(Part 1) The 8 Habits of Spiritual People Rabbi Robert Rhodes

[Music] thank you about her own pleasure privilege to be here so it looks like all are not the greatest scholars of Hebrew language and difficulties of reading some of the text may be a little bit of an issue okay you're nodding your heads in agreement with all of that I have I gave out six handouts and it's literally like god this is of course that I originally did at a couple of other places where we were dealing with people who had a pretty good command of reading Hebrew so what I want to do is do this course over it over a couple of different couple of sessions make up to three many more and go backwards from the conclusion right because this is called the eight habits of highly spiritual people right you read of course the seven Habits of Highly Effective whatever that book is gold no it's a Steven Steven Covey book seven Habits of Highly Effective something or others and it's a book that a lot of people read and of course do nothing with right and I use as a doorstop here we are looking at a text and it's on the second page which it's also of course entirely in Hebrew you can I'm going to introduce the text but what we've got on the following pages are my translation of it so starting on page number three and to page number four you will have the translation that I have made which is not entirely literal but is going to explain a great deal of what is being said and then if you look at page four you've got the eight Garmin's a list of things to do eight things to do a things that you shouldn't be doing that's what we're actually going to start once you get through a little bit of an introduction as to you know where we are in of the spectrum of Jewish life and learning okay so one through eight firstly let me start by asking a basic sort of question and what do you know about Hesse do it and Hassid ISM familiar part of the world of of Judaism or Jewish knowledge okay I'm not gonna ask you to explain who started Hassid ISM by Israel bal shem tov 1690 something recognized about 1760 not that one date I do remember founder total radical new movement within Judaism changed the entire world change absolutely everything and one of the great rabbis that followed in his footsteps is one that we are going to be learning today and that Israel by mortified yo safe laner of issuance that's great name for a rabbi rabbi Elena Elena mean to read okay you want good jokes you hire a comedian right I can be really smart about who he is I've got the Wikipedia article in front of you in front of me anyway I'm 1801 to 1854 he lived in a little town called ish bits and was one of the most radical thinkers of the Hasidic world the founder of fascism has died in 1760 this gentleman has born 40 odd years later so the movement is already well established it's already broken up into two major streams one that focuses on the personality of the rabbi of the desaad ik of the perfect person the intermediary between heaven and earth which I'm not where we are today rabbi yosef mortify us if Elena the reputation bits is totally the other way he looks at you the individual and says take responsibility for you here's the way that you're going to become great and he was totally radical his one of the big things that he keeps saying is what we were sort of talking about in where when we just started that there's no such thing as free choice you have no freedom of will you have no free will at all in anything even in belief if you're a non-believer if you are an agnostic that's because God wants you to be right that's about two topic for another day right his whole attitude towards towards life towards humanity it's an enormous ly interesting book it's actually very short it's one of these cases like a lot of the great Cassini grabbed by she didn't write down his own book it's put together by his grandchildren and one of his sons and over three different periods they collected together the absolute essence of what he said about much Torah reading of the week about the festivals about the Talmud so if you're looking for example at the par show they're sweet the tarot readings are endless right where wherever we happen to be we're in The Book of Numbers you're gonna have to look in three different volumes because over about ten fifteen years or so they got together and wrote this down three times you have very very very brief condensed essence of what was said I'm guessing he didn't get up and speak for you know five minutes I'm guessing he gave a lecture to talk that lasts four hours I just saw on the internet the revenue of Lubavitch I think the last 10 years of his talks is only forty five volumes and it's on sale right now you had a questions because it's totally I can't go into the subject at all here we're here doing that's it's enormous and to really understand what he means by it there's no free will you've got us look at a lot of sources in the original wrapping in his children's writing in his grandchildren's writing and in all the students thereof it's a very very big analysis for me in my life I can tell you it makes a lot of sense to say I don't have any choice I have to do this right whereas there are plenty of people who say I get up get up in the morning and I choose to be happy I choose to do this it's what works what works for the individual lives here we're going to win a totally different aspect of the of the revenue fish bits and my morning is safe what I think he does is and this is just my sort of overall analysis is he looks at lists of things in the Bible in the Talmud in texts of Jewish law and says like in this example there are eight things and he brings together a couple of things that there are eggs of and says here's a list that you should know off by heart the eight garments of the high priest and if you don't know them by heart well it's something you could learn because we all put on clothes in a certain order and the high priest put on clothing this is very special clothing in a certain order and they all represented different things and he is going to ultimately take this to each one of them having a life lesson and a habit that we should be practicing every day of our lives and it's as simple as I get up in the morning I put my pants I think of this I put my shirt on I think of that I put a hat on I think of something else and even if I don't wear all of these garments and even if I stay home in my bathroom all day which I quite often do you can sit down and do this as a meditation as a focusing of where you're going to in your life and what you're doing with your life the interesting thing about this one is he revisits the subject three more times maybe even four times so if you stick with it and you really want to get into all of this stuff there are variations on what the eight habits are okay reasonable amount of introduction good so I need to give you one more piece of information here who were the unshaken s attracted or translated into English I mean I'm incredibly smart here I have a printed page from Wikipedia right and the anyone can look this stuff out the men of the great assembly founded by the Prophet Ezra and about 520 BCE institution of torah sages led the Jewish people from the beginning of the Second Temple era of importance of us are a couple of things they put together the Hebrew Bible tonight right they decided which books are included in the Bible in which books are not how many books are there in the Hebrew Bible exactly there are if you open it of course many more Jewish tradition puts together for second Samuel and the two books of kings is one if I remember correctly the twelve prophets told what we call minor prophets are all included as one of extreme importance to us is they regulated and fixed the order of daily prayer especially the core prayer the Amidah the silent prayer that we say standing for as a day and here are very great importance to us is the prayer introducing the Shema right you all know the Shania right okay if you don't we cannot begin and of course instead of just the schmuck and the history will depress around it but there's a list of eight things in the prayer right before the Shema which the Rebbe of issuance is going to connect with the eight garments of the high priest okay take a breather it's very deep but it's very simple at the same time and when you get to the end of this I predict that you will have the reaction of just a moment I knew this all along this is a new idea it's wow it's and oh my god it's in Eureka moment when you start to think about it you're gonna say I knew this all along and that's the greatness of the great Hasidic rabbis the ones that appeal to me speak to me directly give me something that goes oh wow I got it I got to do this I don't make this part of my life or else they kick me where it hurts because I need to be kicked and hurt and told something that I don't want to hear a lot of the time these books will reach out to you and give you a good smack and a good kick metaphorically of course here it's just helping you with your life and if we start at the beginning you should be starting just with and I wrote down exactly what I'm gonna do yes we're gonna start the very very beginning which is actually the middle and the end if you look at check that page number four in the handout right so the middle of page four and then we're going to go back and look at what this whole High Priest thing is and what if special garments are because the message is so simple so obvious that you of course have known already right we are taking this specifically from one text in the mayushii law in the writings of RAM and we're defeos in the Fishman's and he says here or I derive and I put it together he doesn't tell you to go and do these eight things but it's it can't be for any other purpose number one is stop imagining live your life in reality don't be a wall to unity right grant me that book look what's that short Secret Life of Walter Mitty it made a movie out of it recently it was a short story rather than a book I remember from high school like a long long time ago don't imagine things don't imagine that you're something other than what you are don't imagine that you have whatever it is young to imagine things don't daydream your way through life number two possibly this is a work in progress as they say a lot of the things that I do when I start putting out in printing the list it's a work in progress and it's also personalized work in progress you know my issue with reality and the reality that I have to live in it's not the same as yours so feel free to take this any way you want okay generally Hussey dude is going to tell you there's no past present or future but that's that's the doctor who sort of a sort of issue that we will get to another time this is what this is one of the listen this is the first thing the numbers are important because the way they're numbered in the prayer before the Shema and the way they're numbered in the Bible in X is 28 and the way they're numbered in a piece of Talmud is going to be different but this is this is a list I would tend to say it makes sense to start with the first garment you put on you put on your pants before you put on your shirt so the the more basic issues first but again we're where are your priorities and where are your issues that's that's the way you order your list right number two don't hate anybody that's a hard one equality of all people and we'll see how he develops this from the plate that the high priest wore on his chest and little stones on get to know yourself at the deepest soul level and try and find some inkling of where you are in the process of reincarnation we're in the world of Zohar we're in the world of Jewish mysticism where reincarnation is a given right if you don't believe in reincarnation that's perfectly okay you are not denying the existence of God right if you don't if you don't think this works it doesn't work it is interesting it is more than interesting detail you have to know yourself within deepest love not here based the basic point that you get with a lot of the ravish myths is he gives you the the tip of the iceberg and then you go into the next generations you go into a solid echoing you go into the Beit Yaakov right and it's the the number one student and then the one of the sons and they expand and Sadiq is the one who talks about how to listen to your messages right it's one it's one of those popular books that's that's been my friend I think we wrote a book listen to your messages this is it and this is based on the the tunic that the high priests weren't going to get to all of these details the tunic had little bells on so the bells made a noise when he moved listen to the noise that you are making as you walk through life there's a message here why are we sitting here why aren't we somewhere else we could eat in the other room without the air conditioning I am comfortable chairs right listen listen to your messages what's what's going on what are you being told and Roberto because the one who does this whole thing on dream work on getting ready to receive genuine prophecy and messages from God in your dreams so again that's another course that we can do if you're interested number 4 accept advice and wisdom from anyone else don't get on your high horse as they say every body has something to teach you anyone can be your teacher right number 5 share your knowledge and experience that's one of the hardest things that there is in the whole world the galaxy it's a very biggest side that comes up here what's the thing that's holding back mushiya back to your questions there before we started what's the whole what's holding back the perfect world from being here right now we don't know how to share we didn't watch Barney when we were kids right you remember that a daughter loved Barney not just sharing but allowing other people to have bless you if somebody else has something be happy be glad that someone else gets the promotion gets the job has money has wisdom is smart whatever it happens to be because the ego no we're totally not we're totally not dealing with Souls here at all I'm not prepared to psychoanalyze but maybe yeah sure if you dose something share it with others right we all we all have experience right good bad or indifferent we all have been through different things in life and we do have an ability to share it number six do not hurt people it's pretty darn obvious really but what he brings in here is the above doubt and suspicion you hurt somebody else when you allow them to suspect you of something this is a very big phenomenon in the in the Jewish world of I need to keep up appearances of how religiously observant I am right that's one of the big traps that a lot of a lot of our brothers and sisters have fallen into I can't let anyone know that my level of observance of kashrut for example falls below or my I don't keep Shabbat up to thee whatever it is we're very worried about that here he's telling you on a much broader level and you'll see the examples that he's going to bring don't let someone have a negative opinion of you that you've done something wrong that you're not doing something right and that is harm to them if I act in a way other people can suspect me okay number seven do mitts vote right up to this point we haven't been talking about mitzvahs at all one of the things that you will notice when you get into this whole branch of Casa de ISM is they are not front and center saying keep Shabbos put on tefillin wear modest clothes right give lots of charity respect rabbis right none of this stuff is there none of the stuff is there any even in the opposite direction I'm sorry but um we're being recorded and I'll say it you have within within this particular branch of the faith you have the notion that there are priorities in your life that are so important not life-threatening situations not like saving someone from a burning building but there are such great priorities that they override the doing the mitzvot even we'll get to it eventually it'll take us a while but the mid Spode he said are a foundation for your relationship with God when you do commandments as they are written in the Bible as they are written in the various books of Jewish law you have something to relate to and talk to God about right why do you like people why do you get along with some people and not others because you have a common language you have a shared connection it's exactly the same with God one of the greatest and most most profound lessons that you get from a lot of classy good is the humanizing of God and the human relationship that God wants with us right number eight it had to come to this because it's it's everywhere control your your sexual desires achieve perpetuity and eternity through restraint in intimate all right always keep your pants on as they say right and it works it works in English okay what that's that's the list that's the list the list of a things each one of these goes with one of the garments of a high priest and if you go to the website of the temple Institute you can get a bunch of pictures of that of all of these things if you want after that I'll show you a few that I've downloaded or we can do a field trip and go out for lunch or something like that in the old city I don't know what the admission is but it's worth seeing this week they have made the garments of the high priests the utensils for the temple ready to use ready to rock and roll mushiya arrives tomorrow certain obstacles are removed they have a temple you start sacrificing they're ready yeah so you know we're not we're not tell we're not terribly politically here at all right where are we gonna start I want to start with the book of Exodus chapter 28 and if you have any H it is acti put I put the rip the relevant verses on the top of page number three but I think what I want to do is read through a little bit of the text itself from from the actual Bible so if you haven't you the others in front of you we're going to be going into a period of time if you have a phone it's on safari 'or go to chabad.org and just get the translation from it tonight it's all I have the route the relevant and important verses are on the top of page number three in your handout right where are we and what's happening and what's the base message here the basic message of all of this should be so obvious that you should all be shouting it out right now the basic lesson that we are going to extract from all of this is very very simple you are the high priest of your own life you are the high priest of life itself and you have the ability to walk into the Holy of Holies the kodesh a Kardashian the temple the sanctuary the place where only the high priest goes only once a year and it's an amazing space it's a transdimensional portal it's a place where you can reach into God's universe itself or you can just put it in really straight ordinary terms you're the captain of your own ship right you're in charge of what's going on and your life is as Holy and as valuable and as precious to God as the high priest himself and if that's all you learn from this that's enough I can go home give myself a pat on the back and say I showed these people something okay you are the high priest of your own life you're in charge of your own destiny and your life is in fact a sacred activity and if you maintain this program of eight things in your life even when you get dressed in the morning when you have time for meditation during the day you're gonna really be flying through life okay where are we in the Bible when we get to Exodus chapter 28 don't know answer ones yeah parson sits out that it's the Mishkan the building of the portable sanctuary that the Israelites use in the forty years while they were traveling from Egypt to the Land of Israel so far so good right everything that they had there all the utensils all the various things that they did very much the same as what is in the temple in Jerusalem many generations later ones built translations are gonna vary I'm looking at Caesarea and whatever old-fashioned translation they happen to have here but we have in chapter 28 a listing of the various things that have to be done to get Aaron the first High Priest ready for all his work right so I'm just starting here at verse number one chapter 28 and bring forward your brother Aaron with his sons from among these rights of service priests God is giving Moses instruction right make sacral vestments for your brother not wonderful sentence make sacral vestments for your brother for dignity and adornment right we're not going to parse all of these things but we're gonna try and just get the list of English words for the various garments I know I've written this down somewhere right because they're not all words that can be translated easy into English verse number three instructor horse skillful whom I have endowed with the gifts of skill to make the vestments etc etc here we are verse number four that's right at the top of page three on the handout these are the garments that they shall make a hoshin which is normally translated as rest peace if you go into any synagogue you see they have this motive all over the place and again go to Temple Institute and see I'll show you after the foot some pictures of this if you're interested this was a cloth thing that had on it twelve stones and each of the twelve stones represented one of the tribes of Israel right I'm a thought what was an a thought how do you translate a foreign to English or some sort of apron right in when you look at the pictures you will see it it looks very much like the sort of apron that you would put on in the kitchen when you're cooking but it had it back in the front to it and it closed around a road but amitiel illness today in contemporary hebrew coat this was a robe of some sort kotone - bets a jacket a tunic with fringes on it mid sniff at a head dress a mitre is lookin is a good one good word for it and a sash and I've made a belt this was huge the belt was 32 so it was an enormous belt yeah I'll pull out the photograph it was like you know how long does your garden 2 meters long so 15 times as long as the average sort of Garn phille that was worn plus it was thick it was wrapped around and round and round and round and round so how many garments are that there is the ocean the the play he thing the a thawed the Robie thing the another road the tunic the hat and the belt there are six here in this verse we've got to jump a lot of verses to get to the other two so there's there's going to be the question of why we have six and then one and then one if there are eight garments why not tell us all of them together in one shot all right it's a question who may or may not have an answer to really quickly but [Music] keep it keep it in mind right so verse four here is that is an important one when you look at verse five get gold blue purple crimson yarns linen make the a thought of gold out of purple all of these things were in their time a very very dramatic very expensive items today we look at them and it's kind of kind of peculiar but this is what they were different types of stones and one of the issues with the stones the precious stones that are using they say lapis lazuli for one of them is again following the temple temple Institute there are about 30 different types of stones that are a possibility for being the twelve that I mentioned here so we don't have a good good handle on what they are there is another very very interesting piece again in the mail we talks about which stone goes with which month of the year all right astrology is one of my other hats and this the birth stone and well that refers to what it means right subject for another day so you keep going here we're in verse twelve thirteen fourteen chains of pure gold braid them look at verse 15 because that's one that's going to pop up the asita hoshin mishpat you shall make the ocean the breastplate of decision or of justice right it's cool right one of the one of the sections of the shikon i wrote of the coding Jewish laws foreclosure on a ship on the ocean mishpokhe why is this why is this breastplate thing turned and described as something to do with justice and with decision-making again a a very very big aside there was some type of means of achieving an answer to specific types of questions involved here right we're gonna focus this on being the ocean I wish upon the breastplate of decision-making of justice of equality that's where we're gonna put it here but there is the whole issue of items within or the plate itself allowed you or at least certain categories of people that king the high priests to ask God a certain amount of questions and get a certain type of answer right how do you know what's what's supposed to happen how do you know what the future is should you go to war should we make peace right verse 17 gives you the list of stones some of them you recognize we know except here is a sapphire we know a Yahalom is a diamond the others were not so sure of what they are but doesn't matter for our particular thing each one of them it has the name one of the twelve tribes of Israel okay how they're fastened what type of gold rings that are involved with them there is sufficient information here and in the Talmud to make all of these things okay so far so good right okay ill - kahlil together first number 31 you should make the robe of blue there should be an opening for the head and on its hem make pomegranates of blue purple and crimson yarn and all around the hand with bells of gold between the door this is one that we started off and brought up that around the edges of the road or if you have an art scroll pick you have you have that you have those pictures I'll show you all these things later I did actually download these mix so there was a gold a pomegranate made of tekhelet for are commanded to match any of some type of purple crimson and blue cord and fiber and then golden bells that minimize right verse 35 says Aaron shall wear it while officiating so that the sound of it is heard when he comes into the sanctuary before God and when he goes out the low young wood so that he may not die right so if you just take this at its face value either this garment that he wore this long tuning with the bells on it protected him from some force that was around there or he was so obligated to use this and to wear this with so much force so much commanding force from God that if he didn't have this he was high alveta and would have to be executed had he done this as a premeditated sin okay we're not interested in Ola haha yeah we're not interested in any of these sort of stuff what we're looking at here is clues in the words that are gonna be really really helpful to us to have a better life right I think so too I think they discovers it yeah totally totally amazing stuff I have a little bit more time right yeah very cool break Oh believe me he made noise when he walked couldn't sneak around in these things right and then there's this whole hat thing and then there's a since it was a golden plate right and fries tunics Aaron some all get these things yeah so 36 is the one that introduces the new thing verse 36 it's on the top of page 3 in your handout you should make a show plate of pure gold and grave upon a like engraving of a sealed holy to God so that's garment number 7 right number seven is a plate that went on top of right on the forehead but actually underneath that he had a hat right and then in verse 38 we're going on there's all sorts of details verse 42 he shall make for them linen breeches got a pair of pants missmiss ain't bad pants made of lemon all right good for summer days like today you've got so bizarre ever specifically to cover the flesh of their nakedness right irva nakedness is not a term that is unfamiliar it is a key word in the Bible airvac means sexual intimacy right not so as people shouldn't see their lower regions but that they should keep concealed and under control their sexual activity right to see the nakedness of means to be an imminent intimate with right in in the Hebrew idiom and the Biblical Hebrew idiom okay and that's all chapter 28 and then they have this whole ceremony of what they're gonna do those are the eight garments and do we have a list of this somewhere in the USBA the absolute last one is the pants yeah well happens it was a claim inherit claimed in their accounts and a yeah they wore a robe and like a tunic like it would be it would be a woman ankle-length skirt right yeah yeah I don't see where I've written out a list of English of all of these things but they're it's around summer that's exactly what we're getting at here but it's all it's all 100% a lesson it's 0.12% teaching stuff okay so there are eight of these and that now we're going to look into the seed or into the prayer book right liturgy okay no nice work okay so finally you might find these the weekday morning service weekend and the blessings before the Shema just just after bar mayor Eric Schlosser stuff we're gonna look at it and he were a little got in English because there's a there is a list of there should be a list of eight things here let me warm up just before this River yep so it's the second the second blessing before the Shema right so you're all you're all familiar with the Shema you know what that is all about it's every single morning of the heat of the year we sailors and this whole setup is put in place by the unshaken s attack Adama the men of the great assembly started in the time of Ezra the Prophet so 500 or so BCE and obviously with very very significant intent here the Rebbe of the Schmitz finds a list of eight things that we ask God for before we cover our eyes before we start to focus on the Shema reading right you say Willis it's blessing number two a hvar on behalf tano I have no idea what English translation or perversion you're looking at me with great love you have loved us O Lord our God with great and super abundant compassion having compassion on us grace us and teach us the tain Billy BAE know we ask God to put into our hearts start counting eight Lahav in right to understand lajas scale I'm reading my English translation here to comprehend right there's a difference between to understand and to comprehend right and we're gonna get into this leash where I've lost my space hang on the lovino has skill if I touch it it moves leash MOA to listen lil Maude to Lilla made to teach lish more to keep to understand to keep with us last sought to do the came and to uphold to keep and to doing to preserve right what he's actually gonna focus on a little bit more his Chioma is perpetuity of the species and of yourself because we're looking at the the genital organs and that that's where the where the the terminology and the front is going to come out of right we're only dealing with adult material here right we are do not say that this this talk in this class was too titillating or anything like that but we are always going to be into adult terminology here and this is this is what it isn't that's where it is right so we have from the men at the great assembly now check in s if I got a list of eight things like that hold that list here we have from the Bible tex-mex is twenty eight we have lists of eight garments and if we have time they're a little bit more time so this is a this is a series we are going to continue this next time we'll continue with the Talmud in the second are in page 16a if you want to go look it up or you can read it it's a very first page of your handout in English what I recommend you do is go to the temple Institute website and you'll get a lot of really nice pictures of their displays in their in their exhibition and next time we'll talk about a field trip will it will all go sounds like a plan okay how does everybody know Murray we are looking at a basic thought that takes a list of eight things in the Hebrew Bible in the FAMAS the eight garments of the high priest and they can be learned off by heart you can memorize them I have done this course this course in this text before I've only ever met one person who knows all of them it was apparently taught in one of the one of the high schools in England so these eight garments are in the Talmud piece that we're going to look at next time described as being atonement for various things that the Jewish people do wrong course of the Jews ever do anything wrong we're all perfect but the priest when he puts on and wears this particular garment atones for that particular sin and there's a list of eight of them and the correspondence is going to be very significant with the garment itself with the keyword that we've taken from the print from the prayer before the Shema and we're going to put this all together in a big mix and it's going to come out as that list that we started out with of eight commandments for being a highly effective and highly spiritual human being okay being the high priest of your own life [Music]