and then we can't see too far anymore maybe he could see a half a mile down. So what is this phenomenon that when a child is in utero his eyes are closed but yet he could see from one end of the world to the next and when he's born his eyes are open and your vision is limited. Theamifer says over from his great Rebi the Hafla that you have ina gashmi. You have physical eyes and you have spiritual eyes. You have spiritual eyes. And you know what you do with spiritual eyes? You could understand Tyra. You could understand the ways of Hashem. You can understand. And these two sets of eyes work are inversely proportional to each other. Meaning the more you use your eyes to indulge in physical things, the less you could see with your spiritual eyes. The more you close your eyes to physical indulgence, the more you could see with your spiritual eyes. So for instance, if you wanted to see the garra, you wanted to understand the garra, you wanted to understand the tus, you want to understand the rebel, the more you careful you are what you look at, the more your eyes will be able to understand hashem and it's inversely proportional. You ever you know their gym they literally the briskar would say that he was able to see a decade or two into the future could see 50 years ahead. How could see 50 years ahead? How are they able to perceive what's going to happen in the future? The more careful you are with the deeper the more profound where will be your understanding of Hashem's you come to yeshiva you come to Israel it's not just about getting skills and learning it's it's about getting skills and learning you have to become experienced in learning you have to develop your skills and you have to develop your ability to understand learning but the greatest tool in a certain sense of heightening advancing your ability to appreciate Tory is to sharpen your spiritual eyes. How do you sharpen your spiritual eyes? You know, most people never even heard that they have spiritual eyes. I think the Pak is saying I saw this morning Jacob's physical eyes became heavy. So why does it have to say he couldn't see? Well, the Torah is saying he couldn't physically see, but now his spiritual eyes became even greater. So he's able to tell Yehuda what's going to be in the times of Schlomma. He's able to tell Dun what's going to be in the times of Shiman. He's able to tell what will be in the far off future. Maybe he wasn't able to do that before. It was only now the physical world. Now he could see much deeper and much further on in the spiritual world. So if somebody's posed with a challenge, you tell the you have to understand over here this is not just about this moment. Is this is this something I want to do right now? This is about my whole week in yeshiva. This is about my whole future. This is about my whole spiritual life. Why do you want to why would you why would I let you do this to me? You know, this is deeply affecting my whole trajectory. What I look at, what I partake of will influence me and my entire future. Okay, you ready for this? This is my favorite one and this is the best one. This is the most effective trick. So you encounter something and says you know it's kadai you should you should look you should look it's not always so smart or maybe it's never so smart just to tell the sahara no no tell him no tell him yes but not now tomorrow you're right the says is. So you say you're right. Next time next time don't say no. Theo explains he explains it through an analogy in the world of physics. He says there's a rule in physics. The more pressure you exert on something, the more pressure that item exerts back. So if you push on a wall, if I go like this to you, you're going to push back. as as hard as I push, you're going to push back as hard as I push. You put your force on an object, the object exits exerts an equal counter force. If you're going to say no, the is going to say yes. And if you say no, the is going to push back with an equal force. If you ever dealt with children and usually with adults as well, you tell a kid, "Go to sleep right now." Tati says, Abba says, daddy say, go to sleep right now. You know what the kid's going to say? No, but it's your bedtime. No, but you told me. You never How do you How do you negotiate something? You say, "Go, please go to sleep." Say, "No." Okay. You want to sleep? You want to stay up five more minutes? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, fine. I'm going to let you stay up five more minutes. So, basically, what you're doing is you're pulling back. you're retreating. So when you retreat, they retreat. The calls in in cababalistic terms. You got to throw the sat on a bone. So if the satan says look says look, don't say no. Say good idea. You know what? It's on Friday. On Friday I have more time to deal with this. We'll we'll tell we'll check it out Friday. Not right now. And usually when you push it off, when that time comes, the satan's already forgot about it. More often than not, he's not going to bother you. Could you do this every time? You could do this every time. Why does it work? It works. Just accept the fact that it works. If you want to know why it works, I'm going to tell you the psychology of it, okay? It's it's actually very profound. The mikt doesn't really explain why it works. I'm going to tell you the psychology of why it works. This actually comes from the reb it's not he says something very interesting. He says that you ever notice if you hear a schmoo let's say you know you come to the holy yeshiva rabbi center and you hear a schmoo and the rashiva says you know do a you should really take on a you should take on b you should do this what what's going through a person's mind if they're having a hard time with it does the person say no I don't think it's important I don't think it's important I I disagree you know what's the dynamic usually what happens says person, you know, that's a very good idea. It's a great idea, Rabbi, but not right now. I'm going to start it tomorrow. I'm going to start it next week. I'm going to start it next year. I'm going to start it in LOL. Usually the way the Yates works is he gets you to delay. He's the king of the delay tactic. So sometimes what you do is you give him a taste of his own medicine. If he's able to fool you by causing you to delay, then the way the rebum set up the world is you could give him, you could throw it right back at him. You say, "Yes, that's a great idea. You're right. That's very good. I don't want to miss out. So, I'll check it out later. Not right now. Next time. Let give me just just let me have this one. I'll have this one. We'll deal with the next one a different time." You're not really giving into him. You're you're throwing him a bone. You're not giving him a piece of meat. You're not giving in on something real and next time you push it off f further. This happens to be a very effective method. I'll tell you one more. I'll tell you one more. There's a very graphic Amara which is not for a general audience but you're a mature audience I'll share with you the gumar the garra tells a story about someone who is careful in the midst of titus and he heard about a certain zina that charged a lot of money and he decided he was going to do the aa so he set off on the trip and he was prepared to do the aa And at the last moment his titus hit him in the head and sort of you know knocked some sense into him and he didn't he didn't do the aa the woman was very impressed she asked him what yeshiva do you learn without getting into too many details the garra says she ended up speaking to the rashiva it didn't happen in a yeshiva that you heard of okay Don't worry. Okay. And the rashiva was Mashad, the woman with this guy. That's the story. That's the garra. Okay. You learn it on your own. I'm not getting into too many more details. The vagin says a great principle. Whatever a balta gets from doing an aa if you don't do the a you could have gotten the same thing. Now let me explain what this does for you. Have you ever heard I'm going to teach you a new phrase. You probably never heard of something called f o. You ever hear of that? You ever hear of fomo? >> Yeah, I'm joking. Okay. FOMO. What's FOMO? FOMO is this thing that most there are a lot of things in this world we don't even want to do. But you get this fear I have to go because I might miss out. Fear of missing out. Sometimes part of the strength of the temptation of the Sahara is he says you need to you need to partake of this otherwise you're going to be miserable. You're going to miss out. So you know what you can tell say you fool. You fool. For what purpose? What do I need this for? Whatever happiness, whatever whatever sim you think I'm going to get from this is going to give it to me a different way. So actually I have nothing to gain. You're just you're just ruining my life. You're just messing with me. I have nothing to gain from this. So tonight we had uh I had the to share with you four techniques. It says in you you have to know how to fight the Sahara. It's not always about no I learned to that this is and there's a big so I'm not going to do it. That's not always or usually the best strategy. You need to have strategies just like anything in life. You need to prepare yourself. You need to equip yourself. You know, on some days you'll be in a good mood. You you're on a day that you're really concerned for your learning. You might be able to tell the you know, I really want to be am I learning. Please don't bother me right now. I'm not going to look and I'm going to use this opportunity to for what I need. On another occasion, you might say, you know, I'm not having a great day, but you you're telling me I'm going to miss out on something. What are you talking about? That's ridiculous. Whatever I would get, I would get some somewhere else in a different way. They're different techniques. You could tell the more I close my eyes, the more successful I'm going to be in my learning. Or if all else fails or sometimes the best is, push it off. By the way, that's an it with every type of or every mida. you're upset about something, somebody did something to you, you could stall, you could push it off. These are all, I think, very important techniques to be aware of. And hopefully Hashem, we could utilize them. And these weeks are designated our mug to heightening and elevating our levels of kaduca should give us all to to grow in the area of Kadusha, in all areas of Hashem. and Hashem should give you all tremendous in this yeshiva. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you very much.