An end to TOXIC shame | (Parshas Terumah)

we're going to talk about the self-esteem and the opposite of self-esteem which is shame and how the Torah shows us the path to getting over our self-consciousness and feeling great about ourselves but first the joke that no one's no one's going to laugh at there was once a chicken and a cow walking down the street and they saw a restaurant and in in front of the restaurant there was a sign that said breakfast special steak and eggs so the chicken says to the cow hey cow we're famous look steak and eggs that's us I I the chicken says I make the eggs and you Kyle you make the steak and the steak says yeah but um I think it's a little bit different for you and I and the chicken says how so mistake the cow pre-stake cow which is called a cow the cow says the chicken well chicken for you it's a donation for me it's a commitment okay so uh yeah because you know the chicken can give eggs and continue living once the steak once the cow becomes a steak doesn't become a cow again so it's a pretty big commitment and anyway why am I talking about this um there were 15 and I'll call ingredients what are they called materials building materials that you use ingredients as if you're baking a cake when they melt when they made the mishkan the sanctuary in the desert um there were 15 building materials um gold and silver and copper and that kind of stuff but then there were also some more uh unconventional building materials like uh the goat skins I don't think you get that at Home Depot goatskins at Home Depot um and then there was something really really offbeat called the tahash skins and what's attack I can't even translate the word tahash in fact there is no legitimate English translation because I'm going to explain to you why tells us was a many colored animal it had multi-colors to its coat vibrant coat very very beautiful to to behold it was also huge it was like a big animal I think it was it says it was 30 almost long um it's big it's like a three-point shot so um and and it had had this gorgeous coat it had a single horn had a horn that's why some people translate it as a unicorn that's not a unicorn at least not like a horse-like unicorn um they just call it a unicorn because it has one horn so they're like oh unicorn but for that matter you could translate it as rhinoceros and be equally as incorrect by the way do you know that like a rhinoceros my speed is my speed is prosperous you could decode what that means there's no way you get that reference there's no way you know good okay okay I stumped you finally with a reference okay like a rhinoceros my speed is prosperous I don't even know what that meant the first time let alone as a reference okay the tahrash was this many colored giant animal oh and and according to some of our sages was a kosher animal some say it became kosher at that time I didn't it wasn't always kosher but at any rate so imagine this massive kosher animal with this vibrant gorgeous uh skin with one horn and that's what a tahash is but here's the deal here's why there's no valid English translation for that species is because um it only existed for that time it only existed for that time so when the English language came along a couple thousand years after Moses was in the desert with the Israelites the the there were there was no takash anymore to have a word for it so at that point all these other languages just made up words for it sometimes people do say unicorn but it's totally arbitrary it's not a unicorn um now what may horrify you if you're not connecting the dots and normally if this weren't the point of this class I would just leave this some sometimes as a rabbi you say things that are dangerous and you're terrified people are going to connect the dots and you just are so relieved when you speak quickly enough that you can move on to the next subject without anyone asking but this actually is the main point of the class where it's a preliminary to the main point of the class so I'm going to say it if you put two and two together and you realize that the Jews in the in the wilderness used this tahash hide as part of the decor of the sanctuary and I told you that it only existed for that time and then that afterwards then basically it kind of implies and this is not something people like to hear nowadays that they were basically hunted into Extinction so they were used for this and then they disappeared that was it um when I moved into my new house I mean a couple years ago already but I found some ivory and uh Whatchamacallit I asked the the former owner like you want to say I don't know I don't even know where it came from no I do whatever you want with it so I called uh what's it called a what are those pawn shop and the guy was like dude don't bring your Ivory in here I can't yeah I don't want I don't need that kind of heat and I found out it's illegal to buy and sell ivory unless you have really really clear documentation that it's from it's old Ivory but if you don't have clear documentation nobody wants to touch it why because they were hunting the the elephants into extinction because people wanted the ivory so apparently in the desert the Jews hunted the tahash into Extinction and yeah so that's the elephant in the room no pun intended that's the takash in the room I bought my friend an elephant first birthday he told me thank you I said don't mention it foreign don't mention the elephant in the room okay at any rate we'll edit in a laugh track afterwards okay um yeah so the takash was hunted to an into Extinction apparently uh what's the deal with that now also since I brought it up you should understand the Jewish law is exceedingly careful about respecting all life including animal life we would never waste the life of a single animal let alone of an entire species uh there's a story that's told about the belshamtov before the balship was revealed as the the leader of the Hasidic movement he was a hidden side that could sadik nister and he had various different occupations one of them he worked as a ritual slaughterer as a sheikhat at any rate there was a story that one time a Jew sent his non-jewish attendant to bring a chicken to the balshamtov to slaughter and the non-jewish attendant came back to the Jewish employer holding the chicken very much alive so the the Jew asked the non-jew I brought I told you to bring this chicken to the to slaughter the chicken you bring it home alive why is it alive so the non-jew said the new the the he's said the the new slaughterer is no good oh right the balsham had been the slaughter in that town and then he left his post he moved on he was always traveling so a new slaughterer came and replaced him so now the nanju comes back to the employer sent him and said no way I'm not letting the new guy Slaughter the chicken so the Jew said why not he said well the old guy israelic that's how he referred to the bachem called him down to earth guy so they called me through it so the the nanju tells the Jewish employer he says well I can't let this new guy Slaughter the chicken the old guy you throw like um he was totally different so how was he different I'm really butchering the story no pun intended but at any rate slaughtering and butchering it okay the nanju actually went to the guy the new slaughterer and you know there's a thing you have to pour water on the knife before you shout so he's like ah give me the chicken back I'm not gonna let you shuck this chicken so the juice the Jewish slaughterer says to the non Julie what do you you don't know Jewish laws of Slaughter why he says no I know what you're doing is not good he's like but that's what it says in you got to pour water on the knife before you shut them makes it smoother so it's more painless for the animal and so I'm pouring water on the on the knife and the non-jew said nah but you're doing it wrong the old guy you throw it meaning the belshant of when he would make the knife wet he would wet it with his tears he would look at the chicken that he had to slaughter and he would start crying that he has to take the life of the chicken and he would cry so much the tears would go on the knife and only when the knife was completely wet with his tears then he would Slaughter you're not doing it you're not crying at all give me the chicken back at any rate the point is obviously we don't take lightly animal life so there really is something here to discuss like why was there this weird species that essentially was completely used up only for this project and uh cease to exist okay um and we are going to talk about self-esteem and shame and shame and self-esteem remember I said that there's no adequate translation of this word tahash in English or in any other language what I want to share with you is that even in Aramaic classical Aramaic there's no adequate translation there's an entire translation of the Bible which is considered canonical and it's in its Authority it's called the targamunculus and it was composed by a Roman convert to Judaism two thousand years ago and uncles Aramaic translation of the Bible appears in most kumashim and most books of the Hebrew Bible it appears side by side in the margins albeit in the margins but side by side with the original uh Hebrew text that's how official and authoritative it is considered and um the way that it translates this word um is it makes up a word it makes up a word because there is no Aramaic word for it because again by the time people spoke Aramaic Aramaic to us as an ancient language but it's not as ancient as the biblical time so by the time people were speaking Aramaic there was no takash anymore they were all gone and uh so uncles had to make up an Aramaic word for the takash in fact Rashi refers to it I'm just looking here Exodus 25 5. um uh hey uh and the word uh takashim which is the plural for tahash so it says this is Rashi I'm reading from Russia's commentary mean it's a species of of animal it only existed at that time the Arabic it had many uh colors therefore miturgum it's translated as SAS going on saskoina is a it's not a real translation it's a it's a it's a description in Aramaic of the defining feature of the tahash he explains what saskan is sauce means it rejoiced um and it was proud in its colors gavon in our colors so Sasuke sauce it rejoiced with what the governing with its colors it rejoiced in its colors it's not a real translation it's just using Aramaic words to describe something that was sort of a Hallmark of this of this species it rejoiced in its colors okay so what does it mean now we're getting a little bit closer okay I'm not a very good doctor you're correct so sasukeina the Aramaic is with two samas so sauce is with two sins so sin sin is sauce but very often very good in Aramaic a lot of were a lot a lot of letters are changed when they're changed from Hebrew to Aramaic so fanatically it's the same thing so 100 although even in Hebrew itself sometimes a sin will be used uh interchangeably with a samach for instance some of the the uh the samach lines will be a a sin because it could be because it could be used interchangeably because they're fanatically interchangeable excellent question okay at any rate we're getting closer to the clue here uh of what this has to do with self-esteem and with with self-love and the opposite of Shame and the opposite of self-consciousness because here we have this animal foreign in fact not only it was happy but Rashi says um it was proud it was happy and proud of its colors okay so at any rate how can I be happy and proud of my I don't know if it's colors but whatever my features are the saskoina was happy and proud of its qualities how can I be happy and proud of my quality all of us have different qualities right so here's the deal remember that horrific thing that we mentioned how this was hunted into Extinction okay so I'm not telling you to do this at home I'm just telling you a historical fact that's what happened and now that it happened let me tell you what we can learn from it what is the source of Shame I'm going to Define shame as the instinctive guilt that we feel when we misappropriate God's gifts the first instance of shame that we know of as recorded in the Torah was immediately after the Das eating from the Tree of knowledge and Adam and Eve instantly were ashamed of their nakedness they were naked before while all of a sudden did it have these shameful implications so what happened is they gained knowledge what kind of knowledge knowledge they gained the life hack that you could use these body parts for personal ulterior motives they had no clue before the Reba once said that before the sin of treating is a sin of eating from the Tree of knowledge Adam and Eve would be no more self-conscious of their genitals than someone is of the arm upon which he wraps to fill in other words it's just the body part that you use for a Mitzvah why would anyone be embarrassed of that what happened when they ate from the Tree of knowledge so all of a sudden their eyes were opened and they were aware that in addition to its god-given purpose you could use it for other purposes and even if you don't use it for other purposes just the awareness that it could be misappropriated causes shame I just did a fundraiser last week and I tried to raise a lot of money I did raise a lot of money wasn't the goal that I set but we raised a bunch of money for soulwords and you could still give by the way it's still open I want to tell you the biggest psychological blockage to fundraising is self-consciousness because when you're not confident it's repellent people like why do you want money you feel funny about taking money I feel even funnier about giving it to you and really the key in fundraising is when you feel guilty that you don't deserve the money that you may not spend the money well that shows and people run even if you don't say those words they can feel it they can smell it but when you realize that the money will do well it will be used properly when you have it then you become Shameless Shameless isn't the right word because it sounds like you should have shame but you don't you become shame free that's a better word because you realize I'm not going to misappropriate these funds I'm actually going to use these funds for the purpose they were created and then you have you're confident and you can ask for money and people actually want to give you money and just like you feel confident about it they feel confident about it everybody's happy and everyone gets to do a mitzvah but the point of bringing out is where does the shame come from the shame comes from the fear of misappropriating God's gifts if I think God gave me money and I know that money is supposed to be used to make the world the whole of your place but I also am thinking well maybe you know I'll uh go buy some candy um that self-consciousness is shame and similarly with anything that you have um if you have something whether it's a talent you know maybe maybe you're good at doing something or maybe it's uh maybe it's a a resource that you have something you have a big house so you have a nice car or whatever it is or or maybe it's the it's a physical attribute maybe you have you maybe you have a wonderful physical uh attribute that that is considered aesthetically uh very desirable even something like that there's a way of experiencing shame with it and and being shame free with it what's the difference if you're a human being if you're descended from Adam and Eve the difference is when that thing in your life is only being used for the purpose that it was designed for meaning if it's in the world then it has a god-given purpose if you're using it only for the purpose that God gave it there's no shame involved it's like before the sin of the tree of knowledge but if there's in the back your mind this this thought that well yeah I know God gave me this Talent this resource this ability this uh potential this opportunity this whatever in order to glorify him but yeah technically on the side I could get a little bit of personal gain out of it as well so that awareness itself is what creates the shame oh as opposed to knowing that any gift I have is being used to glorify God then it's the opposite of Shame there's Pride and then you can go out and you can be awesome at things you even draw attention for being awesome at things and get compliments about it and there's none of that awkward self-consciousness it's like yeah sure keep complimenting me you're not complimenting me you're complimenting the maker who designed this this wonderful thing and who's getting maximum usage out of it so that's really what it comes down to is that when you you know think about the things that are gifts that you have in your life whatever they are we all have gifts even people with problems we all have problems we all have gifts we all have blessings think about the things that you're good at or you're known for whether it's a skill or a talent a skill as something more that you develop the town something where you were born with but either way uh if whether it's something that you you own maybe you have a really cool uh uh Cottage on the lake up Upstate I don't know whatever it is think about if these things or maybe it's a physical feature think about these things and think about whether they're a source of of self-consciousness or a source of healthy self-esteem and if you think about each one of those um you'll probably realize that that and it's not binary it's not black and white it's not all or nothing but the degree to which any of these gifts we experience them as a source of self-esteem or the degree to which conversely we experience them as a source of Shame and self-consciousness is going to directly be based on how well we are using that gift only to glorify God so if you have that cool Cottage Upstate on the on the lake and you're using it for foolishness or things that you don't want to exactly write home about the things that are you know that you're not so proud of then yeah of course it's embarrassing it doesn't even have to be so grub it doesn't have to be that course it doesn't have to be like you're using it to do crazy stuff it could just be you're using it in a way it's not very mindful it's not uplifting it's just sort of uh you're wasting your time there so yeah it would be a source of Shame and that's why people ask you oh how much you pay for that Cottage oh no really uh it was a short sale or whatever somebody gave it to me I don't know they just I don't even know what it's worth meanwhile I go on Zillow and say that guy has a five million dollar Cottage upstick and my house isn't even worth that okay so but if you're using it for cool stuff like to host a soul words Community shabbaton let's say there's probably a guy out there with a 10 million dollar lake house Upstate and you want to stop feeling shameful about it you should host the soul words and if that's the kind of stuff you're using it for then what's the shame in it it's beautiful um a related idea a related idea there's a concept of iron hotter einhardt people give it all types of weird explanations that are tantamount to lahavda to Voodoo let me explain to you what actual einhada is ironhora is actually the residual externalized effects of your own shame and self-consciousness because it's not having something nice and somebody noticing it that want that and then them coveting and wanting it that hurts you why would that hurt you so that's their Aveda that's their sin that they're coveting your stuff what it is is when you yourself know that you feel self-conscious about this thing and you don't really know if you deserve it and you're not sure if you're using it the way that God intended it to be used and that toxicity comes back and then it becomes what we call einhada evil eye and it causes problems okay let me explain to you the clearest illustration of this distinction um there was a there was a stage from the era of the Talman named was physically beautiful the gamotis says if you want to get a picture of beauty said uh take a bunch of pomegranate seeds and place them in a in a silver goblet that was just pulled from the from the silversmith's fire and place it in a window during the golden hour um and put rose petals around the lip and that image will give you a a glimpse a glimmer of the beauty of but it was much more beautiful than that I like that that's poetry there so Rebecca used to sit in front of the women's Mikvah now someone today would sit in front of the woman's Mikvah it would be a different story um yeah don't don't do that that's button would do it he was at Sadiq obviously his intentions were totally pure he wasn't doing it for any any lascivious reasons so but somebody asked him they knew he wasn't doing it for anything you know perverse God forbid but they were like what are you doing here he's like well you know whatever a woman sees when she comes out of the Mikvah it makes an impression on her brain and affects her children so I want the women to see me and then they'll go home and conceive children who are beautiful like me so one of his colleagues told him you got to cut that out again not because they suspected of anything you know inappropriate God forbidden it was a topic but they told him they want him you you are risking an ayanhana an evil eye you're gonna bring evil eye mojo on you you got to stop that so well I'm not too concerned about that because I am from uh I think the tribe of Ephraim uh because there's a Fryman and there's Menasha but I believe he was from Ephraim who are the children of yes of the biblical Joseph and Joseph was blessed by his father Jacob the yid ghoul arrived the sons of uh Joseph were um which means to to multiply like fish feed goes from the Lord Doug means to multiply like fish and Rashi explains multiplying like fish doesn't just mean quantitatively it means qualitatively as well it means just like the fish is swimming underwater and he's protected from the evil eye then so too the descendants of Joseph should be able to multiply and it shouldn't draw any evil eye so that's the story in the talmud should have asked the question says okay that's a great story but the story doesn't make sense because rabi aikenan was saying that he's fish-like in the fact that he goes under the radar he's a descendant of Joseph and they go onto the radar they don't they don't draw any evil eye because they're you know sort of incognito but in the story he was being public like his actions were directly against that and if you say well well maybe because he was he was a descendant of Joseph it means no one would notice him you know they walk by him like an invisible man but then then the story doesn't make sense because the whole point was that the women should see him right you're following so the story doesn't make sense so the debit redefines what Ved gularev means he says um the fish are immune from the ironhada not because they're hidden under the water and you can't see them they're immune from Iron harder because the the signature of a fish is that it's always connected to its Life Source in fact there I spoke about earlier about ritual Slaughter there is no ritual Slaughter of a fish according to halacha the minute a fish is taken out of the water it's already considered slaughtered because a fish needs to be in the water to live therefore a fish represents an entity that is totally attached to its source of Life the fish cannot leave its source of life you know we have the illusion that uh we are ontologically independent We Exist okay maybe God made us at the beginning and we depend on him for a few things here and there you know we send them our Amazon shopping list but well you know basically we exist and we're good in some of our existence we even have improved on on our own and it's such a joke because we're completely dependent on Hashem just like a fish can't come out of the water we cannot come out of so to speak our attachment to God and in the moment that we do we lose our entire existence so a fish represents the awareness that you cannot leave your source of life and that that ABBA says is why they're immune to the ironhada because the minute you realize that it's all Hashem it's not me if I have a gift whether it's physically beautiful or I have a cool lake house Upstate or I'm good at doing this I'm good at uh I'm a good dancing I'm not I'm a good dancer or you know tap dancing or something I'm not good at that but whatever it is that God gifted you with it's not yours so what are you so self-conscious about golden year said you don't have to be that humble you're not so great but I would say it like this you don't have to be humble because it's not you that's so great the greatness is God's and you're getting to use it and once you realize that then there's no self-consciousness involved at all and then you can go out and do things that are cool and everyone can see you doing that and there's no iron hotter because there's no shame okay so what does it have to do with saskoina the one who is that he rejoiced and was proud of his colors here's the deal I told you this species of animal existed at one time he was hunted into Extinction they were used exclusively for one purpose for the mishkot for the sanctuary in the temple you know the the there's a Madness that says that the world doesn't deserve gold gold was only created in order to be used for the temple to build the temple in Jerusalem but here's the thing gold throughout history has been used for a lot of other stuff as well and I'm not even talking about idolatry like the golden calf I'm saying just neutral stuff stuff that's not not profane but it's not holy either like uh you know there's gold in your computer I think for the for the motherboard the to touch the circuitry there's a little bit of gold in there or a gold filling or there's gold is used for a lot of stuff but gold really is only really supposed to be used for the for the Holy Temple in Jerusalem so then here's the deal gold and and most other materials in the world they have a purpose that they were supposed to be used for and yet how often are they used for that purpose now let's personalize this and let's like make this about ourselves we possess gold I'm saying figuratively we have different gifts we have different resources different stuff that we're good at and it was all given to us exclusively to glorify God but let's be honest how often are we using it for that purpose even if it's 99.9 of the time and then point one percent we misappropriate it there's still going to be that that trace of shame that there's something in my life that really was made only to glorify God and I'm getting sort of personal benefit from it and and and you know you can justify it all you want but you can't you can tell me Rabbi this whole class is is offensive because you're implying that people aren't allowed to enjoy life a little bit go ahead and enjoy it see if it works I'm telling you it doesn't work because when you go and you try to misappropriate God's gift and use it for selfish motives we always end up feeling funny about it and you can self-medicate yourself as much as you want to feel as numb as as you need to to not feel that guilt but the guilt is there and it's there for a reason it's because intuitively we know if we have anything cool if we're able to do anything cool it's only there to glorify glorify God and to the extent that we're doing that exclusively then we feel proud and we feel totally a lack of self-consciousness and we're we don't even mind people seeing us using our talents and our resources because it's all gods but the minute we start siphoning off a little bit of personal payoff that's where the shame comes in and that's where like oh don't talk about it so much uh it's like I don't do you want me to notice you don't want me to notice and I don't even you know when I'm trying to pull personal satisfaction from the gifts that God gave me I myself don't even know the answer to that question like do you want us to notice or you don't want us to notice like you're flaunting it but you're ashamed of it and the answer yeah I know because the whole thing is weird when you're using it for selfish motives the whole thing is weird but when you're using it to serve God then it's clean it's pure there's no Neurosis attached to it there's just pride and joy that's what it is probably enjoy like there's Susquehanna so why did the sasukeina so successfully have this joy and pride and pride and joy uh in its colors Why didn't it have self-consciousness why is it why is it the emblem the the the the very Paragon of a lack of self-consciousness you know why because precisely that shocking thing I said that it was hunted into Extinction it was never misappropriated there were all used just for the holy sanctuary in the desert and that's it not like gold gold has shame gold has been used for things other than the temple the tahash was used exclusively for God's Dwelling Place in this world and therefore it is proud of its colors and it's happy about its colors and that is a lesson for all of us that anything you have in your life if you want to be able to be proud of it if you want to be able to feature it and and be able to take a compliment graciously when people notice it and and and they remark oh that's such a nice list a nice that you do this well you do that well you know how to achieve that is through being a good accountant and just being scrupulous about using all of these things for the right reason for the purpose that they were intended to be used for for the glorification of God just like our friend the takash was able to do that that's the lesson yeah okay anyway anything else that I think all these people here and I think one of them answered 99.9 of the people have died from Mayan horror yeah yeah it is einhardt is a real thing it's just not the way that people present it like why should somebody else being petty be able to hurt me I didn't do anything wrong but the way the dev explains it it's really it's it's my projected shame yeah which means it's avoidable as well and it's not avoidable in the way that people normally think like you know hide your stuff don't let them know about it it's avoidable by by using it for good stuff and the guy out there has that lake house that cool like yeah give me a call yeah yeah but other people don't see it that way don't worry about that it only comes down to how you feel about it at the end of the day yourself Consciousness is the clearest barometer if you're using a talent and you don't feel shame about it it's probably a good indication that you're using it well and if other people make comments it it won't hurt you spiritually and it shouldn't hurt you emotionally shouldn't we got to work on it but maybe with after hearing this whole explanation it'll help you to not care so much about what other people say as long as you know in your heart of hearts you're good with your motives and you can tell your maker that you're using your talents only to glorify him then should feel good no guilt good okay