Old Age and Denial: Shaarei Teshuva 2:6-8 with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

[Music] welcome back to the charlie chuva kabura and um we are going to begin in char bet right in the second chapter and we're dealing with paragraph six seven and hopefully eight we have enough material here to cover all three paragraphs uh they're quite short so bizrat hashem we will go deeply into them in the time that we have okay um now let me just discuss this idea first um later on in paragraph seven we're going to talk about someone who reaches a certain age right an old age that person should be inspired to do trouba the question is why you know we discuss in metaphysical terms the older one gets they actually see the light at the end of the tunnel calling them you know they organized they realize that they're mortal right life is not going to go on forever so we will discuss the idea of two different types of zakan and aseva right someone who reaches the age of 60 and then someone who reaches the age of 70 but either way the older you get hopefully the more serious sober wise hopefully you get wiser and you realize how precious life in this world is and the opportunity to do truva before it passes through your fingers we recently had a friend of ours unfortunately um it was a woman's ex husband who had nobody and she actually took care of him and was visiting him in the hospital and actually took care of his funeral funeral and the shiva but basically he was on his way out and she tried to convince him to do confession now when i talk about confession you just imagine in those movies where oh my god call in the priest right so we don't need to call on the priest because when we ask somebody to do confession we're not asking them to confess to us they have to confess to hashem now one has to have and maybe as a rabbi as a friend we call bedside manners right you could put someone into a state of shock you say hey man you're on your way out you're about to die i think you should say make confession to the lord and make everything right well that's not exactly the best way although it may be necessary i heard i have not really been in this position i actually was i mean i i had someone who was going to come and we knew that they were there to talk to us so you basically tell the person that many people have been in your position and some of them confessed and actually got out of that situation there's no guarantee you're not giving them any false promises because the confession that they will make remember vedo is part of chuba that confession is invaluable i mean there's nothing you can do after the fact this is the time for the regret this is the time for the conviction this is the time for the confession and it's not to you it's the god and hopefully if you give them some hope because you want to leave them a window of opportunity and now it could be just to use for enticement to get them to confess but it's true you're not lying to them by saying there have been people in your position who confessed and survived meaning they got up and walked out of the hospital right where you could live a little bit longer confession metaphysically speaking brings life right the whole idea of doing chuga is it's going to bring you eternal life but we're even talking about in this world hashem could create a miracle we're not relying on the miracle but you want to encourage the person so that is in terms of bedside manners a proper way to speak about letting them know that it's never too late to do truma and that it's beneficial for you and it's not between you and them it's between them and god okay so here we're getting to this idea that we're going to be discussing the idea of someone who's in their old age should be inspired out of realization as it says in perky a vote hillel said right if not now then when what better time you don't you may not have tomorrow so this applies to an even greater degree for a person whose death is imminent additionally we have to know that death is often preceded with yesurim yisurim are challenges or actually pains it doesn't necessarily mean punishment although that's how many people i think do translate it yesurim are pains and challenges tribulations perhaps and we have been discussing this idea this should inspire someone to do truva and meanings it should inspire one to do to take an accounting of the soul and try to figure out what they need to do to improve their life so now we're let's begin this is the path we discussed um already um in terms of doing chuva test so doing true on the day of one's passing when the sinner right we're all sinners when the sinner realizes that his demise is imminent and that god forbid he's any hope for enjoying any more pleasure in this world is pretty much gone so we have an interesting verse this verse is in proverbs 11 7. when a wicked man dies russia hope is lost today and the expectation of his children is lost but this idea that when a man when a person dies hope is lost so this idea that when you're approaching when someone is approaching death they uh they lose hope this is the perfect time the perfect time to confess the el hashem believes shalem and that's the time to repent to do truth towards hashem in um in a complete way wholeheartedly the gamut to sila this type of chuva is also effective we've been discussing this idea that even it was just just to get rid of the pains right that that was that's what woke you up to do trouba here you're talking about the approach of death this is also effective tumor so basically this last line is saying that even though it doesn't reach the perfect level of truva who was let's say in their prime i don't know let's say between the age of 20 and uh and uh 60 right let's say 40 right let's put in the middle right in the the prime nevertheless bashar harishan we've already explained this before there was an idea i wanted to bring down let me see if i can remember what it was um it'll come to me it'll come to me um oh this is what i wanted to say that i did discuss in my class saturday night and the class was titled um oh gosh i'm getting going for a blank now now it was the 48 ways and uh we were discussing i'll tell you what we were discussing we were discussing number 21. 21 says like this minimizing laughter that's what we discussed no yeah minimizing laughter minimizing laughter and because of the tragedy i couldn't help number one discuss this idea minimizing laughter when tragedy hits but the other idea we had discussed last week in this class right about everything that happens to us is for the good that's what we have been discussing consistently for the last few weeks so i'm not going to go into it now i encourage you to listen to that class it's number 21 of the 48 ways to wisdom okay now what about another way of inspiration another way of inspiration is like this this is discussing the two age groups one is 60 zygna means elderly and yame seva is 70. has to do with becoming wise or like white hair okay so what happens the dal coco there's a weakening awakening there's a let's say a shortage of of strength the iman the usa utro and the diminishing and a subduing of your yetzer hara now there are all kinds of yatsura i mean just because you're getting old does not mean you don't have the yitzha in terms of the physical world there may be a lessening there may be you know it's a sexual desire so i've been told the older you get perhaps the sexual desires are diminished but i can only imagine people who live um either of their wealth or their power and their honor right people seek honor and perhaps it even gets stronger at that age but let's just assume for a second that someone becomes wiser and therefore their their um the yetzer hara is somewhat diminished the older they get the gamescore quizobo and obviously someone's coming to the cognizant idea he's remembering the idea that his end is near and therefore y'all he realized his end is somewhat clear somewhat close as well he's contemplating his state the yeshud al-hashem the arkham and therefore he should do or she should do repentance and in turn hashem will have mercy upon that person as well now god forbid but what happens when someone doesn't repent when that old age has arrived so you gotta like swallow this one you cappell own show varaba olaf then there would be a double punishment the punishment would be doubled and hashem i think this word is like hate mastema um i just can't see that letter yeah it's a master olaf hashem will have great animosity towards this person okay kamo like it says now this is in the gemara sake and i do want to spend some time on this question is should we do it now and move forward or finish and come back to it i think i think it's always better to keep the flow going for now but it's a very interesting gemara and even though i just said that as soon as i go through it i'm going to you know what i'll try to explain it as we go through okay just that i have the gamora here too next to me but maybe we'll do it outside okay let's stick with the plan there are actually three types the gamer actually brings fourth type but he brings down three at the moment um that hashem actually hates the tests now the word gay means pride okay just so that's like an easy word to remember okay gay and pride they go together okay so someone who is poor but has a certain type of haughtiness should a pauper should a pauper be haughty it's a false sense of hardness these are people that not only hashem detest but the people right these these are actually people people detest so someone who has no money but has such a certain amount of pride is a detestable person um because first of all there's an idea that if someone is poor it's like they're tasting death right they really have i'm not gonna say no hope god forbid everyone should have hope but someone who is relying on other people knocking on doors but it's such a it's such a fake there's such a facade that they have really nothing to be so gay about to be so hardy about how about the next one so a wealthy person who denies that he owes people money now meaning he could pay someone has a claim hey you owe me money and it's a real claim and he knows it's true but he doesn't want to depart from his money the truth is the same thing applies when you go it's if someone is collecting sadaka from a wealthy person so the government's like as an example so a poor person knocks on the door he says hello i'd like to speak the to the man of the house so the wealthy person says he acts like the butler he says i'm sorry sir he's not home right now right i mean can you imagine i mean the truth is when we when we have money it's not our money right this is this is hakanesh baraku's money and he gave it to you to distribute to use wisely and here you have a real poor person coming to your house here with the first thing we said was you really owe somebody so again you're living a lie you you you're so connected to your money and here you're talking about a wealthy person if a poor person comes that it's really he's collecting his money from you i know it sounds very strange but it's not your money it's god's money okay so that's detestable in in the eyes of people and hashem and the third category which i think it leads into the idea i think it's why he brought it but not only the other two as well zache so an old man who is promiscuous so i can only imagine what i've heard about this a certain you know could be a very small segment of society but they i've been told they're these men they're very they call them dirty old men what does that mean i don't know it means that they still think they're like 20 years old or maybe 30 and they're and they're um i don't know they're they're not acting appropriate with uh the the members of the opposite sex so the whole idea of these three people it's coming down to hoshaya hosea 7 9 there's a verse strangers have consumed his strength with somebody's getting old but he didn't know and also weakness was cast into him but he did not know it's like remember we're talking about knowing that you're getting old knowing that you're not going to live forever knowing that now is the time to do trouba but somehow in your mind you're in total denial right strangers have consumed his strength but he did not know the lo yoda also sever zarkobo yoda not he's not conscious he's not of his reality the person these three people are not in reality i'll just tell you the other example the gemara gives is someone who divorced his wife already twice and uh took it back a third time he's got to make up his mind already what's he doing is he because he doesn't want to pay money for the ketubah like what's exactly going on maybe his children he didn't want to separate himself from but you got to get a grip as they say get a grip on reality you can't you can't treat other people with such contempt it just isn't right so the basic thing is to get in touch with reality i think that's the bottom line here okay romero yona wonders how a person can possibly ignore this stimulus to do true i mean hashem is uh letting you know you you're walking around now with the cane you're walking around now with the uh what do they call that walker you're sitting in a wheelchair i mean i i know i understand i understand there's some people that don't once they need a cane or a walker or a wheelchair they won't go out anymore right they're so i'm gonna say embarrassed i don't know exactly what has come over them but they're not in reality and they're gonna actually suffer their own life they can get out and like swallow their pride just knowing that they are getting old and baro hashem had a great life so why are you so embarrassed now it's easy for me to say because i'm young but i understand to a certain extent astonishment and questioning uplia another type of amazing right it's absolutely amazing and astonishing that a person is like in i'm not going to call it midlife crisis but let's say they're in there we've discussed the idea maybe 40 or 45 is somewhere in the mid i guess they call midlife crisis somewhere between 40 and 50. the road he sees or she sees their life and you know getting fewer the life is becoming as we say um right it's it's becoming as he says fewer and fewer you know your days are becoming fewer and fewer the body is beginning to deteriorate right as my mother says if you wake up in the morning you have pain it means you're alive right so to a certain extent this is a good wake-up call and at that age already you know right at midpoint sometimes it comes a little early so at midpoint he actually describes it even better um that the body or the edifice right the binyan begins to break down and then his moisture goes the the akhsar hamesig bativo right his natural moisture begins to dry up decrease the terra bow high yo veget and again now you're actually going to see you know i guess a lot of the older you get maybe you need more creams and vaseline and all kinds of uh moisturizers so there's a verse in psalms 102 verse 12. king david he says my days are like the lengthening shadow and i dry out like grass so we discussed the idea of mid-life so when the sun begins to set let's say midday there is no shadow but once the sun begins to we're in the northern hemisphere so i don't know how it works uh in the southern hemisphere i guess just the opposite but it it will set in the west but it's the southwest right so as the sun moves from midday towards the southwest so the the shadows begin to become longer so i guess in the south if you're in the southern hemisphere would be the northwest i think i don't know it depends what season perhaps uh but anyway i we live most of us live in the northern hemisphere we welcome everybody no matter where you are but i'm just using my um imagination here so the idea is my days are like a lengthening shadow king david right as when you reach the halfway point from that point onward you realize your days are being counted and i dry out like grass again this idea of um old age okay i have to find my place where are we here we are um and yet yet the person fails to do trouba so enough is like plaster so how is it that his eyes are covered from his from a like a true understanding within his heart um how can his eyes be so covered that they're unable to see his heart so plastered over that it is unable to understand below right this is like rebuke this is a great tokaka here velo yira ki no sayahu el amakom but he doesn't realize he's on his travels towards his eternal home he cannot even perceive that he's on his way to the base olamo to the cemetery to the world to come but anyway and he's just continuously traveling along right almost like a blind person going through life so this is the finishing of of paragraph seven let's begin paragraph eight it's also quite short ribena yeon attempts to explain this phenomenon so we will end unfortunately on a sad note right because we're talking about the idea of missing out the opportunity to chuva but nine will be about the righteous who don't miss that opportunity so that means you have to come back next week and listen right okay so now we're going to talk about how how is it that people miss this opportunity if not now when the yeash on ashim rabbi there are many people mayhem or they just miss the the light right they're deprived of this light of truth you know what because they are mr perfect and this is perfect there's nothing wrong with them that's what they think right because they view themselves as completely meritorious and pure and therefore you have no need to do true how many of us feel like that belongs they don't think that there's any action that needs to be taken for their deeds they actually imagine in their mind's eye in their soul that they are perfect the shame mode but the truth is they're exceedingly sinful towards hashem and we have a verse in these ecclesiastes that's um cohellis is a famous verse but ours there is no righteous person so righteous a person on earth who only does good and sins not in other words god created us blood what do you call that flesh and blood he knows our weaknesses he created with all the tensions and all the desires and all the because around so nobody's a hundred percent so get over it you know why would you think that you're so perfect but we do we lied to ourselves so romano yona suggests an underlying cause for this gross misconception they actually they're basically ignorant i mean i think it's more than that but we'll talk about it they consider sin as something trivial the lord gishu of the avinu lamo they are either completely unaware or they're just ignorant of their sins o hoda allah now even if their sins were known to them at some point in time they're bound to be forgotten from their hearts remember we i don't know if we spoke about it but the idea of anything that is kashruth to you or anything we spoke about in the partial of the week a few weeks ago uh and uh anything that is kashuf to you you count if it's not kashuv right what's it there to accounting wheat or counting hay and weeds right you don't count the hay in the weeds but you count the wheat you count gold you count silver that which is khashou that which is important to you that is what something you count so if the sin is not it's just trivial it's not important then you're not even gonna you're gonna forget about it quite quickly so it never occurs to the person they need to repent by the way maybe i should tell you now i mean our tradition is the yaakov avinu begged hashem pleaded to hashem prayed to hashem that people should get sick before they die people just sneezed and their soul left them they were perfectly healthy and at some point whenever it was time for them to die and he said i don't understand i pray that people should have time to do juva how do you know you're going to die why don't we uh you know hashem you make it so people get sick first and this gives them an opportunity right a golden opportunity to do truva as older people call the golden age the golden opportunity to do truva so here they're like a sick person who unaware of this illness does not even think about a cure why would you pray oh i need i need to refuse lame i need to be uh healthy but you don't even know you're sick so the idea that even having a little bit of pain is is like a sign right i know there are people that i don't know i don't know anybody personally like this but i know i've heard about it where the neurological senses are not working properly god forbid can you imagine you don't know that it's hot because you know you put your hand on a hot plate you can burn your hand i mean down to the bone even if you don't have the nerve endings right you get the idea i mean i don't want to describe you know detail these different types of illnesses that people have but there are some people that have no feeling in certain things certain limbs and therefore if they ever got ill or could come gangrene you wouldn't even know it right if you're not going to take care of a wound on an extremity so what happens is the ichabod helio tummy are shallow your holy here and so what's going to happen because of this neglect the illness will continue to continuously worsen until there's absolutely no cure whatsoever and now we're down to the last few lines um we're going to see he's going to suggest another reason why why people tend to view themselves as completely righteous right we're all in this category we think we're god's gift to mankind right like we said ignorance sometimes the reason for their lack of insight into deter into the laws of the torah is killing elohim they never they did not come they did not come to seek the word of god it wasn't interesting to them they never learned they never learned to knock and they never learned in yeshiva they never learned in seminary right it was not interesting to them and they didn't even desire to know god's ways that's why they never asked questions to rabbis that's why they never went to classes because they weren't curious listen they're all kinds of people you know they say i just have to be a good person and they have their own sense of morality which is not based on on anything that is even true yeah of course there's a lot of truth in in their in their own made-up sense of morality but if it's not based on the torah it's it's not completely true it's subjective so if they're not knocking on the doors of the rabbis of torah scholars in order to gain wisdom so they don't know how to uh make hijab they don't even know how to properly assess their own way and here's a verse it's in proverbs 15 12. a schooner does not like being reproved he does not go to the wise lates okay right the corner the late the late sun the jester the the class clown he's the last one he doesn't want anybody to rebuke him and to me he doesn't go now there is another idea and i didn't i didn't mention it before so the question is where does it fit in in this conversation ah when we discussed it was another discussion about remember we said there were three people that hashem um disdains and people haven't discussed for them and we spoke about the pauper who was completely arrogant we talked about um the wealthy person who is in denial when people make their claim or someone comes to collect how about an old man who's promiscuous well there was another one the gemara mentions besides the guy who divorced his wife twice and took her back a third time he can't seem to make up his mind it was a discussion about a leader of a community who is just so arrogant he's just using his his authority he's overbearing on his authority so the idea why that's so gross and disgusting is the only reason he has authority is because we granted it to him it's the sibor that seabourn gave the person the authority now it doesn't literally mean they gave him the authority the person could have the the greatest character traits and everything and it was a vote to a certain extent uh they granted him the authority um it could be that he earned it could be that he was just the son of a prominent person in the community but um the idea is that the person is only in that position because of the tibor and the proof was by can by moshe robeno himself if you go to exodus chapter 32 verse 7 when the lord said to moses this is a at the time the jewish people erev was involved with the sin of the golden calf god says to moses go descend for your people that you brought up the land of egypt have acted corruptly by the way moses peoples the ere of rav the hashem el moshe lay raid go down the idea is that moses had to go down from his position yes it's true god was telling him to go down from the mountain but the only reason you're in this this position um and having all this of what we call direct line to hashem to tell oh what do you mean the 6 13 613 commandments the torah was for moses sake no he was a conduit he was chosen for this position to tell over because of us right i mean no i'm not moses is my favorite character in the bible he's very special but if we didn't deserve it he also went down so it's someone who is in charge or appointed even if it's self-appointed over a congregation or over a community he's to realize the only reason he is in that position is because of the deserving of the seabourn should therefore respect the sibor as much as he's demanding respect or authority it's a symbiotic relationship he's only in that position because of them and hopefully that would i don't know deflate his uh his ego somewhat or help him and you know deal properly with people okay so i think that's it that's a very short class i think it's our shortest class so far but that's three paragraphs uh paragraph nine is very long so bizrat hashem next week we will do paragraph nine and i look forward to seeing you all and we say thesaurus tovos besides may we hear good tidings and maybe also understand right the what we call bad right uh when we hear bad tidings we're supposed to say baruch dayana met god his blessed is the truthful judge the righteous judge that's righteous judgment we accept it it's from hashem we're actually told in the gemara in the tradition that we're supposed to say it with the same emotion that we say bro the blessing when we hear good tidings now that is very strange because we all know we're human beings and god created us this way but ultimately we know the truth that god is one and there's no raw there's no evil that emanates from hashem that the what it is there's r there's toth what we relate to is good that we call obvious and revealed good and what we see as ra we call ra which could be translated to evil let's not translate let's call it hidden good unrevealed good we don't see it now but ozya male is called pino right but in the future right when we come back when hashem brings back the exiles of the jewish people back to his israel which were we're we're in the process we're in the process but when majority of us get here or all of us get here then our mouths will be filled with laughter and that's what i talked about in that minimizing laughter there is a point it doesn't mean to minimize laughter it means to maximize laughter meaning to all these ideas in the 48 ways where it says minimize this minimize that minimize that it means to get the most out of it because if it's all over the place it's meaningless it's to minimize it to to to to make the best of it which means to actually maximize it anyway so sayonara shalom shalom shalom we'll see you next week [Music] me oh