Small moments mean the most - Parashat Metzora - Rabbi Alon Anava

[Music] we are in a parashat methora usually parashat and matsura are read together but this year like many others we only read the parashat of mitsura which both tazri and mitsura are kind of talking about the same thing and besides talking about all the religions of tsarat but the idea the topic the concept of these two parashots are uh everything that we do with our mouths gossiping and so forth so before we start i just want to share with you a quick story that once there was a rosh yeshiva of a very very big yeshiva that one day he comes to his students and he tells them stop everything that you're doing i'm going to do now assume a completion of the of the talmud of the government and i want you all to join me okay so you didn't quite understand what's the big deal you did that already many times that you did assume a completion of the entire wow why now in the middle of the day without any announcements suddenly you're calling us all so he says this is a very special scene for me and i'll tell you why that many years ago i understood that we're wasting so much time between things those little moments that you don't really do anything and it's just wasted time i decided to learn in those three minutes every time that i have a few minutes so i have a little magazine in my pocket and every time waiting for the bus standing in banking in the banking line waiting for my wife to be ready when we're going out whatever it is here's three minutes here two minutes two four minutes i would pull on the camera read a little bit today i'm doing assume and this is a very special scene because this is not like when i sit down and learn in an organized way it's here grabbing a minute and here grabbing a minute and he was basically saying just focus how many times how many minutes a day are you wasting your time you're just sitting and looking back at it you're saying well i could have done now five minutes i could have read something i could have done something now some people don't really care about it but a person that values their time understands you know wait a minute these little moments they make a huge difference unfortunately most people don't really value their time worse than that people don't value other people's time but when a person really wants to take care of every little moment then you have to fill in the gaps and i spoke with somebody not too long ago and i told him listen the same way that in business you have time management your whole life has to be with time management most people really waste most of their time and this specific audience decided to take the free moments and to utilize it for something good with that said that in itself is a message that we can make this a standalone class just you know value every moment that you have i always doesn't matter where i go there's always something in my pocket that i can pull out and read something that i can complete and with that said our sages when they try to conclude the torah conclude teacher they couldn't really pinpoint time wasting as a sin but nevertheless our sages never liked any time of any type of wasting time they couldn't categorize it as a as a sin or as something against the torah i can't really find the source for wasting time but nevertheless they didn't like it they didn't like it they're wasting all the time to a point that they said it's like a sin it's not really a sin you cannot find a a a real good source but it says it's like a sin now most of the time the this waste of the time that i'm talking about is not necessarily when you're standing in ban in the bank in line that's also kind of a waste of time you can do something in the in the meantime or you're sitting in traffic or whatever it is but our sages says that say the main waste of time is when we just took chat with no uh purpose there's no no no no no no that's in a sin you're just saying just standing hey how are you i'm okay with this that is really the problem with wasting of time with that said the maras quotes a verse from the book of amos and it's a famous verse that it says this is in the book of amos chapter 4 verse 13 the translation is and declares to man what his speech the talmud takes this verse and it says when a person will die of course we learned about it many times that when we die we go up to the heavens and the first thing we meet is a we have a court a court case you can call it judgement day you can call it everyone but you we're all going to be judged the talmud says on this verse in the book of amos that when we go up to the heavens to shaman they're going to show us each and every one of us in the heavenly court all these uh pitbull team all these chat that has no point to it and like a movie of all the times that you were just talking with with no importance and needless to say i mean like i said it's not really a sin you can categorize it as a sin but they're still going to show you all the small talk and all the chitchat that has no purpose and and nothing positive comes out of it and many not necessarily it has to have something negative come out of it but nevertheless that in itself is going to be extremely embarrassing to the person just imagine showing a movie of nonsense like real nonsense on that the balatani brings in the book of tanyam uh uh he he sources it from the zohar and that's very extreme to the tanya because italia the approach of the tanya and the balatania is not like a you know harsh approach of the zoar it's a more optimistic a more positive approach but in the tanya the balatani says and he quotes from dissolve that when a person will go will die the the these chit chat is in hebrew it's called the burim battalion that you talk and battle means has no importance there's nothing no no substantial meaning to it so this all says that these types of chat chit-chat it impures the nephesh impures your soul to a point that a person will have to be taken to kafka to be cleansed and kafka killer that's a severe punishment to the soul it's not genome this is kafka it's a whole different department says that the impurity that falls and that gets attached to the soul because of this chit chat then one will have to go through kafka to to have this impurity removed and this is a this is pretty pretty severe i don't want to go to kapha killer go reading the sources what kapha keller means you know kapha keva the translation is a slingshot that they take the neshama and they throw it across the universe from one side to the other showing the neshama what it could have done what it did do all sorts of there's all sorts of uh definitions and explanations let's say you know to many of our sources kafka is worse than than genome because genome before and hashama goes into genome there's a defined time whatever it is kafka there's no definition whenever they decide they take the soul out so with that said in this week's parasha and it's also applicable to last week's parashat because usually they go together but the main theme of what the parasha is focusing on is the power of speech and uh to a point that the wisest man of all of course is king solomon he says the death and life are in the hand of the tongue saying in other words that one word can hustle shalom destroy the entire world and on the other hand one word can do positive things that you can take a person shalom that has a great career one wrong word the whole career goes down and it can be the other around you say one word one right word and it can boost your career your ratings or your popularity whatever it is on that comes the hasidic philosophy and approach and says don't uh call it that the and life is in the hand of the tongue rather say the quality of life is in the hands of the tongue i never found up until now a good explanation why it says in the hand of the tongue but nevertheless that's uh maybe one day hashem will open my eyes and and reveal to me the source that explains why malek says doesn't have a hand i mean the the what i understand from that that the hand represents your your that you have an option that it's not uh mandatory you can choose what to say what not to say but nevertheless that's just my way of looking but i didn't find any a good commentary why king solomon says beya de lashon in the hand of the tongue but nevertheless if we're taking a different approach then the hasidic philosophy says now look at it as life and death rather look the quality of life how you talk will affect your quality of life in many different aspects whether in the physical a level in the spiritual level and so forth now when we're looking at this parasha it's focusing on what happens if a person wakes up in the morning and wha what do you know a stain on the wall now in our generation that would look like molds maybe some way water came in or something but in the torah it says a person what exactly in the morning and he sees a stain on the wall doesn't know what it is so he has to call the kohen now the kohen looks at it the kohen is a professional in evaluating the situation and if the kohen thinks or decides or sees based on his knowledge that this might be zarat's leprosy then he says listen we've got to vacate the house you're going to have a problem here of course the kohen represents the side of ghosted so he first of all tells him remove everything from the house before i declare that the house is impure because if hans veschalon de cohen will declare the houses in pure everything in it is impure too which means that you have to cash her all the utensils throw certain things so the coin says first of all remove everything from the house all your utensils all your plates and and cups and everything and your clothes remove everything but then the coin declares this is a house that is inflicted with legion with zahad and then you know and they didn't do it of course that's my stupid humor that they would take a yellow how do you call it what the police the tape they put yeah like a police tape around the house don't come close you know the the house is uh you know inflicted with sarat of course i'm saying it in a in a humorous way but the reality is that the kohen will recognize sarat right away that's it torah says his gear might he shuts up the house shuts down the house everybody has to move out and then the torah continues in saying if this doesn't pass and the cohen comes again after a week after two weeks if the stain was not removed after two weeks first of all he removes the people from the house for a week then they come back they inspect if it didn't pass they're waiting another week after two weeks if it didn't pass then they have to break the bricks wherever the sarat is they have to break it out completely demolish it and put new stones if you remember two years ago when the corona started then it really started around the parachute of tazreen and at the time they put us in the first lockdown was seven days and another lockdown for seven days the time i said it's the same idea the the the the kohen first locks down the house for seven days and then another day i gave a whole lecture about it because then i was explaining listen all these issues are coming because there are nevertheless the torah explains that if the lesion doesn't really get removed from the walls then they have to break the the the bricks there and and if that doesn't help eventually they have to break the whole house down and then the next level first it gets attached to the house next level if it doesn't uh help then it will come on the on the on the clothes and the person wakes up in the morning what what do you know a stain i don't remember eating that okay and the torah gives all the explanations can be a red stain a green stain same thing calls the cohen tells them listen i have a stay a weird stain on my garment the queen would look if it's again leprosy then the same thing they have to take remove everything and at the end if after 14 days it doesn't pass and they have to burn the clothes worse than all that if that continues then the tzarat can be found on the person itself it will actually affect the person itself and needless to say that then already the person has to go out of the camp uh announcing um he has to scream i have leprosy on me don't come close to me very embarrassing situation besides the fact that the torah calls it a very severe disease there's different commentaries they're going from vilnius says that's based on the teachings of the zone then in our generation the reason why we don't have a tzarat because then everybody will have tsarats we will all be affected by it with how we talk there's always says that that sarat in our generation is on our nephesh it's internal which will affect the people a person with a can be uh anger can be with the depression sadness anxiety fears all sorts of uh different disorders that's affecting the nephes but nevertheless the torah defines it as a very severe disease this is not some you know a rash and now of course comes the big question what is the sin what's the such a severe sin that all this the person has to go through it to a point that if it doesn't stop goes on the body and of course we spoke about it not once and not twice leprosy comes because of that's what our sages explain although the talmud when it goes more in length and i explained that in that long video that i told you that it says that the legion comes because seven sins being rude and lying and i gave a whole lecture of that if you remember two years ago explaining all the seven reasons why one will get the tzarat but nevertheless we all know that the tzarat comes on now where does our sages bring it from so i know many people when you ask them where do you remember in the torah that somebody got punished because of most people raise their hand with miriam right she spoke legion she got leprosy and the whole camp had to wait for her for seven days but there's another situation another story prior to that with the shonara and but yeah with moshe rabino yeah and what really happened there to tell you briefly what was going on i'm sure you remember the story just to refresh your mind moshe rabino is retired he has a house on the mountain he has a few goats one day he goes out for a walk and whoop hashem appears to him and tells him i want you to go down to my time and take my nation out and for the whole week this negotiation moshe rabbin was trying to remove responsibility and marcia rabeno presents five arguments why he can't do it the first thing he says paula will laugh at me i will come to parole and tell him release all your slaves and yeah he's gonna laugh at me argument number two he says listen i'm not fit to this how am i stutter time i'm not a spokesman i'm not a diplomat i'm not a politician i'm not the man for you argument number three says i have an older brother what do you want from me there's an older brother he's already in me trying doesn't need a visa he's already there no need to deal with immigration right now take him argument number four says listen they're gonna ask me god's name i don't know god's name because if you remember joseph left signs that when a man will come and say certain codes you'll know that he's the redeemer so he says listen they're going to ask me what's god's name i don't know god's name and then it comes to the last argument argument number five by saying you know what they're not going to believe me the ship says who's not going to believe you this is the nation they're not going to believe me why would they believe me after 210 years of of slavery why would they believe me at this point then hashem got upset because all the arguments in the beginning when he says power will laugh at me ashamed says don't worry i'll make sure that he doesn't laugh at you he says i i'm a i stutter hashem says don't worry i'm going to make a girl give you a spokesman when he says i have an older brother and it says don't worry your older brother will go with you when he says i don't know hashem's name hashem says i'll tell you my name what's the big deal but when he said they're not going to believe me then hashem says you know that that's i haven't had it up to here and then you know the story told him put your hand in the in your jacket in your clothes and he takes the hand out full of uh leprosy and he tells him don't talk about my nation don't decide for them if they're going to believe to you or not don't talk about them so we see that right from the beginning with their relationship with moshe ramen there's already also and needless to say that also moshe rabbeno got punished by talking now comes another question why is rashara so bad really when you're thinking about it i mean some cases yeah when you slander when you really hurt somebody but you know we learned that many times hashanah has when i'm telling you the truth about somebody whether there's a benefit or not so why is it so bad and you know what okay i understand it's bad hey now murder i think is better worse committing adultery and many other things why is that so bad to a point that our sages even say that there are three sins that we cannot be saved from every day every day we sin that and one of them is hashanah unless you go live on a mountain or you don't talk so the talmud says the reason why lashonda is so bad because la shonara is like an arrow once you shoot it you don't know where it's going to go it can go 100 meters 200 meters 500 meters it can hit it can miss but once once it's left that's it's not in your hands you have no control over it so on that said i'm sure you heard the story and i was looking many many times to the source of it of course i'm sure it's just a parable just a story to teach us but there's a fairy tale we'll call it right now a fairy tale or a gaddaf that there was one person and he lived in some town and he was the gossiper of the town all day long he wanted to know something about anybody you go to him and all the know he would gossip about the whole world and one time came rosh hashanah he decided to do chuva he goes to the rabbi and tells them listen i need to do shuva and i have a terrible sin and i don't know what to do so the rabbi tells him okay what's what's this he says i gossip i gossip all the time what can you give me so i can repent and do some type of a rectification so he tells them go home and take a pillow and open the pillow and then let all the feathers out and come back okay comes back tells him okay i did it i let all the feathers out feathers out it says okay now go home and collect back all the feathers and put it back in the in the pillow because i can't do that and they're all over the place you know the wind already took him i can't find all the feathers this is a second exactly that's that's the problem with lashondara once you let it out how are you going to get it all back in you don't know you'll get half of it in you'll get three quarters you'll be able to somehow control some of it but you don't know it's all over the place and that's really the severity of la shawna with that said there's a famous story in the talmud that it's talking about a certain individual a king that his name was hodus it was the time of the end of the era of the second temple and he was uh there's a big question if he's if he was even jewish if in jewish if he converted he says isha domin from the land of edom he was a uh uh uh i mean some say he was again he converted some sources says he wasn't even jewish but nevertheless he wanted to become king and he had all the political power he had all the money all the sponsors everything and somehow he took over the kingdom and one day lo and behold he becomes king i'm talking with king of israel not king of persia and he knew that the day he's going to become king he's going to have a problem with some enemies he knew he's going to have enemies and who of course is his enemies the israel the sages of israel all the jews now why would they become his enemies because they're going to go and fight with him by saying we can't appoint you as a king even if you are a convert let's say you are we can't appoint a king on israel with a converts you have to be a a born jewish individual like in america you can't become a president if you immigrated you have to be born in america or kenya ah i was about you jumped the gun i was about to say something else but but yeah but same thing here same thing here the sages would go and fight with him by telling him huh how did you become king what do you rig the elections like some other individuals we know how did you become king and even if you are a real convert but we can't appoint a king over us who's not born jewish besides like he told you many sources say he wasn't even jewish but nevertheless that's not the point the point is that he knew he's going to have a problem with the israel with the sages with the rabbis what did he do he killed them all very simple like the mafia he went and killed them all besides one now the thing is that he knew that the power of our nation and the merits of our nation is the torah so he had to keep one if he said if i'll kill all of them we're not going to have any torah and that would weaken us and eventually will be conquered and so forth he left one one sage called baba bin buta but he's such an evil individual horudos that he wanted to make sure he's controlling him so he took his eyes out he made him blind nick he poked his eyes out okay time passed and he wanted to see what this what he says what he thinks what's going on if he's uh he was afraid that baba bin buddha is holding grudge towards him or that he's a macpheed on him he's like very upset with him and khashoggi that can cause a problem so he pretty he wore like a regular clothes took off his king clothes bore regular clothes and he somehow you know walked in the street and walked into his home knocked on the door and he invites him and he walks in he tells him i'm just a bypass or maybe i have something to drink and then he starts talking with him and as he's talking he's telling him tell me the rabbi what do you think of the king of hordus it doesn't matter it doesn't matter what i think no no come on what do you think about you think he's a good king you think he's a bad king he says i don't see any reason why i need to talk i i don't talk yeah but you know you know everybody knows he poked your eyes out he killed all the rest of the saints what do you think he says it doesn't matter what i think because i'm committed by the torah that i that even if it's an evil individual we don't talk he's still the king we still have to give respect to the king and i have nothing to say i don't want to say anything he doesn't understand holder says the guy is like a bunker doesn't say anything and he's trying both here and there to to trick him to say something bad about the king and he tells him yeah no it's just you and me here nobody will hear just tell me what you really think about him what did he tell him the bird that flies in the sky will take my voice to the king and tell and he will hear what i said about him he didn't say hodus was so impressed by this approach by the rabbi after he poked his eyes out killed all the rest of the sages still didn't talk bad about him and not only that was so committed he says that doesn't allow me to talk negative or positive about him he was so impressed that he came forward and confessed to the rabbi and says listen i did a horrible sin i killed all the ham i killed all the rabbis we don't have any tawai now in our nation what did he tell him i turned off the light of the world what can i do give me something that i can repent so baba bin buddha told them you turned off the light of the world because the torah is the light of the world then light up the torah again how well with beta migdash how exactly i don't know if you remember that was towards the end of the era of the second temple you know 400 plus years things were falling apart already it wasn't in such great condition he went and remodeled the entire bit of midash spend millions and millions of uh whatever didn't have dollars then but nevertheless spent millions of gold coins and the talmud says if you didn't see the better mikdash the bite of what holders did you don't you don't you didn't see the glory of better midash apparently he renovated it to be something outstanding so that's the story in the tamil and that's really the the logic behind what the torah says that what the severity of because the logic of the torah saying that the words kill and not only that the words kill there's no end to the the spread of the words you said the word out and you don't know where it's going to end and that's the problem with many people that they say oh i only told it to one person yeah but that person told you this person and that person and before you know it can be tens of thousands of people and in our generation it's easy to understand how tens of thousands of people all you need to do is write something on social media and the whole world sees it now that's a little bit of background about what the torah has to say about iran a little bit from our from uh another approach by saying first of all is broken down into three categories the first one is no no other way of saying it la and explains and defines when you talk truth it's not that you're lying lying is a lie roshan as i spoke with you about her and it was a hundred percent truth and that's a pseudo writer that's a uh prohibition from the torah the next level of latino the next category because breaks it into three categories calls it now what does that really mean if you remember we learned not too long ago in the series of the concept of avatar but titles it in a very short way that you're hinting that there's a sonar to talk about what does that mean you come to me and say tell me what did i hear so and so did this and that please don't tell me i don't want to talk about oh so there's something to talk about that's about how many times people say i don't want to talk so you're confessing or you're declaring there is something to talk about you should say i don't know what you're talking about and how many times people ask me what do you think of this in the i don't know the person i don't want to say um don't put me in a corner that i will be forced to speak lashonara because then i'm saying in other words there is what to say i say i don't know the person never heard that's it finish it over there is that you that and and i'm giving you one example sometimes somebody can ask you what do you think of so-and-so that's enough you're basically saying i don't think there's so much great things but i'm not saying anything so let's consider that and like this we can give you now 500 examples but the definition of means dust it's not real the real thing it's like uh the the dust of lashona says you're hinting that there is actually nara to say and the last one that the last category that shulhan oak explains he says gossiping and he calls it and what is it it's information that it's not good or not bad it doesn't help it doesn't hurt it can hurt and it can help and it's like nonsense real nonsense oh you saw the car that someone said but okay so you bought a car now interestingly the first two are considered the raita is uh prohibition that our sages added that it's not coming from the torah now why would the sages add refrig gossiping to the definition of lashonara so i'll explain to you why our sages added that there's a story in the book of shmuel that before shaol the king was about to lose his kingship then there was a great prophet in the generation and shmuel let him know that not only that he's going to lose his leadership but also his son is not going to become king because usually the son becomes becomes the king schwall already told him forget about you not being king but your son is also not going to get to become king with that dedicated his life to run and pursue and to try to prosecute king david who was not king yet of course he was just known as benny shai the son of ishai some peasants they didn't nobody looked at him as some great uh leader but nevertheless charles decided till the last day i can i'm gonna go after david miller and the stories over stories what he did to him at some point came some individual who's known as me and he comes to xiao and tells him you're looking for david right i know he is oh really where is it got some juicy information yeah so they met in a dark alley with a briefcase full of money that's my addition so deutsche i know where you can find the vid she tells him where so he says he went to nov now was a city of where the quranim used to live it's called iraq the city of quranim and he says not only that he's in the city of quranim he's a guest at the achimelec what shaolin got so angry says the kohenga doll achimalek knows that i'm looking for david and he's hosting him killed him and another adiku on him all the koa names were there he killed them all why so from the anger that david that they were hiding him there or hosting and whatever and the widowmaker was there so the shuhana rook explains why do our say why did our sages add gossiping to the definition of because it's not the right it's by saying doesn't matter if you even if you have information you don't have to say that's what he looks that's gossiping you don't have to say hold it to yourself look at the results shall go just imagine and people up until they think how can it be that in the leadership in the biblical or the torah leadership can't be any corruption there's dozens if not hundreds if not thousands of stories in tanakh about corruption in the leadership in the torah and in our nation a few months ago when i gave a class i think it's already even a year ago even more when i talked about the vaccines and i i uh a little bit talked about how can it be that certain rabbis are approving or going against or whatever and they said listen there are a lot of corrupt rabbis what's the secret to hide here and half the world went against me how dare i go against the rabbanim i'm not going against any rabbanim i'm just giving clear information and yeah there are many of them that are crooks and many of them are so what if they have a beard so same thing here shaolin goals and kings of kohen gadol it's unheard of and then with him another eddie konim and that is done by jewish king why because he's upset with them why because his son is not going to become king and i don't mean this snitch i know a david is sarah says you say you don't have to say anything keep your mouth shut now interestingly and that's the approach i mean not the approach that's the definition of the halacha before i was explaining a little bit what digimama is talking about here we have a clear alaha and three categories when it comes to nara slandering but more interesting is that even if you look in the torah when i became observant i had a lot of questions why is this like this why is this like that you know you need good answers you don't have good answers you get turned off and i could not understand how come in the torah every time that hashem talks to moshe hashem right and hashem spoke to mosher in order for him to say okay you said that already lemo why your doesn't waste words why every time lemo is to give over the torah is already trying to hinting to you that every time hashem told moshe unless i tell you to say don't say anything why is the torah saying because hashem says unless i tell you you can say it you zip your mouth and when i heard that i was like well that's like hitting the jackpot because they couldn't find a good explanation why the torah keeps saying to the hashem told mosher whatever commandment laymo to give it over genius because hashem says unless i told you don't say anything i told you say it go and say it so we can understand in all different ways how the torah is very particular about our the controlling our mouth controlling the the the words that coming out of our mouth so you know we're talking about a serious and heavy conversations i'll tell you a little bit of a humorous story that there's a famous rebbe his name is rabbi from carlin and there's a story there one time he went on a jersey uh uh a journey and it's like today you fly oh today you take a train so in those days you hire you there's a horse and buggy there's people that was their business they had a horse and a buggy and you can load 10 15 people and you buy a ticket then you can go from point a to point b so he had to go on a journey and he goes on this horse and backing no he's sitting there minding his own business and all the people in the baggie what are you going to do now a journey of 15 hours so they're all talking and talking and gossiping and slandering and so the from kevin says i can't be sitting here this is more shovelly it's him this is uh uh not an appropriate place so what does he do he turns to the driver and he tells him tell me how much does your horse cost he says oh it's a thousand ruble oh i have a horse and i'm worth two thousand rouble and they start talking about horses the it's almost like now you go to somebody who has a car people like you talk to them about cars ooh you know their eyes become bright so he was talking with them about horses and the whole way this horse and that horse and my friend's horse and that horse and the whole way he's talking with him about horses finally when he gets to the destination one of the guy turns around tells him remy i didn't know you're so knowledgeable about horses where do you have all this knowledge about horses he says really i don't know i'm so so knowledgeable about horses but when i came up on the buggy and i heard you talking how you were talking you were killing people with how you're talking so i think it's better if you kill horses so you know the point is is that the any type of talking specifically slandering gossiping is the torah is looking in a very severe way and you know up until now we were talking about the severity of but we started the class not with the gossip or slandering we talked about what's called varim talking that has no importance to it i call it chit chat but the the biblical term is words is coming out of my mouth that has no importance like you meet somebody in the street what do you think of the game last night what do you think of the weather it's nonsense get to the point so now we want to focus on the concept of chit chat of dwarim battalion now when you're looking at the concept because i told you our sages say it's not really a sin if i'm now sitting with you in a coffee shop or whatever and we're just chit-chatting that's not a sin i'm not doing anything valuable with my time but i can't categorize it at our sin so the teachings of kabbalah adds a very uh interesting approach by saying when the man was created when adam roshan was created there's four powerful words hashem blew in his nostrils a living soul okay why is that so significant so if you're reading the torah there are different types of translations the common the the the common one is called unkulus and most of the machine you open the homage you'll have the commentary of rashi even though there are dozens of others and there's uh the translation of umkulus even though there's a few others how does ankurus translate he calls it a spirit the talks that's how he translates it saying in other words that the main power or the main energy i would say may mean power the main power that the individual the human has is speech if the torah says that and the translation says a talking spirit saying in other words what is our most powerful power is speech and really when you're thinking about it that's what separates us from any type of creature that we can talk and we can put letters together and we can put words together so this is the kabbalistic approach to the power that we have is showing to us and teaching to us what's the real problem with that chit chat because if you're saying that we defined already we're done with allah that's bad it's against the torah the torah prohibits you to slander to to to to gossip and so forth here we're talking about chit chat the kabbalistic approach is that speech talking is a power that takes over that it can take over the person itself that is talking about it and that's the problem with chit chat that it takes over you whatever you talk whatever you chit chat eventually it becomes part of your thought if me and you are talking about something oh then i'll think about it and how many times you talk about something with somebody later on you're like i should have said this i should have said that why didn't i say this but more than that if you have a conversation some whatever no topic or no importance it takes over you becomes part of you you're thinking about it that's the talk of the day and people are talking the teachings of kabbalah explains that the power of speech takes over a person that's why i told you before that the hasidic approach is don't call it death and life rather call it quality of life why because when you want good quality of life then you have to guard what you're actually saying because at the end of the day whatever you say will take over you and it will take control over you and that's where you see the hint in the torah the order of how that sarah the legion the leprosy comes because what is this torah says first of all it comes on the house right then it comes on the clothes and then it comes on the person so what is the significance here what is the hint here that when it comes on the house it's uh the outer parts it's nothing to do with me i live in it it belongs to me but it's not on me it's external the torah calls it shulaim like the how do you call it when you drive on a highway you have the side the side of the road not the maiden between the lanes but now shoulder so the tacos that's the shoulder the house is like outside but the the garment is on you that's already the sad is on you and the last is the goof part of you so it starts around you then it becomes on you and worst of all becomes part of you and that teaches us about the severity now interestingly when we're focusing on this chitchat then there's a few great points that our sages bring up one of them is in the book of tanya he explains something very interesting he says that balatania says that talking is a levus is a garment if you learn the book of tanya in the beginning he explains that we have our soul has three garments thought speech and action basically saying that speech is a garment a garment to the soul now what does that mean that a garment i can take off i can garment i can put on saying in other words that i can control what i'm talking if the the the the talking is a garment then i have full control over it i can decide what i'm wearing and when i'm taking it off and what's going to happen with it and if this is the case then i have full control over my speech most people can control what they're saying but in a in a correct way in a correct world i have control over the speech another interesting approach from the same generation is who says something genius he says usually it's kids that learn how to talk and many years later it's the adults they learn how to shut up and he says it should be the other way around first you need to teach the person how to shut up and then you can teach him how to and when to talk and that's really one of the problems of looking at it because most people they know how to talk but they don't know how to close their mouth and it should be the other way around so and again we're constantly talking about all this conversation that leads to nowhere on that our sages explained in the in the talmud interacted with that we have a commandant a commandment we say every day and in kriya might says and talking about words of torah so our sages says what is bam bam is them with them or in them you should speak with them so our senior says what do you mean what what is what is this word i say our sages explain the words that you have permission to speak with so what is the words that i have permission to speak with torah because it says it's talking about torah so our sages teach us these are the words that i have permission to speak you can speak with no limits but that's torah anything else who says you have a permission to speak i didn't give you any permission to speak exactly going back to with martial abandon hashem says i'm giving you permission what to say and what not to say so here the talmud says which is part of the verse in kiachema in the first parasha that i've said you says bam goes and what the torah permitted you to say but anything else who says you have permission to say so i told you not once and not twice i always quote the same mishna of rabban shimon the bishimon uh who says on himself that called all my life i i was raised i was grown around all the sages specifically rabbishimon grew in the house of rabban shimon gamliel uh er rabban gamble sorry who was the he was the head of the sanhedrin just imagine you live in the house of the head of the sanhedrin but what uh influence you get and he says oh all my life i grew around and i didn't find anything good for the body but silence and i called this mishna over and over and over the best thing is silence and you know why because many things that you do in life you're going to regret them some of them you already regret some things you do and you know as you're doing it i'm going to regret that one thing that you cannot regret is silence what are you going to regret you didn't say anything and if you didn't say something at the right time then you always have the option of saying so you're never going to regret silence because what harm will the silence do now i know some will say listen but sometimes you need to say for sure okay i understand it's true there's a time to open your mouth but if you didn't there's nothing to regret because you can open it whenever you want you know in a week basado shem hard to believe we're going to be celebrating pesach i know we didn't have much classes about it but in the last month i'm going through a lot of material say you know i have a very interesting commentary i thought it may be teaching for me maybe if we have time the commentary of the zero shimshon on the haggadah so very interesting it's it's a horror gaddani has his commentary on every part very very wise now then you know the haggadah is not some story it was written by lyanna and in the it says something if you remember there are four kids right the ham the tams the wicked one the smart one the one who does not ask but looking look what it says about the smart one [Music] that's what it says the wise one what does he say read it the other way around you can understand it by you want to know if the person is wise listen to what he says unbelievable genius you want to know if the person is smart or just listen to what he says stupid people talk nonsense wise people don't talk much and what they say is wise and in the in the hagala i saw that the other day i was like this is amazing really the opposite you want to know who's wise listen to what they say so with that said you know we talked about a pretty heavy concept most people don't like hearing how bad they are and that they speak bad and we all fail with lashonara so at least we can finish with something positive and take some positive notes and some not only inspiration but something to apply from this parasha because the parashat to be honest you read the parashat it's depressing oh it's talking about his legions and sarat and it can get depressed from the parasha so i'll tell you a quick story that i i find it one of the most powerful stories in the talmud that there was a great sage it's talking about rabban gamliel who like i told you was the roche of the sanhedrin the head of the great assembly and he had a a worker a slave or whatever you want to call it an assistant but this individual wasn't a jew his name was tabi some say tavi his name was tabi okay i told you a few times stories about tubby there's a story that one time raman gamlil tells him tabi i'm not such in a good mood today i don't know maybe you can go to the market and get me something bitter something not so good and then i'm not in a good mood okay tabby goes to the market comes back and he brings him a tongue of a cow okay a week later rabban gabriel tells him you know tubby today i'm in a great mood why don't you go to the market and bring something sweet so he goes to the market comes back also with the tongue of a cow so tells him what are you bringing me both the times you brought me a tongue of the cow so tabi tells him words of wisdom by saying from this tongue comes good and from this tongue comes bad when it's good there's nothing sweeter than that when it's bad there's nothing worse than that very wise words from tabby so like i told you when you're reading the parashah you can follow to sadness and depression why are you talking to me all this hashanah all the time and all this bad and what you can take from this parashah is what tabby tells you when the tongue is used bad there's nothing worse than that insulting humiliating words can kill words can husband destroy an individual but when the words are positive words words of comfort and words of inspiration and words of just gratitude or whatever there's nothing sweeter than that you can take the speech to any direction he wants so you need to choose to take it knowing the severity of the negative then take it to a positive why why why choose like i told you before when i said that malek says life and death is in the hand of the tongue i understand what the hand represents you have the option you can take it or leave it you can push you can pull you have the choice you have the choice if the use is good or to use it bad you know even rashi if you're looking rashi says also about this whole sarat that you said rashi says from something bad can always come something good how does rashi explain himself he says when the nation of israel went into the land of known and when they spoke they had to demolish the walls now what happened there i'm sure you read the rashi that says then they found treasures in the walls because when they came to conquer the land of israel then there were many different nations settling the the the land and one of the nations is called and they saw the israelites coming so they said okay they'll conquer us let's hide all of our treasures in the wall one day we'll kick them out of their houses or we'll reconquer the land and we'll take all the treasures out of the walls and what is rashi says they came spoke there was sarat on the walls they broke the walls what do you know treasures in the walls gold diamonds rubies and so forth so she says comes a big question now why is it say why does rashi choose to say that amorites but this is the land of known of canaan so why is rashi choosing to say the amorites when there are other nations there so rashi i mean the explanation rash is that yes there are many nations in israel but the amorites how do you say them in hebrew amorim is the same root of the hebrew word lemo to say saying that the amorites represent the power of speaking that the power of speaking can hide in it treasures them in the way the commentary says the power of talking of speeching hidden in it gems is like a rubies gems or all sorts of uh you know when you dig in the ground you find matmon is like a treasure saying in other words that's in the power of speech is cohort gdolin very powerful so when you want to look at the parashat what you can take from that yes you can have the approach by saying i don't want to speak if that's your conclusion great but we have to also understand that in in the power of speaking can be hidden great treasures i can tell now my child one word which is negative and ruin his day and i can tell my child one word of encouragement and make his day or his entire life and so much more so to any person so in the power of speech is hidden a lot a lot of treasures a lot of powers that's really what one wants to take from this parasha yes you can look at the negative approach and then it will keep you negative and in a negative way and looking at it in a in a in a way that hospice alone can cause you sadness depression or but you can look at it well how powerful my words are now take that to what i started saying in the beginning how many times how many times a day a day a week a month you you either speaking nonsense or you're not speaking at all how many times you're just sitting in the bus now today what people do is they put music and they uh you know just pull out a book of tillium and repeal him you're waiting in line you have so much more to read if you just feel these small times these small pockets was just reading like the rabbi that i told you did this you made the seal of the entire shots why with these moments these dead moments that you're just sitting and doing nothing you just need to start a a getting yourself used to that you have a free moment you don't just stand right away you pull something out of your pocket then you read and if you take on yourself to say you know what i'm going to try to read a book of thielim every month from these moments you see how much you can do or you're saying i want to read a whole tractate or a certain book and today you know this everything has these little booklets what we need to summarize from that is taking that these so many moments in our day that are filled with nothing you have to turn it around and fill it with something positive that every free moment that you have then you do something positive especially with the power of speech reading reciting memorizing and so forth and needless to say that exactly what rashi says that in the power ko then in the power of speaking you find treasures and gems of gold with everything that you say you just need to find the right things to say at the right time and at the right moment you'll see how benefit will the benefit from all your little talking positive and exactly like we say vidibar tabam whatever hashem allows you to talk which is divided then utilize it then one day you'll find and you'll see in the world to come all these treasures of gold of all these little words that you were saying