Shovavim Series - Episode 1: Natural Tendencies | Rabbi Nachum Binder

[music] [bell] With tremendous feelings of gratitude to the we embark for the third year on aim series trying to give over some things that I've seen in heard from and that we can be mazic ourselves in this tufa this hut kufa of the days of shim tin and truth be told there are many tufas throughout the year which come with tremendous opportunities of of growth there's the days of rashimuk There's there's the days of and there are the days of and to be honest for many of us when these kufas begin instead of being excited about the opportunity that it brings. For some reason we approach the tufa with apprehension. We're nervous about it. We really can't wait for it to be over. And the reason for that is is because we tend to look back and say, I've been through so many of these in my life, but what did it do? I don't feel like I changed. And sometimes we leave these hut kufas with feelings of disappointment. And that brings us to dread these tufas time after time. And say there can be no greater tragedy than that. There can be no greater surah than a yid not appreciating and not realizing the unique opportunity that every tufa in the tufas hash brings us. And the reason for the disappointment that we feel sometimes is is because we head into these kufas with unrealistic dreams with unrealistic goals. We think yes this year of I will change I will come out of a totally new person all my all my ty anything that I've done wrong will be a thing of the past and I will be a totally new person. And if we think that way, we will be disappointed because that doesn't happen so fast. That's years and years of work. That's a lifetime of work. And I want to share with you what I feel is the true benefit and the trueis of every but especially in what we're going to be trying over this sh of we just laned in par the gives to the and yakov starts off in his to really his m to ru and he starts by telling ruin ruain He starts extoling the mile. And then he says and he gives him for what Ruven did as the Tyra describes or something wrong that he did with the Mishkave in getting involved in the private life of Yakinu moving his bed to the oil of Leia and is bothered by the fact that Yakov gives such starts off by talking about the mile the why is that so important one of the greatest you say this that we can learn from and he starts off by telling us that every one of us and every human being have ingrained in our very essence what we would call our DNA certain mid and certain tendencies that we have from our parents, from our grandparents, from generations gone by. And many times there are bad nitas, certain things that draw us naturally to wanting to do the wrong thing, which it really is no fault of our own. We were born like that. And that can come from a yusha from previous generations. The tells us that that that Aravin who had a yes is and had a asov came because Ara and Yitzk were coming off previous generations that were not at all perfect rather the opposite. But Yakov Ainu perfected himself. And Yak Ainu the Tyra tells us until the age of 83 when he got married, Yakinu was a var he was perfect. But then through no fault of Yakov at all, that night when he married Leia and thought it was Raul, there was a pagam that went in to the creation of Ruvane because Yakov was thinking about Raul when it was really Leia. And therefore, Ruvane was born with some type of natural tendency of bil and that's what caused him to do this which tells us we're not allowed to call on a ver but the does describe it as something wrong that ruin was and heim that that's what was telling Ruv And I saw in the from Weineberg of Montreal Yeshiva and he says we learned from this a tremendous tremendous limit. If Ruain was born with a natural tendency to do what he did. So why did he get an why did he lose out on Malus on Levia because of that? It was no through no fault of his own. He was born like that. And he brings from Abramskihat. There's a famous Gimra. The Gmorra tells us went up to Shayim and when they asked him, "What did you see?" He said, "I saw." And of course the gimmor doesn't mean to say that in this world was fooled. People were able to fool him in how great they were. When he says he means people who are truly alim they were truly great but they were lower in shmayim. And those that were truly small were even higher because our job in this world is not success. A person can succeed because it comes easy because he naturally has tendencies to do the right thing because it's naturally easy for him to be holy and pure. to d with a gishmak to learn with a ben to be busy with and those people are truly in this world but in the next world that's those of us that have the natural tendencies to do things that are not proper and we struggle and we put up a fight and we work on Even if we don't achieve the successes of the alum, we end up lala because that's our job in this world. Yes, Ruvane was born with natural tendencies to do what he did, but that's not an excuse. That's just of that we have to struggle and we have to fight and we have to keep on trying. What are we trying to achieve this? We're not trying to achieve. Let's not fool ourselves that we're going to come out of but if we can come out of this as people who even though we have we're working on ourselves, we're not giving up. We're going to try throughout the sh of him to make one little change, do one thing better. one area in a hashem, one small cabala to try to become bigger and work on ourselves and fight our tea, our natural tendencies, that is the greatest success. And when we realize that and we appreciate that we will be to really appreciate the opportunity of the next six weeks. And I turned to the plan with let us together work and try to keep on fighting. Yes, maybe we struggle but to keep on being strong and persevering and not giving up. And we will be to feel that closeness to the from the fighting itself. And we will be to come out of this just a little bit better. But that's so much and we will be to utilize this weeks of to grow to be closer to the [music] [bell]