Spiritual lessons from TREES

it was once a lumberjack company up in Quebec up in you know French Canada and they put out an ad for a new lumberjack and this little giggle shows up and he says I'm here to apply for the new lumberjack position they take a look at him they don't really think he looks like these other you know french-canadian Lumberjacks so they said you have any experience he says yeah I've experienced they say like where where did you work before he says well the Sahara forest they said you mean the Sahara Desert he says oh yeah now Jeff done all the trees okay it's interesting that when we learn that a human being is compared to a tree it's in the context of a prohibition against chopping down trees he automates esada is a is a positive verse impartial chef Tim it's speaking about the laws the rules of engagement in battle and war and it mentions that whereas you are obviously going to have to fight other people combatants from the enemy's side you shouldn't needlessly destroy property he automates Asada you read it rhetorically as Arthur as our sages interpret meaning you know you have to kill the enemy fine but why why are you killing innocent trees and that is actually the root of the halacha prohibition of ball Tosca's against waste wasting something now one of the conditions is that we're talking about fruit bearing trees one must not uproot or damage a fruit bearing tree and in the Gemara our sages interpret this also homiletically the hollow cook meaning is the simple meaning not to destroy a fruit tree or for that matter anything not to waste anything that is useful but there's a homologue homiletic there's a brush there's a moral teaching based on this as well and that is our just tell us about a Torah teacher about a talmud hokum that there are two kinds of teachers there is one that is a fruit bearing tree and you should not uproot him you should receive from him you should learn from this teacher and then there is a Thomas Holcomb there is a teacher who is not a fruit bearing tree he has no fruits you should not learn from him you should uproot him get him out of your life you shouldn't be an influence in your life this is what the the Gemara tells us now what's it talking about what are the fruits or the lack thereof of a teacher you would think those are the teachings but they can't be the teachings because obviously it's saying there are teachers who don't have fruits so you shouldn't listen to their teachings so they have teachings but they don't have fruits so then what are the fruits if not the teachings so to understand this first we have to understand that everything that is in the universe at large exists in microcosm within each of us each one of us is an LM cotton as a as a small world so in the universe we have daivam timaya high we have categories the inanimate or inert the vegetative and the animated or the animal living things and those correspond within each of us to action emotion and intellect how so when you have something that's inert like matter you know a stone what does it possess it really does take up space I mean what what describes it what are its properties it takes up physical space and that's the same thing with action in a person what's an action action is something that happens here in this physical world it's an action now what is a plant or vegetable life it takes up space plus another thing it grows now it grows that corresponds to emotion emotion grow what does it mean a motion gross action doesn't grow action is binary either you did it or you didn't you know like the guy who was on allow it was time for dinner the stewardess said would you care for dinner he says what are the options she said two options you eat or you don't so that an action is binary either you put on tefillin or you didn't that's it two options emotions grow like a plant grows emotions grow meaning it could be love or it could be all but the love can grow to become more intense or the all could grow can become more intense and in fact that's one of the things we do and consider this as we meditate and we enhance or magnify our emotions our offices scheme' your session we try to grow them over time now just like the emotions have something that action doesn't have which corresponds the fact that plant life has something that the inanimate doesn't have there's another level which is the animal which corresponds within us to the intellect which has another layer or level that the previous do don't have so action which corresponds to the inanimate it takes up space it's a physical thing then you have emotion which corresponds to plant life which grows you could have more intense love more intense or what's the additional property or aspect than intellect which corresponds to an animal possesses what can an animal do that a plant can't can move around so a plant can grow but it only grows in one spot it's rooted to its spot intellect can get up and move what does that mean intellect can get up and move emotions are very rooted they stay where they are they can become more intense or less intense rent like a plant grows but they do not move from their spot so that's like you know I know how I feel don't use me with the facts intellect is the exact exact opposite intellect moves around it's it's it's its it hops around it it flips around it's very mobile it's very very agile that's why I like a good lawyer for instance could argue either side of a case in fact not only they could but if they're really good they should be able to understand thoroughly what all the arguments and all the proofs and all the logic from the other side would be or like when we learned Gomorrah when we learned two sides of an issue we don't root for one side it's not like today's political discourse where everything is reduced to basically rooting for a sports team right today politics you know no one's informed about issues sports do so you have an hour by your name or a D by your name you know it's like rooting for a sports team and that's it and you root for the the policies that are associated with the team that you're rooting for not that people actually understand the logic from the other side right like a and a good debate a good political debate not only could you convincingly convey your own argument but if you're really prepared for a debate you could convincingly convey the argument of the opposition and that's the nature of info intellect moves around it's very facile with just moving from the density that's the gift of objectivity also you're not stuck in one place you can see things from different perspectives you can move around okay now what makes a human uniquely human is the intellect that objective intellect that that intellect it's able to see things from other perspectives right an animal also has intellect but its intellect only serves its emotions it's a distinctive emotion so whatever it is that it already cares about so it uses his intellect to figure out how to get those things right but real human intellect is the ability to be rational to be detached somewhat to be objective and to see things from another perspective that's not your own okay abstract thinking cognitive thinking thinking about things that aren't in the here and now you know being able to project into the future being able to imagine something from somebody else's point of view all of that is intellect and that's like an animal that moves around okay so here's the question if I know that action corresponds to the inanimate and emotion corresponds to the vegetative and intellect corresponds to the animal and when I say the word although I'm talking about a human what a human uniquely possesses which is intellect I would want to compared seemingly I would want to compare the intellect not to a tree which is a form of plant life but the metaphor should have been some type of an animal some animal that moves around rather you know maybe a cow Kaneesha which is a muscle that's used for other things you know an eagle that's able to bounce around and move around very very lightly very easily why is it comparing a human and autumn and in fact I'll add to the question we know that there are different names for human being in the holy tongue all of them each gather Ennis happens to be that autumn is the name that specifically talks about intellect each is the name that corresponds to emotions so not only are you saying a human is like a tree which is plant life which is like we said Kabbalistic represents the level of emotion but specifically using the name autumn which underscores the intellect of a human being so why when we're talking about a human being and specifically the intellect of the human being are we using a metaphor which is plant life which corresponds to the emotional aspect of the human and not the intellectual this is the this is the question that said this asks the answer is it was once a guy in a hot-air balloon and he got lost he didn't have a compass didn't have a map he didn't have any navigation tools and he didn't know where he was which is very dangerous obviously you don't know where you are so he was close to the ground maybe about 30 feet off the ground and he saw a guy in a field so he screamed it down below he said hey look up here look up here the guy who looks up he sees the hot-air balloon guy happen the guy in the hot-air balloon says please help me I'm lost do you know where I am so the guy in the ground says yeah you're in a hot-air balloon Sequoyah right says no that's not what I mean I mean where am I like in in association with the earth he says about 30 feet off the ground yeah Chicago pretty good right it's not that's no I I'm in my location my location he says you're about 38 degrees north 12 degrees east the guy in the hot-air balloon says can I ask you a question down there he says yeah he says are you a rabbi yes as well yeah I am a rabbi how do you know I'm a rabbi he says because from the moment that I met you everything you've told me has been a hundred percent accurate and totally irrelevant to my situation there can be a there could be someone who is an expert and they know the truth and it's all true everything they're saying is true and it's accurate but it's irrelevant to your situation tell you a story that I heard from two lush c'n who this is not in his book about the rabbit this is this was a bonus story he told me a story that he heard a from Herbert Winer who wrote nine and a half Mystics nine half mystics Bello has a wonderful chapter about the rabbit Herbert winder was a reformed rabbi who later on became from and he learned at Hebrew University in Jerusalem I think in the 1950s so when he was there there was a class given in Kabbalistic Studies kabbalah class and who gave it was the great professor of Kabbalistic studies Hebrew University Josh and Shalom now if you don't know secular books about Kabbalah so you don't recognize this name but anyone who's familiar with the academic study of Kabbalah meaning the secular study of Kabbalah knows the name Gershom Scholem he was the domain translator and and and elucidate ER of Zohar and all the different Kabbalistic teachings and was was was a genius and an expert in all of them and wasn't particularly religious he didn't really believe in the holiness of the subject that he was an expert in he didn't say this but actually who was once introduced it at an academic conference or somebody said that foolishness is foolishness but the study of foolishness is academic okay so he didn't say it but I'm saying he got up and he spoke after being introduced in such way meaning he didn't regard it there's something holy he just maybe felt it had historical importance to the Jewish people and he became the expert in in Kabbalah at any rate story Herbert winder tells that he was one day sitting in class and this guy came in making trouble abhava chair of course labott sure came in to make trouble who was he actually his name was Payne Avram yahuda cane and he was actually the son of there are dots if you ever heard of they're dots the Hershel chair no govern so he was dove at sea cane he made alia the safe yo murph in the last couple years years of his life he had a son of Romney Hoda cane so any was this of Romney Hoda he comes into Gershenfeld Kabbalistic studies class at Hebrew University and he starts heckling him and he gets up there and he says I have a question for your professor hair professor what is the difference between a business owner and in the count n't all was this have to do with anything he says I'll tell you he says there's an accountant he worked for a business and he spends his days immersed in numbers and every one of those numbers represents a dollar and a penny and he knows exactly to the cent how much money came in today how much money went out today to the penny he knows but at the end of the day he closes his accounting books and he goes home and he doesn't have any of that money it's not his he says the business owner he doesn't check the books every day he doesn't know to a to the penny maybe he checks once a month he knows approximately if there's a lost if there's a profit so he doesn't know he's not like the account he does not know the particulars the nitty-gritty but you want to know the difference it's his money it's all his money he says the professor of Kabbalistic studies is like an accountant he knows every letter of the Zohar he knows where to find everything but he closes the book he goes home it's not his he doesn't bring the treasure with him the closet the closet might not know where everything in Zohar is with him he knows key gothner right because it's in the sitter or if it was a do better Maskull of a minor you know if it's taught in the Hasidic discourse he doesn't matter is not an expert in every in every line of Zohar maybe he knows the racial minutiae the Malka call of a little bit to hear a lot because that's the first opening line but that's about that that's as far as his knowledge goes doesn't matter it's his treasure because he made it his life he takes it seriously he lives according to those teachings so this is what it means when our sages say that if there's a teacher who doesn't have fruits it was like a non fruit-bearing tree uproot them you're rid of him it means there could be somebody who has plenty of teachings because he's an expert but he's not a tree he's not a fruit bearing tree remember we said that plant life the vegetative corresponds to what aspect of humanity the emotional so even when you're dealing with someone whose whole expertise is intellectual he's an he's a he's an intellectual he's a scholar he's a teacher right but what are you looking for you're looking for the person not the smartest person you're looking for the one who connects on an emotional level the person who actually owns what he's teaching and integrates it into his life and that's someone who's like a fruit bearing tree then you can learn from him then you can learn from him so that's one teaching we we learned from the trees another thing if you look outside now just totally different concepts related to Kamisha awesome Bishvat in rosh hashanah elonis if you look outside right now and you look at the trees especially here in new york you don't really see much going on right it's not very interesting to look at the trees right now so why is Kamisha so b'shvat the rosh hashanah the the new year for the trees so we're told and what does it mean it's a new year for the logically has significance this marks the cutoff point logically regarding all the agricultural laws that have to do with trees you know like how many years according to oral log you know first three fruit fruit bearing through first three years of fruit bearing or when it comes to my sir you know which which season is it considered last year and this year so that how long it has significance but what's ago is it some arbitrary date I mean if we look look at the trees now nothing's going on with them so where did they get this date where do they pull this date so I'll tell you when I was a kid growing up in Chicago my mother I should be well and I think she's watching hi I think my mother and father are watching right now they're probably enjoying the mention right now when we were kids she used to bring us to the maple syrup I don't know if you call a farm or but it's like a forest and bunch of maple trees and what they do is they take these metal spikes which are hollow and they nail it into the tree and then they hang a bucket from it and and the SAP comes dripping out and when would they always do this it would always do this in the winter time why why I remember one year I was there and I asked the guy like why we doing why do you always do it now this time here he says well this is when the SAP starts to run SAP starts to run like you know late January early February in other words in the middle of shot this is precisely what our sages tell us that when the wind when the winter begins it shuts down the circulatory system of the tree you know tree is carrying water from its roots up to the leaves so that they can photosynthesize but then that all shuts down when the winter kicks in but then in the middle of the winter there's the before there's a thaw before there's a spring the the circulatory system of the tree comes alive again in the in the in the in the water the SAP starts to flow in the inside of the tree what does this teach us comes from a sauce abyss fat channel alone is an LP Cabala were told to eat from the fruits and to celebrate the fruits seems funny celebrate the fruits when the fruits are ripe we're celebrating fruits when you look at a tree trees don't have fruits forget about having fruits they don't have the blossoms the flowers that turn into the fruits they don't even have the leaves that come before the the flowers there's nothing going on overtly speaking that you can see happening on a tree what's happening it's all inside it's all internal talk quiet and we're celebrating already celebrating the fruits this is a lesson in life a lot of times we're gonna wait until something bears fruits until we see the full payoff of a situation before we're ready to celebrate that's that's the wrong approach in in in Judaism we we learned that the most powerful prayer isn't pleased it's thank you so to say please come on you know it's like when you do this to a person also you know forget about prayer let's talk about interpersonal relationships for a second tell something you want you know on you want to know the best way to get somebody not to do your favor say to them come on be a nice guy Oh what are you saying I'm not a nice guy for good yeah but you go over to someone and they by the way where do they get this from the Alta never says listen look what they Taylor he says hey practice Tasya about about Lashon Hara he says while uh Chantelle works when you speak good about somebody it actually brings out their good he says you go over to somebody and you say come on no you don't go over them something say come on be a nice guy because that's gonna turn them off we go over them say you're a nice guy yeah yeah can you take me to the airport oh okay sure yeah so and he says that's the way we dive until we tell her chef you are a healer of the sick you are one who blesses the years you are one who resurrects the dead at any rate and also in marriage I'm not saying this specifically aimed at women but I am that women are very good at catching their husbands you know it catching them I just thought so I'm gonna say so you could you can catch someone doing the right thing too and even if it's not something monumental it's just something small but when you catch somebody doing something desirable and you label it and you call it out and you're like hey thanks that was nice what happens you have more of the same so instead of waiting for the big fruits to be grown from the tree just wait til there's that little trickle of SAP just the slightest movement the slightest change and you're already showing gratitude it has an amazing power that when you're already thankful when the barely discernible change is happening beneath the surface it opens up the flow for more blessings it's just it's it's a it's a powerful tool in our relationship with Hashem and how we pray and using gratitude instead of being a nudnik and and also in interpersonal relationships you know label positive behaviors call it out thank people and and you get more of the same okay now let's talk about Shiva's homonym the seven species the rebus spoke Amish also b'shvat ocean none 1990 said a sicko about the seven species as they apply to each one of us the seven species with which the land of Israel is blessed also correspond to various different aspects of the human experience we're going to go through them and going to explain how they all relate to our lives okay so to begin with we have wheat and barley okay those are the two grains those are staples those aren't fruits that's not desert that's you know a staple food so that represents the basics what are the basics the wheat and the barley what's the wheat human food what's barley animal fodder at least traditional that's I know a lot of people like barley did it but traditionally it's how it was used so that's the the animal soul and the godly soul or to the country the godly saw the animal the godly soul is what's uniquely human the animal soul is animalistic so the wheat and the barley are the godly soul and the animal soul okay those are the staples that's life itself now you have the fruits the fruits are like the dessert the extra the bonus this is what comes into our lives so if the staples are life itself now here's what comes into our lives five different species five different modes of life or stages of life sometimes that affect each one of us at different times so let's start what's our first of our five fruits our first is grapes yes very good we have you know like matt says air masses ooh la rosa at the at the to say there so we have yeah these grapes water grapes our sages tell us that Nick messiaen it's a site that when wine goes in the secrets come out now on a simple level we all know what that means person gets a little bit intoxicated and they become more liberal with what with what comes out but there's a deeper meaning to that it has to do with the fact that the gamut area of yawning inside are the same yayan is good and you're done so that's 10 and 10 and 50 that's 70 so it is Salman involved in dollars so that's 60 and 6 & 4 again 70 what does that mean that the side is already there in the yawn in fact it's already there in the grape a secret is just a secret from the person who hears it not from the person who knows it already when you reveal a secret it's already something that's known to you the only difference is it's now coming out so the grape doesn't have anything added to it doesn't have to have anything added to it in order to become wine the potential to become wine is there in the grape latent all along and then what happens what is the wine do so it says it gladdens the heart it's messy miss Amaya and it gladdens the heart of man what that means is that joy too operates similarly joy loosens us up joy brings out latent potential sort of like a person who drinks and they act a certain way to say oh that wasn't me no actually that was really you right when when a person drinks that brings out whatever was hidden so if they you know become angry then the anger was there if they become all lovey than living then the loveliness was there okay same thing with simcha simcha is not an emotion unto itself it's an emotion enhancer or intensifier so when a person is Basim everything becomes magnified which is why when you want to accomplish something and you need extra talent more talent than you normally have access to if you're Basilica always had to become more talented it's not that you've got new talent you have the talent all along but whatever you have latent hidden within you when you're Basilica it comes out more so the grapes represent the hidden potential the potential that was always there that was locked in and it comes out when you are full of joy revealing hidden potential that is the first of our five fruits be joyful and tap into your hidden self okay now after we have grapes what do we have we have never sees this yeah see what it is it's a fig does it look like a fig it is a fig what's a fig we know the first mention of fig in the Torah is actually not to mention of it as a fruit but as a leaf fig leaf that Ottoman hava made fig leaves for themselves when they realize that they were naked now from this you can do some Sherlock Holmes investigation and figure something out Rashi tells us why did they use a fig leaf to cover their nakedness because the same fruit that made them aware of their nakedness they went and they used that same tree its leaves to cover their nakedness so from this we can figure out that the eighth's had Oz the Tree of Knowledge was a fig tree so figs represent das knowledge now what's knowledge das knowledge doesn't mean like you know a lot of stuff like oh you can be an editor for Wikipedia now that's not what I mean you can win at Trivial Pursuit that's not what das means that means well you know we have it with aldermen cava autumn yada s cava Adam knew Eve didn't mean that he could pick her out of a lineup which would have been really easy anyways at that time excuse me sir do you gonna identify who your wife is you mean that woman the only one in the world yeah that's her okay that's not what das means das means intense personal connection autumn your desk over to the extent that when that whenever there is this intense personal connection there there is a reproductive act children are born from it what does that mean similar to what we were talking about before about a scholar who's a real scholar has to be emotionally congruent with his teachings in Chapter three of Tonya it says you could have a lot of Hoffman a lot of veena a lot of insight and a lot of ability to ability to explain but if you don't have das the Hoffman Davina will never have children children are emotions your children have intellect their emotions DICE's focus so unless you take the idea seriously and focus and connect to it and make it yours and take ownership make it relevant make it personal it'll just remain intellectual you'll never have an emotional birth from that idea that's what das is das means connecting it deeply so in life what is das mindfulness being totally present being completely connected to whatever it is that you're connected to at this time without any fragmentation without any division there was a story that ever told in Lubavitch the rabbit ashab was saying a minor and before the minor there was something called a negan Hashanah preparatory song the preparatory song had the purpose of priming the room to be ready to receive the revelation of new of new Torah teachings in the in the minor in the Pacific discourse so they were singing the non of the preparatory tune and the students the Tamim him from the yeshiva they were very eager to hear a new minor a new ecstatic discourse so they were rushing the neiguan because they wanted to finish that and get to thee to the lesson so that every shop stopped it and he said the whole purpose of a siddha siz to make somebody apni me panini means an inner person but really what it means is someone who is congruent through and through the panini means having integrity in the true sense of the word integrity being integrated being integrated means your outsides and your insights are aligned so it's not possible that I'm physically present but emotionally I'm checked out yeah it can't be so being a panini means wherever you are you're totally there so they're ever - ops that the whole purpose of Sid this is to make somebody apini me is to make it that wherever you are you're totally there and now you're rushing the song to get to the teachings but we're not at the teachings we're at the song if you're a panini then when you're singing this song there's nothing in the world but the song even though the song is called a preparatory song which implies that it's in order to get to something else now for me there's no such thing wherever you are that's the whole world right now that's it infinity and eternity in every moment now thinking about five minutes from now while it's now that's what it means to be a fig to be a fig means to be present and totally mindful in every moment to be totally there to totally show up for every moment of your life okay now if I'm gonna tell you about the next guy you know what it is I'm about excellent I'm gonna tell you about the next guy about the pomegranate you're gonna say hold on a second you just said the exact opposite with the fig yes that's exactly the purpose in Yiddish always find paradox why does any time you have infinity the only way to really grasp infinity through a finite mind is that to grasp opposites to have two things that seemingly contradict each other you know which is why you know people always make the joke about Old Kent those rabbis ever never agree you have everything in in Torah is a mock likeness yeah there's a reason for that I mean when it comes to halakha you got to pick one way or the other and that's how halacha functions to tell us which one is the socked in but a Louisville ooh give it a like um they're both equally true they're both equally valid perspectives and in order to have infinite wisdom you have to do that you have you can't be locked into one perspective so just like there's the fig you have the pomegranate pomegranate is the exact diametric opposite of the fig what does the fig mean and simple plain English how would you say it took me ten minutes Satan ten seconds what's the fig what be mindful okay you know what the pomegranate means don't worry about that don't worry about it no no I want to get I really want to do this right don't worry about doing right just do it anything worth doing is worth doing Pearl poorly right they say just just get it done no but I really I want to you know the the guy who told they sail with the AL today they told the Alpharetta that he wants to stop giving sadaqa for a while because his qivana isn't so pure since I'm not so I'm not so pure with my my intention when I give to daca so I'm gonna take a break for a while now that ever told them don't worry the poor man who eats from the money you donate his his intentions are pure don't worry well okay a pomegranate is an interesting fruit because you see not only has these different areas in it where the fruit is but each fruit is in its own little capsule it's all in capsule it each fruit is in its own little membrane it's not like you know an apple that once you can't get past the skin it's all Apple through and through each piece of fruit is is separate so what does that show you that shows you that each Mitzvah is separate it didn't become you didn't become integrated with you in fact they didn't even become integrated with each other each one remains it's a separate thing that stands alone which is precisely why why the the Yamato says that Pasha you sir all the wanton sinners among the Jews are Malaya mitzvot screaming are full of it seems like my like Irie man simply because there's a lot of fruit within the remit no the point is not the the comments of it's the a class not the quantity the quality the way that fruit is present within a pomegranate the each one is encapsulated and separate from all the others what does that mean I mean the person who says I'm not congruent with this my mind is elsewhere you know what I don't even like this you know I don't even like coming to shul I don't even like you know I'd rather be at the the ballgame perfect don't worry about it let each good thing you do be a total betrayal of your true self that's fine we're cool with that be a hypocrite in the in the most noble sense there was a youtube video that somebody shared with me about a year ago when there was this famous Jew I mean he wasn't famous for being a Jew by any stretch happens to be though he was Jewish I don't know how many people heard of him or know about him or even realized he was Jewish but there was a there was a food critic food journalist I don't think it covered very much kosher food named Anthony Bourdain anthropoid Dean was Jewish his father was French Canadians mother was Jewish okay and he unfortunately committed suicide there's one episode from his show I think was on CNN but he used to go around and and go to different countries and experience the cuisine there's one episode he goes to Israel and in the Israel episode he goes to the castle and at the castle a lava comes over to him and asks him to put on Philip and he does it and there's this shot where he's standing at the castle in Philip and anyone who knows Anthony Bourdain is like this is a totally incongruent picture and he's narrating it his voiceovers narrating it and he's saying that it's totally incongruent and he's like I don't know like I don't believe in any of this I'm not religious I have no use for religion I have no use for any us he says but these guys that come to you with their love and their warmth and to just pull you in and he goes oh boy the treachery is complete and that blew me away the treachery is what is treachery treachery is betrayal what he's basically saying is this isn't me I don't believe in any of this stuff I reject all of this and yet I'm standing here and I'm doing it I'm betraying myself like I'm not being true to myself and I'm gonna be consistent with myself I'm gonna tell these guys get out of here this is not me I don't do this but he betrayed himself the way that a pomegranate betrays itself it says you know what I'm not gonna wait until my until I'm a fig I'm not gonna wait until it's congruent to me I'm gonna do it even when it seems totally unnatural and totally incongruent and sometimes we got to be like that okay now what comes after the pomegranate do we have next olives okay very good I love having these props this is good I wish we could do this for every class all right what's the olive well the olive is well you know but how does the oil get produced from the olive it's unavoidable what yeah you gotta crush it yeah there's a certain amount of crushing that is good for creativity well we don't look for it we're not masochists you know what the masochist said to the sadist hurt me you know what the sadist said to the masochist no you have to think about that joke anyways we're not masochist we don't go looking for punishment we don't go purposely getting ourselves into a crisis in fact in the morning blessings we say I sure don't bring me to an asylum don't bring me to a test and nevertheless if Hashem should so choose to say yeah but I think I'm going to then that's a chumps choice and if Hashem brings us to a test and a soient is to extract greater powers from us that's why in the Sun which means a test is from the word Nisa which means exalted lifts us up the test list lifts us up and and and really that's the the nature of all of life life is a test and life is challenging a life is hard that's the nature of life is never promised you a rose garden right it's not we're not here to take it easy life is hard you know there was two guys in hell they were talking to each other one said to the other says you know I am seeing how difficult life is sometimes I think it would be better for someone never to have been born and his friend says yeah barrel but how many guys do you know who are lucky like one in a hundred how many guys do you know we're never born right okay okay but if you were born you know the nature of life life is like us tough life is tough and the aleph means embracing the fact that life is tough and that there's something healthy about always striving never arriving remember the old commercials let's see who can remember back to the Avis commercials Avis rent the car they would always say we're number two I think Hertz was number one Avis they were proud we're number two why why were they proud they were number two because because we try harder try harder so that's always a good place to the Olive says I don't want to be number one I don't want to become complacent I don't want to rest on my laurels I like being the one who has to work ten times as hard to get half as much accomplished that's fine that's fine that's a good place to be so the olive embraces the struggle embraces the fact that I'm a work in progress and I may never be complete okay now if that's the olive who do we have left we have anyone left we have the date okay so the date is Kamisha hasta be shot get it no nobody the date is February 9th that wasn't funny either okay I just uh I was testing it was a language barrier okay fine wasn't a good job at any rate the date remember how we were talking about how the fig and the pomegranate are opposites right the fig says you've got to be congruent with this you gotta have integrity and the power of God says don't worry about all that just show up the olive and the date are opposites as well the olive says you know what's good you know what's good bitterness struggle being crushed working hard never arriving at your goal that's good and it is good but you know it also is good the date says you know what's good perfection is good perfection is also good the date represents perfection because you know on a few different levels first of all I say just tell us about a certain date tree that takes 70 years to to give fruits and 70 is a number of perfection in fact we just started to celebrate the 70th year of the Nemesis leadership and 70 what is 70 you know there are seven emotional facets of the personnel Cassidy Woodard Ferris densified you say Malthus and within each of those is another set of those seven like during severe assignment we have 49 days seven times seven is forty-nine but actually there's not just the emotions as they are present within each emotion there's all ten confession nefesh all ten attributes so it's not just the seven emotional but the three intellectual as well so within Hesed let's say there's not just seven subsets of houses there are ten because it's not just to passage if it has sitting volition but has if there's hot mush if it has said bean it should be acid - if it hasit and so on and so forth so that you have ten within the seven when you've completed all ten subsets of all seven emotional faculties you've reached seven you've reached perfection perfection means absolute personal refinement that's Adak that's odd and in fact that sadiq is compared to a date tree Sadiq Khitomer jefra right that the the purely righteous one the truly righteous one will flourish like a date palm and in fact this hints to us even more what real perfection means real perfection by definition doesn't mean merely that I've completed working on myself that's not perfection because well who was there Wednesday night huge fat and our big event okay so you remember remember what we spoke about that that ever empowered each of us to be the world leader of jewelry which means it's not enough to take responsibility for your own yudish kite and your own family but you got to take responsibility for the world so real perfection by definition means not just that I've reached perfection within myself it means that I'm now an influencer there's a story in the Gemara about to a maryam two sages of yitzhak in obnoxio and one wanted to bless the other and he didn't know how to bless his friends so he said to him a parable about a tree about a tree he says let me tell you I want to bless you but I'm not sure how to do it so I want to tell you a story he says once upon a time there was a guy who was he was taking a nap under a tree and he appreciated it and as it was leaving he turns the tree says Elon Elon Trillo tree but maverick haha with what shall I bless you how should I should I bless you that you give good fruit you go you already give good fruit should I bless you that you give good shade you already give good shape should I bless you that out of that a pleasant stream runs nearby you a pleasant stream already runs nearby I can't bless you with anything more you have it all right you have everything so how can I bless you I bless you that all the other trees that grow from your seed should have everything that you have and his friend understood what he was saying to me saying to you you have it all your your-your-your it sonic you're perfect I just bless you that your children and also your students who are like your children should have everything that you have that that's the ultimate not the ultimate ultimate perfection so ultimate perfection is to be an influencer to make others have what you have or like we spoke about on Wednesday night that ultimately what that ever taught us is that the only Yiddish kite that you really have is whatever you this cut you are actively giving away that's perfection and that's specifically the date we mentioned Sadiq otama you feel but let's continue with that verse Santa Khatami you throw that a Tzadik flourishes like a date pump but then the verse continues and said okay ad is Bill Ivana nice get he'll grow tall you scream it's tall he'll grow very tall like the Eddas like the cedar in lebanon lebanese cedars are the tallest trees when when Schlemmer malik wanted to build the base and make this she used Lebanese cedar these are tall tree good wood tall sturdy wood he didn't use date palm wood use a cedar wood the cedars a tall tree so which is a tonic like a date palm or as a topic like Lebanese cedar it says that he says he's like both in one verse baal shem tov comes and says stalking with two types of tsadikim one is like a Lebanese cedar and one is like a date palm what's the difference there's something that we call tzadikin pelts pelts means a fur coat etad like who looks right and says the world's a cold place so he puts on a fur coat so he's not cold anymore Sequoia who does that help then the topics it's the world's a cold place we like to fire and he warms up everybody who comes around the fire so there's somebody who says you know what might see because my perfectionist self perfection and I'm gonna put all my effort into being the best that I can be that's like a Lebanese cedar he'll grow he'll grow very very tall very impressive but you know what a Lebanese cedar doesn't give you ever heard of cedar fruits you know I you never heard of them they don't exist cedar doesn't give fruits date-palms gives luscious fruits but it doesn't grow as tall you know why it doesn't grow as tall and it's wood isn't as strong and you wouldn't use it for construction because some of the energy that it would have put into its own growth it puts into providing fruits says the Baal Shem Tov two types of size deacon two types of technique and which atonic should we be like so I'll tell you and the gomorian gettin talks about the fact that there was an uprising that started once when a Roman chariot broke its axle and they cut down a cedar tree that belonged to a Jewish family and they used it to fix the axle why did the Jewish people revolt because they used to have a minute and then it's a stroll that when a child was born they would plant a cedar tree and on the day of his hapa they would cut the cedar tree down and use that as as the chuppah so the Romans came to cut down this tree which some family was waiting to use further for their kids coppa and then the Jews freaked out and they they revolted what's what's what's shot there is a time in your life when it's appropriate to be a cedar it's called childhood it's called adolescence that's me time no one's expecting me to be completely altruistic if you're gonna get life skills if you're gonna work on yourself if you gonna perfect yourself that's the time to do it please become a mentor while you're still single right do your future spouse a favor right okay so that's the time to focus on yourself and and and and and to be selfish of you're a baby you can be completely self baby's get the scream to 3:00 in the morning when they're hungry and nobody has any complaints you know there will come a time you're not allowed to do that not even allowed to make noise while you're going downstairs in the kitchen at 3:00 in the morning after tiptoe right hopefully so there's a phase of life that's the cedar phase of life where you're really you're focused on just being the tallest the biggest the greatest that you can be personal development that's called childhood is called adolescence called being a single person then comes a day where there's the end of the cedar phase that really is marked by marriage that's why they would cut down that cedar and turn it into the hope and they say you're done with the cedar phase you're done with personal development now you're here for someone else you have a life partner so you're certainly not here just for yourself then you have children definitely not for yourself then you realize that you're a part of a community part of a nation you're part of a world and that's the ultimate perfection the ultimate perfection is not personal perfection it's being an influencer being responsible for others being a giver being selfless giving fruits so that others can be nourished and and hopefully that those who are nourished from your fruits will then go on to be the same type of tree as you anyway these are lots of lessons we can learn from the trees the main thing is like I said that it shouldn't be intellectual information we should we should internalize it we should take it to heart and apply it in our lives okay young tuft everyone again