Who Knows the REAL You? (Parshas Chukas)

so there was a priest rabbi and a minister and they used to get together and gamble he used to play cards and uh it was illegal to gamble in that town so they were playing cards one night and the police chief broke in and he caught them all red-handed sitting around the table with the cards and the police chief said first he asked the priest he said father o'leary are you gambling the priest looks heavenward and he whispers oh god just this once i'm gonna say one little white lie just one little white lie and he looks at the police chief and he says no i am not gambling okay so the next one is the uh the pastor the police chief says to the pastor he says uh says pastor smith are you gambling he says looks up at heaven he whispers a little prayer and says oh god just one time one little white lie and he looks the police chief he says no no i was not gambling police chief looks at the uh rabbi says robert goldberg were you gambling rabbi says with whom okay so let's talk about a little white lie a little white lie it says in this week's partial practice that aha passed away ordering the kind and afterwards it says the congregation saw that aharen had passed had expired the evil israel and the entire house of israel mourned cried for aha reign for 30 days and rashi mentions cold base israel the whole house of israel the men and the women why lefisha you are invited because aaron was a pursuer of peace um he used to make peace between people who were fighting uh and between man and wife this is a very truncated version of the aves de rabinasen where it explains more fully the method that aha used in order to make peace so there in the obvious he explains like this when aharen would find out that two people were fighting be they friends or neighbors or spouses or business partners or whatever he would go to one party on their own and he would say i hear that you're in a fight with so and so well that that that's a real shame because your fill in the blank spouse neighbor business partner friend whatever really wants to apologize really wants to make peace and he doesn't have the guts but he really he wants he knows he knows he's wrong and he wants to make peace so you know be the big man and go over and just allow him to make peace with you and then he would go to the other party and he would say the exact same story and then they would see each other both one both ones with their ego sort of disarmed both ones assuming that they didn't have to be the one to admit they were wrong because the other one had already made the overture for peace so to speak and then they would just see each other and start getting along and that's that was how arin made peace so basically um if you look at the way that the madish describes it you would say the reason that ahring was successful in making so much peace was because he knew how to lie you knew how to lie little white lie little white lie but he was lying and uh i guess you could say yeah for the purposes of peace right meshano for the purposes of peace you can change the truth a little bit it's called diplomacy it's called pact but we're going to look at this from a deeper level uh a more spiritual level and we're going to ask ourselves really that's what was so exemplary so noble about aharen that he knew how to spin the truth he was a spin doctor no there's got to be something deeper especially because ghazal our sages tell us to be like aharen not only do they tell us the effect that aharin had on the people of his generation but uh it says in particular obviously the first chapter of pikavis hillel says you should be like aaron be of the disciples of ahren and and pursue peace and make peace love peace so it can't just be that the whole teaching here is learn how to play with the truth in order to make peace it's got to be something deeper than that so what is it and if we'll understand on a deeper level what rn was doing we'll also understand why his passing was particularly difficult for the jewish people and why everyone mourned him so those two things really what was aaron really doing deeper than just playing with the truth and why was that thing he was doing something that made him made his loss particularly difficult for the jewish people you follow okay so uh i'll tell you a story that i heard directly from the person to whom it happened there's a hoshavayid named sv hersh winerapp happens to be he's also a psychologist which is the worst thing basically he's a talmud he's a psychologist he's a respected guy so basically what happens is that everybody comes to him for advice but who's he supposed to go to and that is what the story is about the story is that when he was a very young man he he had a crisis where the whole world was relying on him and he felt he didn't have anyone to go to when when he had problems so to set the scene he lived in crown heights i'm not sure how long he lived in crown heights i know it wasn't very long um his wife was also a very wonderful person she's from the mujitsar taubs and if people ask me if i'm from the modular tabs i say listen to me sing and you'll know within the first note no anyways the majit said uh base madness was in crown heights so when they first got married they lived in crown heights and i think he told me he went to one of the rebels fabregas in 770 at once maybe twice but it was it was once or twice and that was his extent of his dealings with with lubavitch this was in the late 60s anyways my point is that he had been in a public setting with the rabbi and he knew what they'd have his voice sounded like because he'd heard that i had to speak publicly but that was it there was nothing more than that then he moved to maryland to silver springs maryland and this is where the story took place he had this crisis where he was he was giving shiorim for the balabotham and he was like you know a rav figure he was also practicing professionally very looked up to in a professional capacity and and he had questions about about being a husband being a father questions about yiddish kite you know people do have questions right but he's the one who's supposed to be the answer guys so who's he supposed to go to when he has the questions and he said he felt very isolated and he used the word he says i became depressed and if he used the word depressed i mean i'm sure he wasn't throwing the word around loosely so he says uh i spoke to the smartest guy i knew uh and i asked him what should i do so it's interesting he didn't ask this guy for advice but he asked him how to get advice he spoke to naftaliberg oliver shalom who was a genius he was a nuclear physicist i think he did work for the government and uh genius scientist so berg told him um go to the debbie you gotta go to the bob should have it so rabbi weinreb i guess he didn't know any better he didn't know protocol this was in the sixties he could have gotten a this he could have scheduled an audience however long it would have taken a year two years whatever but he eventually could have had this but he went straight to the top uh he got the number for 770 he just picked up the phone he called and the rebbe's chief secretary he realized after the fact was that he had his chief secretary robert khadakov answered the phone and says verreta who's speaking now abby weinreb the whole point of his call was he wanted somebody he he could confide in and ask these questions that he didn't really feel i mean obviously at this point years later he's comfortable telling the story but at the time there was like a lot of shame and like how could i have these questions i'm not supposed to even have these these thoughts so he was he didn't want to say his name so when rabbi hanukkah said veda who's speaking here he just said ayed for maryland he said a jew from maryland that's it okay fine that's that's the only way he identified himself and he is i want to ask some questions okay no fred can you cancel i ask you questions so he asked a bunch of questions and he said it was very weird because every time you ask something repeat word for word out loud what he was asking like it's a weird way to have a conversation and he wouldn't answer anything he would just keep saying he'd just repeat out loud what rabbit weinreb had just said so at the end of the whole thing he hears another voice in the background and he realizes this is the rebbe's voice and he realizes khalikov answered the phone in the rebbe's office and the reason khadukov is repeating word for word everything that wine rebb is saying is he's acting like a human speaker phone basically this is this is the 60s before a speakerphone so he's just repeating out loud so that ebba can hear and then the rabbit can give an answer so he hears in the background the rebels answer and remember when rabbit halikov asked who's calling he said ayed for maryland so he hears in the background the rabbis say to halakov from maryland since he's calling for maryland zoghim tell him i said in maryland there's a jew in maryland he should speak to un his name is wine rep i mean you know you know this is like just pause this for a second but you know this is like an old joke there's an old joke about a guy who's sitting on a psychiatrist's couch uh he says uh doctor thank you for taking me for this for this meeting uh i'm depressed and the doctor's like listen i could take your money but i want to do your favor don't come to me if you're depressed you're in luck i just read this morning in the paper the circus is coming to town and this circus has a famous clown called paliachi and everyone who sees paliachi is just tickled pink with mirth and glee just go see poliacci and the guy lying in the psychiatrist couch says doctor no i can't do it yes you can just go do yourself a favor go see polyacry says doctor i can't do it he's like yes you can go to the circus and watch the clown watch poliacci and you'll be so delighted you'll doctor i can't do it he says why not why can't you go see paliacci he says doctor i'm polyachey right it's an old joke but this is real he said there's a jew in maryland he should speak to you she'll speak the wine wrap so wine rap says the character says but i'm the i'm that wine rabb so he hears about how the cow say wait a second just wait a second and he hears sort of like this very flustered tone from harukov he's telling them he says he's the guy then he hears the rabbit very calmly very calmly say hey zola viscenzai azamal dashman redden if that's the case it should be made it should be made known to him that at times you have to speak to yourself that's it that's the story now what is this a story about if you say it's how did the rebel know or what did that even know i don't know i i don't know and honestly those kinds of stories don't excite me because what am i supposed to how can i apply that you know if it is about some type of clairvoyance or something i can't apply that but what's the moral of the story here that i can learn from it's that sometimes i think that i'm the confused guy and i have to realize that i'm also the guy with clarity and the guy who's confused has to speak to the guy with clarity which is an internal dialogue and not to be intimidated by my own confusion not to identify with my own confusion but rather to say you know what deep down there's a part of me that does have clarity and can shed light on this situation and if i'll just believe in myself enough to do it i can get the answer there's a there's an expression which the the conventional translation is faith in our sages but there's an unconventional translation as well can mean not the faith that we have in our sages but the faith that the has in us means the faith that the has when he looks at you and knows that you're smarter than you think you are and you think you're the confused person you think you're the one with the questions and he says yeah that too but primarily you know who you are you have clarity and you have answers and you need to just speak to yourself and that's really what a real hochem does a real hohem is not fooled by our confusion a real gokham is not taken in by the outer image that we project or you know i don't know i i'm so confused i'm so afraid i don't have clarity you know what get over it get over it you are not a fool you are very wise you know the answer you know the answer better than anyone all you need is someone who believes in you and can direct you to yourself you're the expert that ever did this all the time by the way and i stole this method and got credit for it but i kept telling you when i stole it from the web which is when i wrote the ami column for eight years and everyone always say to me oh it's brilliant how you turn the question into the answer you take the person's question and you just re-formulate the phrase and you put it back to them like boom there's your answer i said yeah i i stole that from the rabbit they never used to do that like jonathan sacks all of a sudden says the baba should have changed my entire life without saying or writing a single word i wrote to him at a critical juncture in life should i become the next chief rabbi of great britain the abba circled should circled i made arrows transposing the two words crossed out the squiggly part of the question mark to make it a period and sent the letter back to me and now i read it said my old letter said i should become the next chief rabbi of great britain in other words you think you only have the question no you also have the answer and that your confusion is just the the veneer the the the facade which is covering your own clarity and if you dig deep you'll find that the answer is within you and that's what a real hochem is a real ghochem is one who perceives more than face value that's why we say yes who's who's why someone who sees what's going to be what does it mean what's going to be potential potential the hulkham sees potential in things and situations and primarily in people in people so the has a better opinion of you than you but who's right the thinks you're smart you think you're not so smart who's right you are the hakam the khokham is right the hawkham's right that you are smarter than you think you are and amol sometimes you got to speak to yourself because you do have clarity now go speak to yourself so now let's talk about aaron the truth is that aaron wasn't successful in making peace because he was a liar aaron was successful in making peace because he told the truth the deepest truth a truth so deep that oftentimes you weren't in touch with it you thought i hate the guy i'm fighting with that guy he's my enemy and aaron wouldn't be intimidated by that because he was a real hawker man he would look into you and he'd say you're you're not fighting with him i mean he didn't say this he didn't articulate it to you he didn't need to he just looked at you and it made you want to align yourself with your inner self which is in harmony and peace with everyone in other words when we say your inner true self we mean your nishamah so your ego may be fighting with somebody your ego may be threatened and fearful but your neshama is not threatened and fearful you know shaman is at peace and and loves everyone you know there's a there's a the the rambam says laws of divorce that there's a guy who's holagically obligated to give a divorce and he won't do it so they help him they they apply some physical pressure and they help him coefficient they force him they they force him until he says i want because a get has to be given with free will so the classical question is well you're beating the guy up and what does it mean to write someone i want if he wouldn't have beaten him up he wouldn't have said i want senator explains it right there and he says that um you're not forcing him to do the right thing we're talking about somebody who's illogically obligated to give a gut you're not forcing him to do the right thing he wants to do the right thing his yatsuhara is forcing him to not do the right thing so which is the coercion the coercion isn't getting him to say right so any i want to do what is halachically correct every jew this is what that says that's a matter of every jew wants to do what is halal correct and the fact that he's not doing it right now is only because his yate sahara is pressuring him and bothering him in coerce and coercing him so you have to do you have to set him free to let him do what he really wants to do so this is the idea that if if you were fighting with another jew i mean that's that's clogged about toyota if you have to wear kamehameha that's not just one mitzvah that's all mitzvahs or the foundation of all mixes i don't know it's impossible there's no way that a jew doesn't want to do that mitzvah okay so there's this external superficial aspect of him that that thinks that it's fighting with someone but that's not the real you the real you you're a lover not a fighter and so when aaron would go tell the guy you're fighting with that you already wanted to make up with him he wasn't lying he was telling the truth not just any truth but the deepest truth the deepest truth about you and that's why they mourned aharen especially intensely because when they lost aharon not only did they lose a great man whom they all admired but they feared they had lost themselves because who will come now and remind us how great we are who will insist that we're better than we think we are who will talk us out of believing our false self-concept and prove to us that we are far more noble and and and faithful and loving than we think we are so they didn't feel they just lost this leader they they felt they had lost access to their their true identity if i can this this teaching by the way is from from the rabb whose yard site was yesterday so i just want to mention that well i'll quote jonathan sacks again uh he said that some leaders derive their uh authority because of how much the people trust in them and that laboratory derived his authority from how much he trusted in the people we spoke about this last week last week's pasha share about how the debbie deputized every single person he met and said tag you're it run with it you do it you're the leader now and this goes hand in hand with this idea of really seeing people's untapped greatness i'll leave you with one last story there was a hillel rabbi from uh i think it was the university of manitoba and winnipeg if that's correct and uh and those who are into uh trivia can find out who that rabbi was i'm not going to tell you but you can find out who it was and she brought a group to the rabbit this is back in the 60s and a group of college kids and one of the college kids didn't realize he was being disrespectful and he said to the deva in english in these words he said what's it ever good for anyway and the ra the rabbi was mortified he wanted to dig a hole and jump in but the rabbit took it very much in stride and the rabbit said well i can only tell you about my rabbit meaning grab his father-in-law you want to know what rebb is good for a rabbit is a sole geologist what's a sole geologist well what's a geologist a geologist is a scientist a particular kind of scientist you know what you know they studied the study of the earth and who hires geologists other than universities who hire them to teach geology to other people who are going to become geologists but the real money in geology is oh yeah oil is one thing but mining in general yeah natural resources 100 yep diamonds coal oil whatever it is metals because the mining companies they don't just dig anywhere because you waste a lot of money waste a lot of time they hire a geologist y'all just tells you what to dig for and where to dig that ever says a geologist tells you what to dig for and where to dig there's treasure in the earth there's treasure unlimited treasure but you got to know what to dig for and where to dig so too every person is covering a treasure every person is hiding a treasure you have a treasure of infinite spiritual power within you but you have to get a soul geologist who knows what to dig for and where to dig that is a rabbit so the rabbit is the hochum with the real ammunas the real munna that the khokham has in us that each one of us has a treasure inside and can bring it out so that we can actually access it what does it mean to access our treasure it means that it will affect our day-to-day behavior we all are my mean and bene my meaning believers the children of believers but that can remain abstract siddhis calls it literally means it's hovering our faith can sort of like hover around us so all this power that our soul has it's hover what does it mean it's hovering it's abstract it's a nice idea it's a nice idea but when push comes to shove and i have to make decisions how to act i can't rely on that faith to bring the faith out means that i'm actually able to use that faith in my day-to-day decision-making process so that when it comes to a choice where there's a dilemma and i have to choose what's right or what's easy and it's not the same thing sometimes what's right is what's easy sometimes it's not it's the right thing to do and there's the easy thing to do and i have to pick one or the other having access to my treasure means that i'm actually able to draw upon my faith to have the courage to make the right behavioral decision to choose the right action that's what it means to have access to your treasure so you are wonderful you are perfect you are infinite that's who you are the question is are you able to do anything similar to that and not always but if you have a sole geologist who's a real concern and can bring it out of you then you can start to behave as great as you are i'll tell you one last thing i have a friend boxer demetrius salidas so he one time he said that he had a trainer forget the trainer's name but he said his trainer told him that when it comes to being great in in boxing or in anything really but he said it in context of boxing so his trainer told him a lot of guys have what it takes but very few do what it takes now who told him that his trainer his trainer because that's the role of a trainer is to get you to do as great as you already are the trainer doesn't make you a greater person than you are you already are great the trainer gets you to do it that's what aaron was doing he wasn't making people greater than they are how can you improve upon perfection each one of us is already a perfect pristine soul an asham perfect and pure but sometimes we don't act like it so the trainer or the or the sole geologist gets us to act like it