Text-Based Tanya Class—Week #50

all right weekly Tanya text-based class we are in chapter 30. very good we started Chapter 30 last week we're speaking about humility about being humble being humble before every person our sages and join us be humble before everyone and the altariba asks is this just like a figure of speech act as if you were humbled by everyone but really in truth you know you're better than them but you're not gonna you're not going to act that way you're gonna act humble or does it literally mean to be humbled before everyone to look at everyone even people who at first glance are not doing very well spiritually and to say wow that guy is really he puts me to shame wow what do you mean he he puts himself to shame he's he's not behaving the way he's supposed to behave and you're supposed to feel humble before him so uh the alphabet says yes you know why I'm just revealing what we said last week because it's not about the performance it's about the effort so somebody could be performing on a high level or even a perfect level he's abandoning and another person performing on a an abysmal level but he's actually putting out is he's failing 90 99 of the time but the effort that it took him to fail 99 of the time is greater than the effort that it takes you to succeed a hundred percent of the time that's how we explained it so you could be humbled before this guy and say wow that guy has a much more intense struggle than I have even though the output if you compare the output you're doing great he's doing really poorly but that's not what we're comparing we're comparing how much the internal struggle is uh how much we're engaged in the internal struggle okay so last week the end of the class out that we made a little pivot to a little logical pivot and he said what's the difference between positive Commandments and negative Commandments ultimately they're all hashem's will whether you do what Hashem wants you to do or you'd refrain from doing what Hashem doesn't want you to do ultimately it's all the same it's about about hashem's Will and the reason says that is because he might say well hold on a second this guy who I'm trying to feel humbled before his um he he he's he's not doing what he's supposed to be doing and he's doing what he's he's not doing what he's supposed to be doing he's doing what he's not supposed to be doing right okay and me I admit that I may um have areas where I could put forth more effort but they're all in areas of doing more good in other words I'm not sinning this is the person the theoretical person that Tanya's speaking to there's a guy who already is a veining me I'm not sinning I don't I don't do anything I'm not supposed to do sure I could do the good things on a better level but how can you compare it to a guy who's doing stuff he's not supposed to be doing so The Optimist says what's the difference it's all about how surrendered you are to hashem's will so it doesn't matter if it's expressed as adhering to a positive commandment or refraining from violating a negative commandment bottom line is how much effort are you willing to put in for Hashem and so he starts using examples like he says that was the last thing we spoke about Philip davening with intent when you Daven and even you dive in with intent but you dabble with an intent to the point where it he calls it mitsui anafish I remember we we covered that admitsui anafish maybe even I'll just start from that line do you dive into the point of the ringing out of the Soul do you fight with your animal Soul which is blocking your ability to have intent with an intense War well and you engage in this war three times a day your flesh and your soul like we explained later what that means those are two different things the toil of the Flesh and the toil of the Soul we'll explain it later so I won't get into it here because here's the point the ultimate is making anyone who's not at the level of that intense struggle Allah to fight an intense War a dying you haven't come to the level of the intensity of struggle of the guy who has the fiery furnace foreign you haven't come to that level of being totally subjugated to Hashem out of out of great awe of Hashem so just to refresh why we're speaking this way in chapter 29 the previous chapter we were speaking with somebody who was suffering from complacency and we um we read him the Riot Act I should use the right pronouns here I read according to the AL tebra's guidance I read myself the riot act nobody did it to me and I didn't do it to anybody else to uh break the apathy a similar things happening here which is we're trying to break the apathy so in case I thought I could Coast let's say I'm actually abating you already okay and I don't know how many times around learning Tanya it takes before you actually become a baby you know each time you're a little bit closer but let's say even theoretically you got to the point where it's your fourth fifth time through Tanya and you're being in the hour I'm just that's my humor I'm just many of us have learned Tanya many more times than four or five times and we haven't yet completely achieved behavioral Perfection but we're getting there we're getting there we're getting there okay and in general we like to be very supportive in general the vibe here is every little bit should be celebrated but in this immediate context uh we're not being all uh supportive and positive work because we're addressing an issue we're addressing the issue of complacency so a person falls into a rut of complacency we spoke about in the previous chapter how we smashed that through um forcing them to confront the the reality of his situation I left my uh I wanted to look something up could somebody Google something for me I saw something I don't even know why it popped up in a Google search it's a quote from Anton Chekhov the Russian playwright quote from Chekhov and he says something about man will not improve or he will not be better someone get that quote for me I just saw it yesterday I was like wow that's good a man will not become better than he is oh okay okay say it again man will become better when you show him what he is like okay so I don't know why uh Google thought I certainly wasn't Googling for Chekov quotes the other day um but somehow this came up and man will become better when you show him who he is how he is what he is what he's like and I'm sure it's a translation from Russian anyway so I thought wow that's chapter 29. you force yourself to come face to face with your actual spiritual situation and then it causes you to become better we're continuing that same approach here in chapter 30. and we're saying in case you were slipping into apathy and you were resting on your laurels let's stop a second and look at people who at first glance we we deemed to be spiritual failures these are objectively speaking immoral people or they behave very immorally and it's very easy to dismiss them and say well there but for the grace of God go ah you know at least I'm not that guy and what we're saying is Well in the context of trying to smash our apathy um it's probably going to be more productive to say wow I really admire that guy what that scumbag you admire him well not his behaviors no no but um I'm humbled by The Challenge the the intensity of his struggle you know you know how much struggle that guy goes through to not be an even bigger jerk than he is and me my struggling I'm a naturally good guy we all like to think of ourselves as naturally good right how much struggle does it really take you to be a good person you're you're a naturally good person yeah that's right I am yeah okay so then how would you like to start to examine this area of your life as far as the intensity of your struggle all right now he's going to continue and he's going to give us examples of areas where we might struggle more even though we're not doing anything wrong we're perfect we're I mean in theory we're talking to somebody who's already perfect and if you're not even behaviorally perfect then it's only with a Calvin or how much more so this logic applies but even somebody who's achieved behavioral Perfection the the beginning of the Tanya yeah no okay you ask are the examples supposed to generate a sense of humility within us no we've done that we've we've mustered up the the humility feeling now he's going to give us examples of applications where you might direct that humility in other words would you like some suggestions where you might struggle more yeah okay Indian beer because hamazing not just davening three times a day but what about the grace after meals The Colbert hasanen and all blessings that you make on food or other things that you enjoy do do you have intent in other words when you bench I know you bench you're a religious Jew you always bench after you eat bread but do you think about the words do you connect emotionally to what you're saying and all bracos when you make a shahako on water is it perfunctory or do you force yourself to have cavan and when you do any Mitzvah do you do it with kavana and it goes without saying that one of the things you should be monitoring yourself regarding is uh when you do a Mitzvah any Mitzvah whatever it is do you have in mind that you're doing it for the sake of the Mitzvah itself meaning not for any reward that you may accrue but for the inherent value of the mitzvah oh okay so these are these are areas where we might find that we could be struggling a little bit more also learning Toyota I'm sure you're learning Toyota already but what about Leo made Harbor yes what about learning much more than your desire and your will according to your nature and your habituation and to do that to overcome that through waging an intense battle with your body in other words yeah you're learning but you're used to it yeah also saying much more than your nature so it's like now you're going to change your nature well he gives you two examples he says TV say your nature and your habituation so you already did change your nature sort of by default over time you can become accustomed to good things even if it was beyond your nature and he's saying can you push yourself past both of those not only past your nature because maybe you did already just by default over the years you got used to things that you weren't you weren't naturally predisposed to but now but now you are you're it became second nature that's called regulos but could you push yourself past that so a guy doesn't have any problem it's not a Muhammad Summa for him to learn for an hour but if you would learn for two hours that would take not going to say well hold on a second you're comparing me to a guy that for him to open up a safer and not even learn from it once a year is it Muhammad Suma and I learn an hour a day how can you compare me in him well we're not comparing how much time you spend learning we know you learn much more than that guy we're comparing how much you struggle with it this guy has PTSD from Yeshiva and the open is safer to walk into a base message where there are spotting on the wall is a Muhammad Suma okay so tell me when you break a sweat tell me when it becomes as intense for you as it is for him that's all we're saying okay if you only learn a little bit more than your habit your nature that's a a small War that would not yet equate the intensity of the struggle of this guy with the Roaring raging eight Sahara the Michael Russia government this guy when he fails is called the Russia gamor look at the stakes that he's up against this guy is battling his his battle his uh battle line is the line between doing a Mitzvah and doing innovator now you're not that's not your battle line you're you're all you're all mitzvahs but in order to have the same degree of battle that this guy's having when he's fighting himself not to do an Aveda and even if in the end he does the evade it but the struggle that he put into it trying not to do the Aveda for you to have that same level of struggle in your learning he gives the example of learning right now it won't be enough to learn a little bit more than your habit and your nature you'd have to learn a lot more in order to have that level of intense struggle and again he says um what difference does it make if it's go away from evil or do good those are expressions for governor Malik uses him to heal him go away from Evil and do good he says what difference does it make if this guy's struggle is in refraining from sinning and your struggle is in doing more good how can he meets for some either way they're all commandments of the king the singular and unique King Blessed Be he this if this guy were comparing ourselves to no the guy you're comparing yourself to he when he fails he's a Russian government oh got it you're not right because you're doing the right you're fine right but you have to understand when he fails what's at stake he becomes a Russian government okay so that's a real that's a real struggle now when you fail you fail like a very soft failure oh so you benched but you didn't think about all the words so you're not a Russian gamer but what he's doing is he's saying you know what I need you to feel a little bit more intensity here like if you knew the battle line was between abject moral failure and doing the right thing then it becomes more more dramatic more pronounced then all of a sudden you wake up and that's where that guy who we're looking at right now that's where his battle line is your battle line is in the worst case scenario okay so you're bench really fast and you don't think about all the words but he's saying you know what you need to look at that as qualitatively speaking as big of a failure as when that guy fails and becomes a Russian government so do we always have to have a big struggle with that intensity because you always you're going to get to this point where now you are thinking about what you're saying then now you're not struggling anymore because you got to that point so you always have to have an intense struggle like right I mean your question really answers itself I mean you're asking do we always have to have that intensity what about in periods of growth where we actually we achieve it right so you're answering the question obviously these things ebb and flow um you know you remind me an interesting story they do care we we will we know that there is where we learn about in chapter 10 and chapter 11 when we introduce the Russia we say that they're full of guilt so uh yeah they are struggling they're failing but they're struggling but you're saying about when that which used to be a struggle becomes natural or second nature you remind me of a story I heard from toviet Tilden about a guy he knew in Montreal who came from a a secular Jewish Family and the father okay so reptovia knew this bucker and the bakar was his father was a was a pharmacist who was not religious traditional not religious and the but the son became a la Baba and it was full on completely religious completely Hasidic and um so this the father who was a pharmacist and he wanted his son to drop out of Yeshiva and to go to pharmacy school to take over the pharmacy that was like his big dream so he the father to basically complain to the rabba that his son is becoming a a bum like yeah he's on the terror and he was upset about it yeah so it's very interesting what they've ever told him they never told the father and I don't know if that ever told the father anything about his son but the upshot of the rabbit told the father was about the father's own yiddishkite he told the father that you should do every Mitzvah that you're comfortable with and one Mitzvah that you're uncomfortable with and that's it that's all you should do whatever it says you're comfortable with obviously why wouldn't you do them you're comfortable with them so do them and whatever and then pick one miss one mix with that you're uncomfortable with and just do that one one mystery you're uncomfortable with such I mean it's brilliant so what happened what do you what do you suppose happened because the Mitzvah that was uncomfortable eventually became comfortable so then it went into the category of mits was uncomfortable with so he had to pick a new uncomfortable mitzvah and then he would do that for a while until he was comfortable with it and that went into the category of the comfortable Mitzvahs was also very compassionate of course but compassion and the Ingenuity of it go hand in hand it's just such profound insight into into the human psyche basically you have to have a degree of struggle how much struggle okay that's that's a question for a spiritual guide to figure out what's appropriate for each person um but the point is the tension of that struggle ultimately resolves itself and then you have to renew it by creating new tension so to answer your question yeah obviously this thing is going to ebb and flow it's not perfectly linear there are going to be times where that which was uncomfortable becomes comfortable and then we're gonna have to reassess okay so he was saying what difference does it make if it's a positive or A negative commandment what does it matter if it's and this applies to all Mitzvahs but especially to monetary mitzvahs now he's getting personal telling me to bench with more kavan uh that's one thing now he's touching my pocketbook s like the Aveda he calls it a Vitas Docker not just the myth of tadaka but Aveda sets DACA the work of giving to DACA and the like how much are you pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone I recorded a podcast yesterday with a friend of mine um so a friend of mine Ellie Nash he lives in Florida now he grew up in Crown Heights he I'll tell you how I started the podcast uh I said them you have spoken vocally all over the world about two issues that most people are terrified to speak about to acknowledge they they exist let alone to personally identify with spoke about surviving childhood sexual abuse and he spoke about addiction to pornography and that you have no problem with this but the one issue that you always get scared to mention anytime I ask you about it is money like you're very Coy about money so I said could we try to break through that he's like yes I'm definitely you know I'm up for that type of experience let's try to break through whatever the the hesitations are about talking about money so I said listen you gave away a million dollars of DACA before you turned 25. that's a known thing it was a public thing he made a goal he's going to give away a million dollars before he turns 25 and he did it okay how much did he make I don't know but you do the math right so I was like talk to me about money like what's what could you tell us as somebody who gave away a million dollars before you're 25 like what he tells my money so he said a lot of good stuff but one thing he said that really I don't know I just found it it resonated with me he said um when you're giving try to add a zero I said a zero that means ten times as much you're saying give 10 times as much so he said no I don't mean you're total giving I mean the size of one-time gifts that you're comfortable giving so if you're normally comfortable if your comfort zone ends at let's say I could give a thousand dollar gift so try to at least once at least once try to give a ten thousand dollar gift and if you're able you're comfortable with giving a ten thousand dollar gift and at least once push yourself to do a hundred thousand dollar gift and uh I actually I asked him where's your comfort zone right now he told me seven figures is I'm I'm not comfortable like he said I worked my way up and I could do a six figure gift but seven I'm still afraid of but that's on the that's on the aspirational list at any rate it's meaning he never he never gave a million dollars in one shot he's given millions of dollars over the years but he never gave a million dollars in one shot so that's like the next breakthrough is to give a million dollar gift in one shot at any rate um I don't know if he was basing it on chapter 30 of Tanya or not but this is what it's saying right here that there has to be a struggle and it has to be a struggle that's equal to the intensity of struggle of this guy who has this raging eight zahata there has to be a struggle when you're when you're giving stuck up so to give and to give generous generously is one thing and maybe that's the Mitzvah maybe that's what he's saying avedis has DACA as opposed to mits facets Dhaka you give mice or you're good you're good but then there's an Avida there's a work of actually creating tension through your giving so I don't know if like Ellie said out of zero I'm I'm not that was just his thing and then apparently it worked for him because he got himself up to it worked for him but um I'm not saying that's the number although it makes a lot of sense um but what the alternative is describing is to ask yourself when you gift DACA is it as painful and difficult for you as it is when this moral failure is struggling not to do another egregious sin just a question to ask ourselves okay let's continue here now until this point we were saying you could do better in the good stuff and we weren't digging into doing less of the bad stuff because we're just saying no you're probably not doing anything bad but you could do more of the good but now he says as long as we're digging even in areas of going away from evil is every intelligent person you have to be intelligent but every intelligent person will be able to find that he's not completely entirely he's not entirely completely holy uh going away from evil s is your effort in getting away from evil stuff as intense as the effort of the of the Muhammad Suma that this other guy is putting forth in other words we're not accusing you of sinning we know you're not sinning but when you're avoiding sin is your degree of effort in distancing yourself from even the possibility of sin as intense as the struggle of this guy who ends up sinning we we could all I think we could all relate to the idea of being comfortable to a certain point that we think is safe you know like when you go to the subway and there's that yellow line and you don't stand beyond the yellow line because then you're too close to the subway car but uh do you have to go right up to the line you know would it hurt if you go to the subway with your kids you don't let them go up to the line you say kids sit sit back on the bench stand by the wall so all of us could also ask even in sumera even a banani could ask himself in sumera yeah I know I'm not doing actual evaders but to what extent do I wage a battle to distance myself even further even from the possibility of Temptation perspective to either measure the other person's struggle or or put ourselves try to put try to put yourself in his position and imagine it because remember this isn't really your judgment of the person isn't really relevant like you're not going to do anything with this judgment um it's not really even about that other guy it's it's a barometer for ourselves so it's a theoretical judgment it's an imaginary judgment it's not even I don't want to use the word judgment because judgment sounds like we're being judgmental and it's the exact opposite it's it's like a an assessment an assessment it's it's a I think you should put yourself in their shoes right right so imagine you were this guy and yeah if you were this guy you'd be a lot less from but maybe you'd be a lot more engaged in your moral struggle in other words there are two scenarios that a guy who's not doing good stuff but his struggle to be as bad as he is and not even worse is an intense struggle and then there's another person which ostensibly the person reading Tanya identifies with this uh category of a person who's generally doing good stuff but it's autopilot I would say even more than that not only if we struggled to that degree we could be on a higher level but struggling on struggling to that degree is the higher level in other words it's not just about the behaviors that the struggle would produce it's the inherent value of that struggle right so it doesn't mean that we're judged differently I don't know it's really not about judgment here yeah but that's not really the point here the remember the point that we started in chapter 26. chapter 26 we were troubleshooting various sources of emotional dysfunction so things that make us sad uh things that make us feel shame and guilt that distract us from serving Hashem properly now we're dealing with the emotional problem called apathy so the whole point here is really to overcome the apathy that's the real don't don't lose sight of of the reason why we're having this discussion in the first place you know to face my guilt that like if I'm struggling more in an area am I going to be judged to see maybe the person who's not struggling yeah but I don't know it's I don't think that's why we should look at it like it's not about how we're being judged this is helping with caricature traits is it this is not this is not about judgment I mean it's not becoming better people it's a it's about becoming alive it's very easy to fall into a pattern where we're doing good things and we're doing enough of the good things that the passion dwindles and we're trying to get back that passion we're trying to get back that feeling so look we don't normally speak this way we normally like a very positive and encouraging but in this immediate context where apathy has become an acute issue so this is one of the ways that we deal with it as it's a little bit of a that's a little bit of uh wake-up call it's a wake-up call yeah the relationship is not a meaningful one let's go through the motions it's not a meaningful relationship right so that's yes that's that's what he says and remember in chapter 29 the previous chapter how does he describe one of the chief symptoms of apathy is that when he's diving he's not feeling anything okay meaning like you're calling it you're in a relationship but you're not having that emotional connection so he's in a relationship with Hashem and he's even doing what Hashem wants him to do and and the passion is gone and it's it's that it's not a luxury that's not a it's not a triviality uh the having that passion is is part and parcel of our relationship with Hashem it's essential it's essential to the to the relationship so we're trying to recapture it in a case where it's um where that has become a problem and this is one of the ways is we give ourselves this somewhat harsh wake-up call okay let's continue here he gives another example of intense struggles that even uh overall really good guy might be able to find an opportunity to exercise in day-to-day life cagone for example um to stop in the middle of a pleasant conversation or a story that doesn't reflect well on someone else now you're going to say well hold on that's an evader that's Lush and harder no we're not even talking about full-fledged Lush and harder and then that that would be obvious even something that is a very minor disparagement even though it's true even if the reason is to exonerate oneself Ahmed as is known from that witch Rabbi shiman said to his father foreign I didn't write it there was a document in based in the rabbinical court that had some sloppiness to it and Nasi was asking hey what's up with this document it's got problems and so his son shiman said I didn't write it Judah the tailor who's one of the other sages he wrote it like don't ask me I didn't write it ask your hood of the tailor he wrote it and rebby said to his son desist from your Lush and harder he didn't mean actual Lush he meant on your level go look in the beginning of chapter 10 above ambassador government and there are many examples that are similar to this that you could go and figure out things that are really not technically prohibited but if you were Vigilant and you were waging that intense battle then you would be able to uh find the motivation to be scrupulous even about those things that are beyond the letter of the law obituary now he's upping the ante and especially in areas where you could sanctify yourself regarding your relationship with permissible things so now we're talking about things that are entirely permissible there's no prohibition or even um nearing or approaching the risk of transgressing a Prohibition it's all about totally permissible stuff but he says that's actually a Biblical obligation is a Biblical obligation foreign like it says you should be holy make yourselves holy so what does that mean that means do you have Muhammad Suma when it comes to do I really need to have a second scoop of ice cream I had one scoop of ice cream I really need a sec is this a Vedas Hashem am I glorifying God by having a second scoop of ice cream no but I really want it and it would be intensely um it would it would it would be intensely Troublesome to force myself not to have the second scoop of ice cream and we say well yeah great so there's a guy who's a moral failure and he's intensely struggling okay so he's struggling with serious serious sins and you're struggling with the second scoop of ice cream but what does it matter what the struggle is the question is how much struggle is there like yeah okay the gun the gam Diva itself and by the way rabbinical stuff is more calmer it's more uh egregious even than biblical stuff we know that the palace guards shoot first the king can pardon you if you bum rush the palace if you manage to make it to the throne room this is the muscle that has I'll give that if you manage to get to the throne room the king can decide ah don't bother him let him go I don't know he's just he's some wacko just let him go but the palace guards don't have that discretion the palace guards have to shoot these are all things that people uh trounce upon underfoot vigam naisuke and they become as if they were permissible through through just doing them over and over becoming used to them there's a saying from our sages that if a person sins twice it only takes twice it becomes as if it's excusable you'll you lose the sensitivity and it's like okay I don't know is it really is such a problem I don't know I do it all the time so he's saying there's a lot of stuff they're not actual evaders but they are things that you could do better and because we're so used to not doing them in the better way it just becomes very easy for us to to behave callously is foreign how to learn a little bit not saying a talmud he's not a scholar but a guy who knows how to learn someone comes to a a weekly Tanya Shear maybe and somebody who holds on to the Toyota of Hashem and who desires closeness to God so we're talking about a person who is in the game someone who does value spiritual growth and doing Mitzvahs and learning Toyota so if that's who you are then God will of thy name minase then your sin is too great to bear subjectively speaking your sin is doubly great double and redoubled great um why don't you fight such an intense battle like the battle that we've described that the other guy fights foreign the the wanton Sinners those people who sit out on the corner all day and who are very far from the service of Hashem and his Torah in other words we're flipping the whole argument you're saying that guy he hangs out on the corners all day he's a total bum he doesn't care you never see him in shul he never goes to a base murder she's hanging out on the corn hanging out in the pool hall with the riffraff that guy's a bum and I'm a good Jew and we say yeah exactly that's an argument to the reverse of what you're trying to say because this guy is uh whatever you know he calls him I'll use that to him kalsha McCallum so what do you expect from him but you you do care about this stuff you do value spiritual growth you do value Toyota Mitzvahs so I would think based on what you yourself care about you would be struggling a little bit more so he flips the whole thing on us and remember I'll just say again the disclaimer this is not the typical way that we speak to ourselves but when we need to do this to nudge ourselves out of our complacency then yes we do speak to ourselves this way uh yeah those Sinners their sin is their guilt is not so great but mashem when they don't conquer their inclination which is burning like a furnace they don't overcome their their their it's ahada because I mean if they were to overcome it would be because of fear of God who sees and understands all and they're not able to do that and it's and and we're not saying what they're doing is okay we're not excusing it we're just saying or we're explaining it we're not excusing it we're explaining it we're saying they're doing wrong but there's like the objective black and white binary categories is it right or is it wrong okay it's wrong but then there's the nuanced qualitative subjective assessment yeah how wrong it's sort of like there's the verdict and there's the sentencing the verdict is the guy's guilty he did it but when it comes to sentencing your honor look at this guy's situation look at his background look at and and he didn't even know what he was doing and somebody talked him into it and okay whatever and you give the whole uh mitigating circumstances and so even though the guy is guilty we're not saying he's not guilty he's not saying he's not guilty but we can go light on him in the sentencing and again the point of this is not teaching us to be tolerant and non-judgmental I just want to repeat that the point of this chapter is not about refraining from judging others it's not the point here it may emerge from from this chapter that that's also a good thing but and it is a good thing but that's not the point here the point here is motivating ourselves and you can motivate yourself by saying you know a guy who's failing but his overall situation is sort of it's it's not a thriving spiritual situation but me who I do care about this stuff and I have endeavored to put myself into more positive uh situations I got to ask myself how hard do I work how hard do I fight okay so his this guy this Khal shabakalam his sin his his guilt for his sin is not as intense it's not as bad as the guilt of somebody who's close to Hashem and his Torah and his service foreign like the sages said about the sage who later was known as akhar his real name was Alicia but then he became known as akhar as an other yeah Alicia benavoya and he came back from Out of Body Experience and he basically uh renounced his faith so it says about him his sin is all the more egregious because he knew my glory Hashem says so we're not calling you an acher but what we are saying is you know better you know better result that's why the sages say when it comes to the Amish the the ignorant unlettered masses that even their wanton sins are reckoned as unintentional sins it goes down a notch because what do they really understand do they really grasp the gravity of what a sin is so it's as if it were unintentional it's as if it were inadvertent because they don't even when they know what they're doing they don't know what they're doing however the way we need to look at ourselves is we know what we're doing We Know Better and even if we're doing everything right how much struggle goes into that okay so just again to remind you this is not a way that I want you to look at yourself on a day-to-day basis I don't want you to wake up everyone and say I'm so wretched I'm not struggling I don't sweat when I say beer kosamazine I'm worse than the biggest scumbag on Earth I don't want you to do that on a daily basis but when you feel when you feel what what would be a reason that you would do this when you're when you're sensing apathy when you're sensing a lack of uh zest where the passion has dwindled you may need to muster up some new motivation through this method although as I told you in chapter 29 there are other methods as well which maybe even more effective in our particular generation but this is a method it's at least it's good for us to know about it