Ten Minutes of Meaning (Part 86): Conscientious Speech - Mesillas Yesharim

good morning bokuto great to be back together again for a few minutes as we are every Wednesday morning to try to become the best version of ourselves in ten minutes or less quite an ambitious goal but really it's actually reflective of the Jewish Way which is growth as in increments and spurts ten minutes at a time certainly you can learn and work on yourself much longer than that but even if you can't if you do it in increments and small bite-sized pieces you put it together and you wake up one day and find you're a changed person you're not gonna lose 20 pounds in one day and you might even be able to measure daily how much you're losing but if you put in the time and the work every day to exercise you write you'll weigh yourself you measure yourself later and see that you've changed the same is true spiritually metaphysically with our own personal growth as well and that's why I love spending ten minutes together every Wednesday morning working on ourselves and employing the RAM Klaus brilliant formula based on her husband Yair based on our great rabbis of the Gemara about how to grow how to grow beginning with the heroes living life of mindfulness and conscientiousness to a life of Zuri's us of alacrity and zeal to a life of Nikias of trying to purge and eliminate from ourselves the hype of behaviors which are self-destructive and sabotage our own success as always a huge thank you to our dear friends Leni in Fanning Greenstein we sponsored the series for the year in memory of cranny's father mr. Aaron Tambor arond and Yitzhak / Amma shall have an Aliya through our words of Torah through the groom's teens incredible leadership and generosity we are very good I love chapter 11 and we are going through the details of the media of Nikias we are dissecting this character trait of Nikias Nikias means don't live life and the barometer the metric for your happiness is what gives you pleasure what makes you happy just say what you want to do what you want eat what you want go where you want be with whom you want know there our value system is an ideology that we have there's a mission and a mandate a charge for our lives and there's a value system and we're supposed to try to every day hold ourselves to a high standard of that value system to push ourselves to be better and to improve each and every day we've spoken about it in the area of honesty and integrity in the area of verbal abuse in the area of interpersonal relationships in the area of our eating our health and our wellness and our well-being in the area of promiscuity and profanity we've spoken about it so far in all these different areas and now we're on the topic of how we give advice how we dispense advice also she oversaw the Myakka sure you ever issue Elise yeah it's Bo yeah I'd say over its a shy a neutral atom Amish the person comes to you for advice they want to know about a business decision they want to know about a up they want to know about developing a policy for a community about coronavirus do not give advice which is anything different than what you would follow yourself weebly she asked you about a little Tova social Hamish yeah it slowly shantak lasar hair Carnivora coccidia this is a huge challenge it's a daunting goal to try to eliminate and purge from the advice that we are dispensing any personal prejudice we may have people have motivations you're giving a friend business advice or shellac advice or life advice and it could impact you it could reflect somehow on your life or your lifestyle the goal is to eliminate any personal prejudice or bias the goal is to eliminate any possible impact that could be on ourselves and rather to think exclusively and purely about the other person how can I relate how can I give advice how can i connect in a way that is only for the benefit of the other then Yara shear who has a class MOBA it's ie a mere fellow here couple of zombies yeah it's yahiko and if you see yourself as standing to lose by that advice reveal to the other party and if you can't then recuse yourself from it so somehow it's gonna have a negative impact on you on your business on your life on your family don't tell the person look I want to give you good advice but here is the implication here's the consequence here's how it will impact me and if the person says I don't really care then recuse yourself from the situation but don't distort or manipulate the advice you give don't manipulate other people because somehow your own self-interest is involved in lobbyist Alec minute double oh yeah say Africa Panem IATA little shiitake Siddhartha stopped us from Jade's emotion even osemosys Laura Osvaldo mitzvah Ramos oh look for an mmm acacia top kiss Pat ow the who Shia our key your fear he said always have in mind the well-being in the good of the other put that primary eliminate the anole the it'd the ego the sense of I from the equation think about exclusively the other unless what the other person is scheming or planning in fact is not only negative for them is negative for others then it would be permissible if the only way to deter them the only way to disincentivize them from following through on a plan which is immoral unethical wrong hurtful will injure other parties is to fool them or trick them that would be the only time that is permissible and I would tell you that consult with someone else before you do that our own biases may mix in and convince us that the other person is doing something that can be harmful and that's why it's okay in the circumstance or scenario to give them negative advice it be worthwhile protecting the confidentiality of the other to get our own advice before giving advice in a situation where we're trying to prevent someone from doing something wrong we're all in this position and I mentioned last time and I'll reiterate it again now whether it's someone who overtly comes up to you and says here's a scenario and I need advice or whether it's the type of posts that we put online the type of emails that we'd forward the type of things that we share in our whatsapp groups we are sharing links to articles we're giving advice in the sense that we're giving people information and information is power and we're giving unvetted information unfiltered information unconfirmed information but we're giving biased information that we're giving bad advice for leading people to destructive conclusions person has to be very judicious and very careful what they share and how they share and when they share with whom they share and what their motive ultimately is when they share whether they're being fair or not he moves on their own foul the next area of Nikias the next area of personal growth if we want to every single day try to realize the best version of ourselves how do we measure how do we measure who we are and who we can be and what is the gap of how to get there I refuse volution arek for whom the node of a go low enough Aikido album eroded everybody knows everybody knows the negative nature of gossip and slander what happens when we speak negatively and ill of another the impact on people on their Parnas on their livelihood on their show and bias on their harmony in their home on the potential off and so on actually Fargo's rumor from them a rabbi said but my missionary Scottie in the camera Baba Batra Coulomb backlash in Hara every human being minimally violates every single day at least evacuation Hara which means not explicit slander I don't necessarily call my friends or put out a big tweet and say did you hear about so-and-so can you believe what happened it's not necessarily that I dispense this juicy Lashon Hara but sometimes unintentionally even a vac which is implied or implicitly Shannara sometimes we make a terrible mistake what's an example the gomorian elephant says hey feed on me lotion are going to I'm gonna hate from mr. Takalua ellaby Ponyo if someone says where can you find a fire for cooking words that always found in the home of so-and-so oh she's a bird - rustle of Nissan Tokyo too busy efficient air into our encounter with Ho Chi Minh I refused the MS McLeod cut shallow Haim sometimes you can say something good I see this all the time one person says about so-and-so you know that person is really amazing you know what happens you are inviting you were listening someone else was present to say they're not so amazing I once saw them do this I heard this pretty good the other good person but you know I was once with them I once interacted with them and they're not so perfect they're not so amazing so if a person exaggerated a referred person even trying to be kind sings the praises of someone flushing Hara how can praising someone be Lashon Hara because if you exaggerate praise or out of context offer praise or offer praise in front of people that you don't know feel the same share the same feeling with you about the person you are literally potentially inviting the others to express their negativity about that person and that's a fact question our callers shall double how big you are from the era of a cold emotional development and a psycho bizarro Fabio they mfana been shallow but final resolution are sunny metoya but that Markham sure I'm role of Comus Appalachian hockey look off a bit acre who crux even my last name by say sir AO so at Smith's so that I'm halia tells us Nikias if you want to practice cleanliness and purity if you want to be the best version of yourself the best people that we know the best people that we know they don't talk about other people this is a is it Eleanor Roosevelt the famous quote the what is it small people talk about people average people talk about things great people talk about ideas something like that you see that actually this week's passion schlaf when the Moroccan go to Israel and they're listening to the Devoran to the d'Ivoire what does that mean so later and safer tomorrow more actually there translates listen to the language they're speaking and Amarra wonders this was a recognizance mission they're supposed to get a military assessment of where the people who live in Israel and how they're going to come in and conquer what do you need to eavesdrop what you need to listen in on how they're speaking you care about their juicy gossip you care about what they're watching you care about their pop culture so the meril explains because when you listen to people what they talk about when you listen to what people talk about you know everything about them are you a great person an average person or a small person do you speak about ideas do you speak about things or do you speak about people we interact all the time particularly Chavez Yom Tov around our table in normal times with friends and with family hosting others and what we talked about reflects and reveals that says everything about us and so one should be careful and come into the conversation do we come in with already an agenda I don't mean an agenda like an agenda personal agenda but I mean an itinerary I've got a great story I've got a thought-provoking question I've got an insight I've got a DVAR Torah I've got a current event I have the capacity to have a healthy and rigorous debate of ideas where we'll each grow and listen and learn because in the absence of coming in with an itinerary or agenda of thought-provoking stimulating meaningful conversation topics in questions then people often unfortunately slip and slide to the lowest common denominator which is to talk about people are we great every average or are we small have we practiced in the kiyose and do we eliminate the proclivity of the inclination to want to talk about people got juicy gossip I've got a great thing to say I've got something to reveal somehow we think that that's a social commodity I'm greater I'm more in I feel better about myself if I know something others don't or if I'm that source of information to tell them people confide in us and they they expect us to maintain that that confidence and when we tell other people we violated their trust and we've hurt them we've damaged them you know it said the Jewish version of a secret you know what the Jewish version secret is something you tell people one by one it's a it's a funny joke but it's a sad joke a Jewish secret is something that you tell people one by one and we've all seen that we all know that experience you tell people and you say don't tell anybody but I'm telling you why why do people do that because they think it gives them somehow some social commodity somehow they're they're better they're greater gamma say navaja nickimja kashimoto chili Lachey immolate mimin la putana Olivier Adam hatred and vengeance and enmity are also very difficult to escape person feels that way we position sometimes people as the other they are the other and when they are the other it's easy to vilify and when you vilify it's easy to hate we're seeing it all around our country right now and the most sensitive topics critically important topics that really we should be having healthy debate on which likely there is much more consensus than we're seeing and then we can make real and lasting change but instead people digging their heels and they vilify others and there's a hatred there's a hatred which results and then hatred clouds odd the marsh mode baboon awesome it starts our Google person was very sensitive to his humiliation it feels extreme anguish when a camel on Masuka Midrash came in Newcastle Avada and then of vengeance becomes as sweet as honey it's the only respite so you hear someone spoke about you and they damaged you were they hurt you or someone is the other to you you don't like the way they dress or vote or think or observe or what they know who they are you're seeing it now and in the different reactions to coronavirus some people feel we're post corona some people feel get under the bed we are in the height of Corona and different people are reacting differently and it's a very complicated very very complicated area and it's bringing out hatred and judgment of people towards others simply because they've come to different conclusions now granted what some might consider dangerous conclusions that could impact the greater good but how tragic if it brings out a sense of hatred and drives a wedge between people at a time that should rally us with a sense of a sense of unity so I'll pick up here next time but again if we want to realize the best version of ourselves it means practicing the kiyose don't just wake up and live your day don't let momentum and inertia carry you don't find yourself at the end of the day and oh I shouldn't have said that my shouldn't have been there and I shouldn't have gone there I should have eaten that mention though and now I wish my life so different Nikias means have forethought if you have zero here is mindfulness you have xerius Cerises alacrity and zeal and you pursue goals then the end of your day you'll be able to look back and measure with pride Nikias I identified the areas I want to work on here's how I worked on it here was my plan in my resolution here's how it's been proved and I promise you you will see the relationships in your lives improve as well join us 8:45 living with Emunah same Facebook YouTube and zoom channels tonight 9 p.m. behind the beam of very special guest of Moshe Weinberg ashleeta one of the most inspirational transformational figures today go behind the Bema with us tonight with him at 9 p.m. wishing everyone a wonderful day [Music]