(Way# 47) LEARNING IN ORDER TO DO: 48 Ways with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

[Music] hey good day everybody welcome back to another episode of beyond the seven live from jerusalem with rabbi uh aaron david poston uh who's been teaching us the profound course the 48 ways to wisdom and we're making good time uh uh we're on part 47 today uh we missed him last week he had his big tuba fat uh celebration there at yebene uh which if you haven't caught you can find it on his yemeni channel youtube channel two and a half hour long i think they had rabbi uh singer sitting down with them and uh the music was beautiful and it was just a joy to see them be festive so uh yeah you can find that on ybanez youtube channel um also uh yeah i'm sure you can find more of these lessons each and every one of them has a nugget of gold for you to integrate into your life uh about a an attribute an aspect of wisdom that you can acquire and uh let's jump right in and see how the rabbi's doing today uh rabbi poston so nice to be with you we missed you last week um but we so appreciate you taking the time staying up late to share with us the beauty of this series well shalom alaykum everybody shavuot it's great to be back with you dan and um yeah it was a little bit of a challenge last week with uh the preparations by barack hashem it paid off so glad to be back with you once again yes and by the way even though we're number 47 you would expect 48 to be the last in the series of 48 ways it's very interesting in the book behind me on my left over my left shoulder and the students of noah put together actually 50. now why would there be 50 in a 48 way series uh that is because as we were going through to actually have here another safer i mentioned the major schmool it's specifically on this um in chapter six mission six there are different manuscripts of the purkiavot that have the i would say just a slight different versions so the book behind me on the left over here is put together with the slight different version series so in other words there's an additional two that really don't appear obviously there's only 48 but because there are various versions um the authors of this particular book put together the roshiva's uh we don't want to miss anything that's been passed down until i got to the end and noticed what the students have put together it was not it wasn't surprising actually you know they're very thorough and the roshi was always very thorough so it's good to to to know that now tonight's or today wherever you are in the world watching this is number 47 so in hebrew it's low made almanat lasso which means learning in order to do in order to do it doesn't say learning and doing it's learning in order to do which is going to be profound in what we're going to discuss however also in the roshiva's own let's say his own profound way of discussing this idea he would say it's applying what you know okay now what are the benefits why does that help you acquire wisdom and that's what we're going to discuss uh so i'd like to do is go through some of the roshiva's own words and then we'll go to the sources although i'm not very organized and i have a feeling we're going to end up hitting sources as we go along but i'll try to stick to that program of going through his own words first and then going to the source of secondary so those who are in you know tuning in will hopefully stay till the end but uh so the idea is like this let's say for example if you had a choice okay we all have a choice right but what would you rather be wealthy or happy right as if you only you know as if that's the choice obviously we could be both there's no reason why you can't be wealthy and happy right but uh let's say we've known judaism that it's an obligation to be happy it's not necessarily necessarily an obligation to be wealthy it's nice it's nice if you have some money but um how many people spend so much time and effort trying to make money and no let's say little time and effort in trying to be happy maybe they've even given up or they're not using the tools so the idea here is that in learning in order to do we already know as an example that being happy is an obligation therefore one should learn how to do it so the question is maybe the the point here is why not make the effort i mean if you already know it's something that's obligatory and then you go and you learn about it so why not apply what you've learned so unfortunately uh don't learn in vain for sure we're going to talk about insanity right our job in this world is trying to remain same in this insane world that we're in so imagine if you know something and you know it's valuable and you don't put any effort into it that's called insanity right you're not practicing you're not putting into practice what you know is a integral part of life itself neglect so let's just take that as an example right so if we know that we're here to be happy happy happiness means taking pleasure in life so basically you have to define we have to define what this what this is so we discussed the idea of of um well we discuss so many things but the idea here is let's say define happiness so we will i'm gonna equate it to gratitude right if you can focus on those things that bring you pleasure right happiness those things that bring you pleasure so then you will be happy right so those things let's if you think about all the things that you're grateful for if you focus on those things it'll bring you to a level of i'm gonna call it satisfaction in life you'll be happier you'll be a much happier person so if you're going to learn something hopefully right the goal is to put it into practice but what we're going to say is this and it's a big jump when you're initially learning open your mind know that whatever it is you're learning you would like to one day put it into practice it's going to change your whole experience in learning okay and that's going to be really the the outline um the main principle of learning in order to do you may not even have a chance to do it and we're going to talk about that as well and yet you will get accredited as if you did it because of your will and determination um to put it to use it's going to be unbelievable and that's going to help you acquire wisdom let me just jump around a little bit we have this idea that fear of god how does it go fear of god is the beginning of all wisdom and now again that's a principle okay so we know it it's written in in proverbs right it's written throughout the the scriptures right the beginning of wisdom the beginning is fear of hashem so the fear of hashem is the beginning of wisdom that's how it's going to begin so i know i'm talking to a an audience a very mixed audience i'm sure there are some jews but mostly noahides righteous gentiles we're very proud of you that you've left idolatry or paganism and even if you weren't a pagan right you have opened your mind and you're willing to read the scriptures from a jewish point of view knowing that this was a revelation of mount sinai to the entire world right it was only the jew jewish nation israeli nation that said we will right this week's part should we read well it's part of next week also the the interesting the when we said we will do and then we will understand it's amazing because god says who told them my secret my secret that they're willing to do it even before they understand that this is the so this is the secret this is the the fundamental principles of today's lesson learning in order to do you're willing to do it now let me start learning in order to know what i need to do in order to do it it's this is what separated the jew from the non-jew however there were individual souls of the non-jews that said you know i really i say yes i'll take it but unfortunately the nations as a whole and therefore the we'll call it the administrating angel whatever leading angel the powers that be within the nations themselves did not accept the torah but those individual souls are very precious some of them go on later to convert for judaism we call a gertzedek a righteous gentile many of them will just you know be a righteous gentile but it's it they come to believe in the god that they come to serve they come to worship the god of israel the god of abraham isaac and jacob right the god of israel yes even though you're not jewish it's it's huge and as we discussed the difference between a wise noahide and a righteous noahide is uh the difference between accepting the fact that the torah is from heaven and was given to moses sinai and that the jewish people have a mission and that's going to separate let's say the men from the boys and the girls from the women right okay so let's begin so wisdom is not really it's not truly acquired until we put our knowledge into practice so if you're learning the wisdom in order to one day fulfill it that is like i don't know the words to describe but that's the booster shot right that's a very popular word these days right and not to be misunderstood this is the real deal this is the booster shot of booster shots now without this crucial step our understanding is only theoretical with very with little actual impact on our daily lives right so he he he brings this idea that when you have a disconnect right you're learning something and you're not looking at it in a real way that you could be practiced now as a gentile i understand if you're going to learn the seven great and as this series is beyond the seven so hopefully you will bring to yourself the foundation of the seven you really should not i'm gonna discourage anybody from taking on additional mitzvahs until they have really uh you know impacted their lives in a great way with the seven then optionally as an option uh taking on perhaps additional ideas they just have to remember that the seven are not really seven anyway i mean there really are many many anything that's logical that's in the torah is already obligated okay even those right there's so many things you can do before you even take on options so let's just say there's so many things you have to go back and listen to the very beginning of the series to understand that it could be 30 minutes it could be 60 minutes be hundreds of mitzvahs that a non-jew is actually obligated in okay so um if you think that okay it's just theoretical you're you're gonna miss the boat right so you know that it's practical just you didn't have the opportunity yet but you're willing to take it on when it comes to you it's it's going to boost as i said before it's a booster shot it's going to boost your ability to remember the details to make it real yeah when the situation arises where it's required right yeah yeah it's going to make all the difference in the world if you just think this theoretically you are disconnected from reality remember i mean i'm going to discuss this idea later on but i think i should discuss it now the word mitzvah that's it's translated as commandment i i don't really like that translation but there really isn't any better translation right god gave us these commandments even the ten commandments we don't clunk commands called sarah today bro these are said ten statements okay they're statements in fact i mean i'm gonna be all over the place i'm gonna try to really hyper focus so people understand what i'm trying to say even though they're 10 statements and it's not commandments and i want to go back to the word commandment in a second that there are 613 really 620 letters there's actually 620 letters in those 10 statements the reason i said 613 because there's 613 laws that are embedded in other words each one of the letters represents one of the commandments or one of the laws and its details and there's an additional seven right six thirteen plus seven for the nations for the for the for the non-jewish world yeah the rest of the world sure there are actually 620 letters in the ten again i'll just use the vernacular it's ten commandments ten to ten sayings and 620 620 is the gematria of ketter ketter is the crown i've been discussing this for the last two years since i i i'll say it i hope you don't get uh land blasted by youtube uh what are they called the sensors but that there's a message by corona the word corona that means crown and then when you look at the drawings or these uh i don't even know if the real you know the way the fight is what a coronavirus might look like but the way they describe it are there are these crowns that are receptors and they maybe not receptors but they cling to your receptors and then they pass on the virus okay so but there's no coincidence there's no coincidence that corona means crown the word ketter means crown cat there is the 620 letters in the ten commandments i.e 613 for the jew seven for the non-jew we have to put the crown back where it belongs that is on hashem and within us because the word mitzvah itself means and i'll say in hebrew it means to connect the way that god gave us he gave us a book right it's not even a book but we'll just call it a book it's a madrid instructions for living that's what it is so it's for the whole world right it's just divided a little bit differently our priorities a little bit differently so even though i said it means litha bear the root of mitzvah is seventh right let's take the mem that begins the word and just put it to the side we'll call it like mem causative so the root is without the mem and it's seventh seventh means a group of people call it a staff you know when you have a company you have a staff that's working they're working for the common good they're all working hopefully in synchricity it's across whatever that word is they're all working together for the same purpose to make a successful product or make money whatever the point of the company is right so they're they're working in sync they're working together they're all connected now the truth be told this is an amazing idea that all 20 letters right of what we call the 10 the 10 statements only together they make the intensity missing any letter it's well the whole torah would be invalid but you cannot be missing a single letter every letter is connected because it becomes a word and every word becomes right it's part of the sentence and every sentence or part of a sentence is part of a paragraph it's every letter is necessary right every jewish soul is necessary actually every jewish soul is ultimately connected with every other jewish soul every mitzvah is actually connected with every other mitzvah this is what jews believe that we are all interconnected i mean if you look into um what they call quantum mechanics or quantum um what's it called quantum mechanics let's just say i don't know physics there's strength theory there's unified theory this this is not new stuff this has always been it's just coming out now right in the science world okay so knowing this that's what the bear that's what the word mitzvah really means commandment really means an opportunity to connect okay now keeping that in mind i have a reason i'm saying this and i'm not going to make it fully known until we get a little bit further because i want to continue this idea um it's so deep what i'm about to tell you i really want to keep it i want to build up to it so i'm going to get back to it i promise you um it's going to be in gamora sota actually it's going to be in conduction 40a okay when we get to conducion 40a that's where this big secret is going to be revealed about this idea of the mitzvahs everything is being connected and every human being ultimately so even though the jews are all connected the whole world is also connected and this is what also separates the righteous gentiles no heights from from the from the non it's unbelievable so this is i use the word bombshell in my last class it was a mamasha bombshell this is also in a big way a great bomb show now what i meant to say in this term of insult to 3a it actually the sages teach us that a person does not sin unless they are infused with some level of insanity we're called some kind of like i'm going to call like a mental breakdown right so we we we become insane because if you really were aware and cognizant of really what your actions are your the repercussions thereof you wouldn't sin so i want to mention this is because it's very interesting and people are familiar with the concept of a sota a sota it's a woman who right the husband has some suspicions she had uh secluded herself okay and he has some suspicions about her so the gomorrah insult to 3a says that rebbe mayor would say a person commits a transgression in private if a person does you know what hashem's going to do hashem is going to make it known you think right that you're going to just sit in private and everything everything's just fine under what they call swept under the carpet nobody's going to know hashem will make it public and had was what does he do here's the example of the sota right the now this is in hebrew this is in numbers chapter 5 verse 14. i just want to read the first few words of the passage it says in english the spirit of jealousy came upon him so in hebrew it says ruach kina kina is jealousy ruach is a spirit of and passed over him now okay why did he need to tell me that it passed over him the husband he became jealous so the concept is the word avar is also related to the word of vera al-vera is persin that's another word for sin actually it means transgression just like you have the jordan river separates between the land of israel and what we call trans jordan right so we call it hebrew ay their haiyardein meaning the other side of the jordan today they call trans jordan so in fact i don't want to go into the whole idea of it why a jew is called an evreet you have to go back to some of the previous uh ideas but anyway so anavera means nothing other than the term also of proclamation so not only right you have to understand when it comes to hebrew there's so many levels so we discussed the idea other places where the word oh there of our is related to everyth right the avraham crossed over okay i don't want to go into that right now but it also has the level of an evaera of the sin and it also has the level of a proclamation a proclamation where do we see that if you go to exodus chapter 36 verse 6. so moses gave the commandment and they caused it to be proclaimed the yeah of the rule the aviru right the it's almost so it's to pass over meaning to transport so to speak but here's proclamation so you already understand that when this woman may or may not have sinned in private but it's going to actually end up being opened remember we'll find out on the temple mount when she uncovers her hair and drinks a special water called the soto waters when hashem's name is scraped off very carefully into a mixture of water which she drinks and if she's guilty she will her stomach will blow up and she'll die and if she's innocent she will get pregnant not from the waters of course but from the the harmony that's brought back into the marriage anyway so resh lakish mentions that a man commits its transgression based on what we just read only if the spirit of folly why what folly the word stutt as i mentioned stutt means like folly it doesn't mean like just um lightheadedness here it's talking about a concept delusion thank you just craziness right and where do we learn it from going back to what we read well we didn't read this verse but in numbers chapter 5 verse 12 which is two verses before this verse we just previously read it says if a man's wife goes aside so like she turns aside right so ki ishta so that's where we get the word sota because she seems to have gone in a wayward manner so the word now this right with psalm it's not sorry it's a shin or a sin right it's a three-pronged letter and there's a dot that's going to be either on the left or the right and that's going to make either s sound like a sonic or a shin sound like an sh so the understanding is that the word it is true it's written with the letter we would call a shin but it sounds like a sin when we read it but you can also alternatively read it with tishta like a shin you know the dot on the other side which then would relate to the word folly and this is where the learning is that nobody sins unless they're full of this we're called insanity right they lost a grip on reality so going back to the original premise that you learn in order to do and this is going to keep you grounded in reality don't forget about the theoretics think about the fact that when you're learning something in the torah that you may be able to do it you may actually put into some practice and therefore no this is obligatory or it's optional you should know and okay i am all over the place but okay i wanted to save that for the end but i think it's okay we're here ready understanding that people waste plenty of time right they waste a lot of time they're fighting with their spouse they're pushing away their children they endanger their health despite intellectually knowing that something is wrong and actually counterproductive so there is a schism between what we know and what we how we act okay so we want them to be in sync we want there to be a uh congruity that's you know going from thought into action and that's also going to be um fundamental what we're talking about [Applause] okay so applying our wisdom is one is going to be one of the fundamental challenges in life applying the wisdom you learn now he describes this as the essential difference between what we call um philosophy and true wisdom right philosophy is just theoretical but wisdom is supposed to be integrated right so we learn beautiful ideas and we can contact pontificate right we can talk about them like you know something fluffy and it's you know something beyond us but if you don't apply them then what he calls us we're temporarily insane right so the battle the battle for life is the battle for sanity i could just see him saying those um i'm actually going to i made a note to myself to skip to a certain paragraph to describe this idea um here it is he he expresses that we have to take responsibility for ourselves right there's a mission of perky i vote this is a very a famous one if i am not for myself who will be for me right so you're learning in order to do know how important it is to put it into practice right no one but you can make yourself great nobody i had some interesting students i'm sure many rabbis have students like this and i have a certain guy who came to me with some troubles and issues and he felt at least look he felt confident that he can talk to me about it and he says listen rabbi i think i'm the messiah now my response to him we call it a knee-jerk response and i am so glad that i said what i said to him i said if you don't i would be worried happens to be when i was listening to ravnoch weinberg's class number 47 to prepare for this class he said exactly those things he said he said he talks to jews though okay okay jews but i can understand a non-jew with let's say jewish tendencies to feel the same way god made it create us in his image he created us with grace for greatness how could somebody not feel the potential and that it's locked and there's so much frustration it's unbelievable so he says here no one but you can make you great so he said if you didn't feel that way that would be a problem and if you think you actually are that would be a problem but to think that your potential that's fine that's perfect because that is ingrained in your soul in who you are so i shared that with him tonight i sent him right away and he said thank you rabbi it is what you told me the first time i told you this so he says like this no one but you as member perkial vote said right if i'm not for myself who's going to be for me so no one but you can put in this the necessary work right to live in concert with your values and grow it's completely up to you you have to make the decision right now to take control of your life because if not now when stop procrastinating right if you don't begin today you're never going to do it now even if you don't have the time right now write a plan of action put down right the different steps and begin slowly slowly slowly okay but at least that's already in the head knowing that eventually you'll put it into full practice just start with baby steps that's fine make review do a periodic periodic review to see if you're if you're moving on that chart we discussed this idea there's no stagnation in spirituality either you're going up or you're going down remember the angelic forces that were going up and down on the ladder of yaakov's dream that was one of the proofs we explained how there is no such thing as stagnation i want to i know i'm going to be all over the place but i have to do it now when we do actions we create angelic forces but i have to tell you something when we think to do an action we're already beginning the creation of those angelic forces okay so what do those angelic forces do they are going to be our witnesses when we go i don't know i'm going to use the word pearly gates it's probably not a jewish thing okay when we go to the din vachemon when we go up to heaven for our uh judgment day okay so there are going to be defending angels and prosecutory angels and the story is that they are going to speak up on our behalf or god forbid against us from what i read they don't have to say a word the very fact they were created by us because of the actions we did that's enough that's what it means they're going to speak up on it doesn't mean they're going to actually voice their opinion they were created by us what we do we create this energy that is i'm going to say eternal if it's sometimes negative it's unfortunately that it's eternal right of course we can do true and whatnot there's a very very interesting idea on that mishna wasn't there a a caveat in between that uh if i am for myself uh uh what am i is it not written in that uh uh mishnah between those couple statements you said uh uh about being for yourself um you know if not now when uh there's there's a caveat in the middle that says uh uh if if i am for myself what am i you've gotta you've gotta identify and ask right and inquire uh and actually uh you've always been one to really bring to light hespone hanefesh that we give an accounting of our own souls and we know where we're at where we're standing understand the tools you got to work with really help enable you in uh performing actions for sure beautiful okay my notes are on the other side of the room i'm gonna have to get up and get it before i do that notes that i really wanted to share there's one idea just to end this paragraph off as we understand putting into practice what you know is so important so i already said that the torah itself is a instruction manual for living and he wants us to really drill this idea home that it's supposed to guide us towards a meaningful life okay you have to put into practice it's not merely an intellectual pursuit it's something that you must do and i don't want to share with you what it says in the uh matifta perky a vote just to drill this point home and i'll translate it i'll read it to learn in order to do shim loimed if a person is only learning in order to become sharper or wiser ain't a term is kyamus biyodo the torah the instruction manual the the scripture that is the the living word of god is not going to be um it's it's not going to maintain it's going to be lost and one of the things we must do is not forget our torah which we're going to talk about again also it's only only when you learn in order to know the details and the specifics and to fulfill them properly then the torah will be maintained that's the only way the scripture will be maintained now the comment below brings the midrash and he adds this is specifically why our tana the author of this mission mentions learning in order to do and he doesn't say learning and doing and it's specifically here to teach you that even if you still did not yet fulfill everything that you're learning it's very important what i'm about to tell you nevertheless after the fact that you accept it upon yourself to fulfill in the future when it comes to you that's enough and then you will merit to make opinion on the torah this is going to be the most fascinating idea let me get my nose such a relief yeah beautiful rabbi thank you table here one second good thing i'm wearing pants i'm kidding i've heard about people zoom they don't wear pants anyway a toy teacher can never do that okay this is a piece on conducion page 40a that i want to share with you absolutely mind-boggling and i never understood it i mean i never fully understood i'm not saying i do now either but there's a piece that i believe is maybe i'm a hades maybe i have a novel insight but i think everyone would agree with me um it says like and it's it's absolutely a crazy idea maybe i'll say it outside and then we'll see it inside there's an idea that if you think of doing a positive act and something prevents you from doing that act hashem gives you the credit as if you did it i don't know if people heard this before so it says a person has a positive thought meaning to do a mitzvah that's actually what it means positive thought to fulfill remembrance to connect to hashem and to connect to mankind even if in the end he was nena something prevented him and he didn't do it he did not actually you know uh the actions never took place hashem himself because the holy one blessed be he is mitzar philameissa now what does that mean he combined it the thought to the action and then we have a proof and this when i read this verse i really thought this fits perfectly with the nanak the righteous no heights that i know now it's in malachi chapter 3 verse 16. i would love if you would read it well let me pull up the prophets malachi 3 verse 16 you said reads it says then the god-fearing men spoke to one another and the lord hearkened and heard it and a book of remembrance was written before him for those who feared the lord and for those who valued his name highly beautiful you have a different english translation at the end right for those who fear hashem and those who give thought to his name because in hebrew it says and we said sir verse 16 and it says english that valued here and on so those who are thinking about his name thinking about what does it mean to think about his name his name is the entire torah from the first letter to the last letter the the scripture is god's name it's not the uk bufke but it's his name it's it's a holy name and if you're missing one letter nothing you're missing the whole bone it's god's holy name and there is actually as we say right there's six hundred thousand letters that each letter represents each one of the jews if without a jew you're missing something right they're all interconnected as we already discussed and i want to describe and i think i know i've said this before the word mitzvah mem sadiq hey if you look at the last two letters it's the last two letters of the unit and the hang of the names the last two letters the third and fourth letter of god's name same thing in the midst the first two letters is a mem sadiq now we've discussed this before we call at bash atmash is a code it's one of the ways of doing gematria it's not only gamachi meaning values but it also is the the actual replacement of the letter meaning you have a to z b to y or x y right so here in hebrew it's all if tough bet shin on and on each first letter is replaced by the last letter the last letter is replaced by the first letter second to the second to the last i hope i hope that's clear i'm not confusing anybody it's called at bash you can look it up on wikipedia spell it just like i spelt like i pronounced it at maybe a dash or a space b-a-s-h and it will tell you that it's a hebrew a code that they used to win world war ii with sending codes so the japanese or maybe the germans whatever did not didn't follow it's a code it's an ancient code mem sadiq is good hey memsatik is replaced with the yud and the hay so when we think about mitzvahs this is called the command of god if you want to use the word command again the will of god you're thinking about hashem you're thinking what else are you thinking about so when it says now in context this verse 16 follows verse 13 onward you see from 13 onward that they're talking about these people are not really sure if there's even justice right why do bad people prosper right what was the point of keeping the torah at all right if you just go through it i'll just read it real quick okay your words become harsh against me says hashem but you say have we have how have we spoken against you and you said it's useless to serve god right useless because you see there's no reward in this world truth is there is no reward in this world to the next world what gain is there for us that we have kept his watch what what's the point of keeping the torah that we we end up walking submissively for hashem master of legions so what we end up doing is praising the evil people the wicked the wickedness evil doers are built up obviously they're very successful they have even tested god and escaped that's when verse 16 comes in it's those who fear hashem and those righteous no also they fit in this category i know i have no doubt about it they're the ones the righteous people are speaking to each other and hashem listened and heard and he wrote down for them he wrote them into the book of remembrance meaning their deeds their deeds that they did and for those who fear hashem which i have no doubt that the righteous naachites are in that category and those who give thought to his name meaning they understand what the mitzvahs are really all about it's connecting to hashem and i want to read the comment here and i think i i um i think i pretty much summed it up i don't think there's anything new here although i will read this idea what does it mean this is the art school commentary li hashem to those who fear hashem who are they the arbanel explains yuri hashem those who are hashem are the ones who perform his commandments the that's the ones who fear hashem what about the shemo what does it mean those who give thought to his name are those who have perfected their beliefs and understanding of the knowledge of god so it's not even talking about keeping 6 13 myths so that's why i believe this is for those non-jews that are keeping the seven plus right beyond the seven seven minimally and are interested in perfecting their beliefs and understandings of the knowledge of god and that's why they're tuned in to such a program and not just you but all the other noah groups as well yeah i'm having visions of uh like a uh an olympic sprinter who is at the starting gate you know and being prepared learning in order to do and you're just waiting for that starting pistol and you're gonna put it into action now before i show you some of thank you before i share with you some of the notes on this particular piece that we read in the gemara i do want you to know that there is a fundamental difference between jews and non-jews and again i want to make a caveat when i say non-jews i am not talking about righteous gentiles okay they're not in the category of whatever you want to call them pagans right straight out yeah they're not the straight-up guy okay so what i'm about to tell you this idea that if you have a good thought to do a mitzvah and you don't do it because something prevents you from doing it so that would apply to jews but not necessarily to the pagans not to to the people who don't think about hashem right and then the gemara continues on and actually describes if you had a bad thought meaning to do an azera to do a sin and something i'm not even going to say something prevented you but you didn't do it let's say you didn't do it then there is no connect hashem will not make that connection between the bad thought and the action okay let's put that aside actually we might as well read the verse go ahead um you know i i ran into a scenario in this in our genesis class and i believe it was genesis chapter 20 verse 6 about abimelech and sarah and hashem actually said in that verse and i asked my rabbi for a response and i didn't get it because i asked i said was that hashem you know overriding man's free will right because it says he didn't allow him to sin in that verse genesis chapter 20 verse six uh but it didn't happen but what you've done here is uh mentioned here is is a pure uh explanation of such because he was afflicted even though he didn't do the action well he did some actions but he didn't do the the ultimate action that would have um says in that verse he was prevented from the ultimate action yeah so look at psalm 66 verse 18 me a second here rabbi scripture psalms 66 verse 18. verse 18 reads if i saw iniquity in my heart the lord does not hear it think about what king david is saying wow he only had a thought of doing a sin and yet hashem did not hear it he would have listened so the comment here says had i perceived an iniquity even if a sinful thought stole into my heart god graciously overlooked it god did not count it as if the person did it wouldn't be punished for it from here the talmud derives the principle the one we just read in kadusa 40a an evil thought meaning god will not connect it to the negative and he won't punish the person god pardons an iniquity iniquitous thought as long as it does not result in an evil deed now there's another caveat because there are going to be exceptions to this rule every rule has exceptions right and you have to ask be yes you know worship for example does not require action sometimes all right there's right um and there's going to be other examples and another example that gemara gives that if someone continuously does the same thing over and over again that then just thinking about it is already is already very bad okay i want to read the notes on this particular piece because i want to just explain a little bit more um what the acharoni many of the latter rabbis explain that maybe i should read in hebrew and translate it so i don't make a mistake a person thought to do a positive act in mitzvah will it be self loss but in the end he didn't get a chance to do it but another person got did it now keep this in mind this is going to apply mainly to the jews however it may apply also to righteous gentiles so so the jew member the jews are superly connected okay so once you wanted to do it the mitzvah and he didn't get a chance to and another jew did the mitzvah properly i'm sorry he didn't pri he did the action but he didn't have the the proper thought okay for okay the example was he didn't do it he didn't he maybe did it out of rote and he didn't have the full intent okay what if shem does it's like i would ask you for the drum roll please at this point amazing idea that's where hashem is going to combine mitzareth the thought of one guy with the action of the other i'll give you an example a guy wants to get sadaka charity but he doesn't have the money to do it he really wants to do it he knows what he has to do he wants to put into practice but he never had the chance but he was macabre he accepted about himself to do it and in the end he didn't have a chance someone else did it without the full broadcast bain schnam nasi's mitsubishi between the two of them it's considered a complete mitzvah so we cannot hearken and really you know we understand there are jews who aren't so observant so i'm religious you know what we need them they're part of us i mean we don't need them to be not religious that's there's no excuse but there's loads of interaction going on yeah one we are right in this week's sparsha we spoke about um the achaemeni israel right it says many times that israel they encamped they in camp band camp but here when they a couple days bef before uh the receiving of the torah mount sinai it says israel encamped in singular and rashi says like like one person with one heart like one person with one heart and that's why we know that these righteous gentiles connect to the jewish people they feel they connect to god the god of israel once you connect to the god of israel he's called the god of israel he's the god of israel right you're connecting to the jewish people who else are you connecting to if you're connected to the god of israel right it's so obvious you're connecting to israel too okay um there's a little bit of mystical bent on this and i i want to read this as well that every action that one does i have to read in hebrews so i'm not accused of making these things up the home every time you do a mitzvah you're boring so if you do the mitzvah you created an angel that will be a defending angel again he doesn't have to speak up the fact that he's created and he's going to be there when you're judged that's enough um but the thought process that you did in to do the mitzvah you didn't do the mitzvah just the thought process that created whatever the soul of the angel let's just say the more spiritual aspect of the angel and from the action that you did later on when you actually did the action you created whatever it means i put this in parentheses the body or the physical part whatever that means of the of the angel now if you only had thought or rock monster or if you only had action in hamalek you did not create a complete angel however what does the karishma do hashem is going to combine them but hashem will in other words if you did them separately for example i really thought about doing the myths when it came up and then when it came up i didn't have the full proper thought maybe i did it out of rote hashem will combine my original thought when i learned that i was willing to do it right and then when i actually did it and i didn't do it completely right he will combine the two that's like it's just absolutely fascinating i think i wanted to share that with you guys okay now there's a lot that i didn't get to we're not we're kind of running out of class but you'd like to try to keep it in an hour um but uh there's some very important ideas i know in the last class with rabbi kaufman when you spoke about doing things that i wrote and it's of course we don't look so highly on it but in this case what i'm about to tell you we should do certain things out of rote in other words it's better to do it out of rope not do it at all okay i think you would agree that's what my wife tells me about the dishes in most cases like doing the dishes listen to your wife whatever she says okay honey so he says human beings are creatures of habit right we enjoy the comfort and security of our daily routine right great so we teach our children when you want something say please pass right they have no clue what that means in the beginning you have to say please when you need something right um so we try to ingrain a certain amount of politeness they they they're not really you know they're i don't want to say what they are they're they're they're adamant they don't have any you know yet stratov yet but you're instilling it into them hopefully where they'll have good manners and later on they're gonna realize that was really important that the parent was very let's say you know studious redundant kept repeating it over and over again until it like sank in so he tells us to use habit to your advantage take a piece of wisdom you have something you learned convert it into concrete action that you're going to repeat frequently so it's not really you know routine out of road without thought but hopefully it will become right this will increase the likelihood that you will integrate the wisdom you put into practice reflexively okay i think that's a very important point it was like exercise yeah um learning mistakes learning from our own mistakes what does it say of course you should learn from your own mistakes but a wise person can learn from other people's mistakes here he says a fool learns from his own mistakes but a wise person learns from the mistakes of others so unfortunately we're all guilty of this we make stupid mistakes that hurt us we fly off the handle yet our children make dumb investments which that swallows up much needed money we we engage in all kinds of counterproductive activities as a form of escape we end up beating ourselves up and wallowing guilt we say how worthless we are what idiots we are right but this is and self-pity and guilt this is the way the eights and hurrah it has a way of tricking you into thinking that um that you're actually doing something about the mistake but it's not it's actually paralyzing it really doesn't um help and in fact you're going to keep repeating the statement same mistake over and over again because you start to believe that you are a failure right so instead of wallowing the guilt correct the mistake how so you should like get in touch feel the negative consequences of your action have this regret and say to yourself okay i made a mistake look at what it did to me now let's learn from it and do something about it channel your energy towards productive growth by learning from your mistake and implementing real change undertake never to do it again and move on now i do have a lot of other i mentioned that i have a lot of source material that i wanted to go through and now let's see if we could um so in proverbs 3 1 so it says and this is king solomon my son forget not don't forget my instruction right don't forget my torah so this is you're not supposed to forget the torah right now again whatever it says in the knock part the novi the suv there's nothing new okay it's all part of rebuke or repeating lessons that we were supposed to have learned in the five books right put you back on track so god does not want us to forget his commandments his torah and then what does it say at the end of the verse and may your heart keep my commandments the heart that's the emotional seed right it's where your the emotions are so this idea here is what's what is king solomon trying to do he's counseling us like in this week's pasha that jethro said to his father-in-law right listen to my voice i'm going to advise you right don't take it like okay he was just talking to moses he was instructing right so listen don't forget my torah what was he actually saying if you continually stand all day and listen to everybody's problems you're not going to be very effective what does it mean you're not going to be very you're not going to be effective for them and you're not going to be effective for you because you have to learn you're teaching the people here it is you're so busy worrying about and that's fine every little detail for the people but create this system of what i forget what's called hierarchy of courts uh set up a a penny claims court all the way to the supreme court and deal with only the the heaviest issues that need to be resolved and this way you'll be able to keep i mean this was what this was jethro's concern that he would not be able to continue to learn in order to put into practice it's a it's a fantastic idea as well yep avoid the burnout um so based on that uh we say that your heart wouldn't mean your heart will guard my commandments as it says in the bottom of that the second part of that verse so a person who diligently keeps god's commandments and this is this is like key in terms of acquiring wisdom merits special heavenly assistance to remember the teachings of god's torah right so when you're learning in order to remember all those details and there's a lot of details that if you accept upon yourself to do it you will receive heavenly assistance to remember all those details don't think and i know everybody's different and different people have different competitors application yeah they have different capacities for you know memorization or ret retention trust me when you love it you will not forget it i had a rebbe and he always started the class it's very interesting because also king solomon mentions this um you know about folly okay in ecclesiastes i believe but ev it says in the talmud begin every class with a joke well he would clap he would begin every class with a a stat stat from his earlier you know days watching baseball and he was about truly he was not always religious so he uh he remembered and i'm gonna just say 1953 or 1964 who's the v the vip or the best batting average or most home runs or whatever and he would he would test the class none of us had a clue i mean there were some guys who probably didn't know and took good guesses and were most likely wrong um i wouldn't be able to tell you if he was right or wrong but the rebbe did and it was a great way to start the class but i wondered myself wow what an amazing memory who could remember but i remember growing up there were kids you know my age who would spend all day looking at i don't know if they have them today but in the back of the news in the back of the newspaper right one of the last few pages the sports section had these stats you know when someone broke a record it was i don't even know i have to tell you i played plead ignorance i couldn't read that was like greek to me it didn't interest me at all but there were people there were kids who took such great interest i mean they wore the whole outfit you know a baseball cap and a shirt of their favorite player and and they knew everything about the person well this ravi would start off the class with the folly and it's a very interesting idea of how king solomon brings this idea because it separates it helps you then focus on what's really necessary but what i want to say is that when you love what you're learning when you love it i don't think that you'll forget it right when you love your wife you love your spouse you love your partner you'll remember their birthday you'll remember their favorite i don't know flower their favorite color you you forget these things so when you're learning in order to do in order to put into practice you'll it you'll receive we call shmaya you'll receive heavy existence that is going to catapult you into all types of forms of knowledge as opposed to what we read in the beginning that if you're learning only in order to sharpen your mind or only in order to you know amass this wisdom it's if you learn in order to work a little yeah then hashem will grant you the ability to uh to retain the wisdom okay i think we hit the hour try to keep it at the hour and as i mentioned that we're going to follow through with uh not one class number 48 next week but three classes two additional classes all right yeah rabbi we got a question uh on youtube from uh cookie monster cookie monster says he he says i think the commandments and the torah are very complicated he says can i just grow my love and my trust in hashem uh yeah but the question is how how do you now remember everyone has different learning abilities i have no idea you know maybe you have to just listen to classes some entertaining rabbis that are going to help you with your amuna and knowledge maybe it's not for you you don't need to retain how many knots are in the citrus but hearing them knowing that this is the word of god maybe you won't retain it because it's not really necessary for you to practice that but to be constantly immersed in the word of god is a necessity right there are people like abraham who were able to just come to a full recognition of hashem through nature okay but we say most people are not on that level they need to involve themselves in scripture to know god you know you want to know him know his will it's through scripture so if you if you're i'm not talking to you personally i'm saying anybody who's listening who has learning disabilities or they're more audio than visual or they're more visual than audio there's different all right everyone's different it's the most amazing we have a different thumb print fingerprints every snowflake has a different pattern every human being is different go and learn what you enjoy if it's too complicated if you feel stupid complicated remember you decided you may come back to it again in the future you just never know part of the reason the seven the basics the the the subcategories of the seven which are many only concentrate on those right you may come across ideas of kashrut you say you know what i really would like to try to keep kosher it's not necessary at all but if you want to you believe it's so then it's going to require more retention more learning listen if you really want to do something hashem will grant you siata deshmae i'm telling you it's a promise so if you really enjoy it you love it and you accept to do it you will get heavenly help but the basis is the seven and then again there are many subcategories of those seven that include hunt could be hundreds of other mitzvahs things that are logical in the torah so you must continue to learn i mean i'm not telling you you said yourself you want to learn but you want to grow you know about the knowledge of god keep listening to the rabbis and the leaders of the veneno movement and uh you'll you'll continue to grow in your knowledge of god how that's up to you like i said everyone's different okay yeah i hope that ends and i find uh uh hashem is just so amazing that life circumstances that he uh controls each and every variable of all existence i i mean i just i get amazed that situationally in life you if if hashem is trying to impress upon you an actual lesson out of the torah and you're having difficulty grasping it keep your eyes open a circumstance or situation in life may just pop up where the the the the the crux of the biscuit the the point of the matter of the lesson is uh being poked at in your life so you actually have to you know think about it get it in your neshama and and grasp it decipher it and then you can begin to apply it i love that uh title for today learning in order to do and i i'm just you know i i felt such a relief rabbi how you shared uh how hashem will uh look at the intent uh and even and in certain scenarios counted as merit and it makes perfect sense and you even answered a big question for me uh about genesis 20 verse six and i want to thank you for that um i so appreciate all you're doing uh there at yibbenet uh you can always find rabbi poston on his website ebene.com or you can find him on his uh youtube channel yubine i know he's north of a million views he gets several thousands of views a week uh between the messages he shares in rabbi uh breidawitz beautiful beautiful uh rabbi teacher uh always sharing profound concepts and easy to digest words so so hashem willing we're on for next week for part 48 but we are going up to 50 right there's rat all right i look forward to it so we're going to sign up for today we wish you all a wonderful wonderful week and we'll be back next week with part 48 so till then have a wonderful week bye for now [Music] is