Transcript
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[Music]
hey good day everybody
welcome back to beyond the seven live
from jerusalem
with rabbi aaron david poston he's been
teaching us the 48 ways to wisdom this
is a
dynamite dynamite series folks and i
encourage everybody to go back
check each and every lesson and just see
how it keeps growing and growing and
growing and growing
and today we're on part 13. it's only
getting better folks and it's going to
keep getting better
and who better to share it with us than
an honorable rabbi
in jerusalem let's just jump right in
say hello to rabbi
aaron david poston rabbi it's such a joy
to be with you
and to learn torah out of israel class
is yours sir
thank you dan it's so good to be back
with you guys you know
i actually do look forward to it every
week you know this is my moti
shabbat this is my uh what he called the
uh the leaving of shabbat you know uh
saturday night
special saturday night live
with you dan with the uh
the um no hype world center and uh
all the people that just love torah
thank god you know there's like a
special place where people who just love
torah
come they're not there to argue they're
there to learn
and i'm also this is the best way for me
to learn is to prepare
for i mean we talked about this in the
past
the source material how do you know you
have to learn torah
why is learning torah so important it
says over and over and over and over
again in the torah
to teach teach that's how you learn and
i hope that
everyone everyone watching decides that
they want to learn
seriously they should teach so i'm just
conduit just you're inspiring me rabbi
okay so we are in the 13th way
of the 48 ways just to i want to just i
say this the beginning of every class
because it's so important
why is this rabbi teaching the 48 ways
well obviously it's important for jews
why should it be important for let's say
non-jews or more importantly
righteous gentiles because i know you
guys are interested in wisdom
right you believe right a righteous
gentile believes
that the bible when i say the bible i'm
talking about the five books of moses
was revealed to the jewish people at
mount sinai
right at the end of 40 years moses has
fray torah already right they're all
written for all the tribes
and himself as a king he probably had
two himself
so you have a revelation and to believe
in this revelation is what you makes you
righteous
right it's not just
the rituals of keeping the seven laws
okay it's true a gentile is obligated to
keep the seven laws
but what makes one righteous is to to
actually believe that this is the word
of god that this was handed out at mount
sinai
that this was read the seven laws even
though six
were given to adam and the seventh one
was given to noah
right but they were repeated once again
we just had last week's parachute
israel we had the ten commandments on
the
tablets on the first set of tablets
there were 620 letters
613 each one of the letters represents
one of the mitzvahs
and you had 613 for the jews and seven
were given
over once again to the to the world the
whole world heard and knew experienced
mount sinai on whatever level was
as a soul subconsciously in the dna
the whole world shook and quaked
and was terrified as it expresses in the
torah
everybody knew the question is are you
going to be a believer
so check it out right i'm not you know
don't just believe me
check it out learn a little torah and
find out if it's something
we'll call supernal supernatural uh
transcendental i'm just cause i'm
telling you
find out for yourself find out for
yourself
and as i also mentioned i'm not sure it
was last week's partial or
um at some point i know i did say it
because it's parashat mishpati that
mishpatim
that's the one we just read the shabbos
the parsha we just read the shabbos
deals with so many of the
civil laws one of the seven
overreaching principles for no heights
is to set up a system of justice
this follows okay there's different
opinions
uh did it come before matantara did it
come after matantara
but at least for the the fact you're
reading it right after isro
right after parshas of jethro that it's
dealing
with jethro's a most likely a
righteous gentile could be that he was a
full convert
but most likely he was a righteous
gentile and he was
he had his own put input when it came to
how a justice system should be
um you know conducted he had his advice
from moshe
but this these laws follow yisro
and hopefully you'll learn them and you
say wow these this is unbelievable this
is the way
society all right
okay so what we're going to do tonight
is 13 13 of the 48 ways the 48 ways are
when the jewish people were in egypt we
were in the 49th level
of impurity if we would have reached the
50th level impurity we would never have
been redeemed
so on the way out and the way to the uh
the revelation each one of these ways in
order to
acquire wisdom because these are the 48
ways to acquiring wisdom
we each one of these days or each one of
these ways
is a way for a jew and not just a jew
for a human being to acquire wisdom
and therefore you will not lose you will
only gain
everything i think we spoke about so far
is like so much common sense
one of the other things i wanted to
mention is not only
are the seven laws obligated on every
gentile but any law any one of the laws
in the torah
that number there's two two facts one is
anything that is logical common sense
you're obligated
okay you're not just obligated in the
seven but any additional law that makes
sense if you were sitting down and
saying
what could we do to make society a
better uh society
if that's logical common sense then
you're obligated in it
the other thing is ethics so of course
team is full of ethics now with that
introduction
so one of the ideas because number 13 is
called yeshu
means settling but in in the context
here it means to
be deliberate and why does the word
usher which is
settling to sit have to do with being
deliberate
so i have so much information i'm going
to try my best to give it over
in a thank you organized fashion
okay so it could
mean to deliberate we're going to
discuss that but
and to discuss you you're talking about
a piece of wisdom you want to know if
it's true
so you delve deeply into it that's one
idea the other idea is
oh yeshiva i know that the noah heights
would like and perhaps maybe there
have been and there will be yeshivas for
noah heights
okay so the other idea is to sit with
other people
remember we discussed this idea the
rabbis were asked who do you learn the
most from
your teachers your colleagues or your
students
we're gonna actually mention that again
but let's say at least your colleagues
when you're sitting in the yeshiva where
you're battling it out
whether hopefully you have yeshiva where
you have real teachers you have
real colleagues and of course even you
have students
so there's a place in other words the
environment of the yeshiva
allows you to delve deeply into these
into truths okay so you should we're
going to discuss in the idea of
deliberation
and also of course in a proper
environment
okay i want to start off with the idea
of mishpati
and why am i doing that because
russian rashi in chapter 20 verse 23
of not mishpatim but the week before
which was israel the very last
few verses in israel it actually says so
i'll read it the last
verse you shall not ascend with steps my
altar
so that your nakedness shall not be
exposed upon it now we're not going to
go deeply into the many
ideas which i just want to focus on one
idea
so what are steps steps i have to see
rashi on this but steps
imply that you're in a rushed
you know when you go up steps you can
take two steps at a
and rashi actually says there
what is malote what does steps mean
actually this is his comment on the
gamora which i'm going to share with you
in a second
strength and quickness when you go up
steps you go to the strength and you go
with witness
so i want to go let me just
i quoted the verse in exodus chapter 20
verse 23.
immediately the very first verse in
mishpatim is exodus chapter 21 verse 1
and these are the ordinances you shall
set before them
so just to quote hebrew the previous
verse below
don't go up steps onto his altar onto my
altar
fine and the next verse is dela mishpati
these are the mispatients
these are the laws which you shall place
before them
assuming that it's talking about judges
however
truth is we're all judges okay everyone
judges all the time no matter what
you're doing in life
you're making judgment calls okay so
this is gamora sanhedrin that discusses
these two verbs
this two verses really um barca para
taught based on a homolytical
interpretation in other words it's
called a drusha
from where the is this matter that the
sages stated
where does it derive from and it's in
perky a vote
the very first one chapter one
mishna one let me read it first moses
received the torah from sinai
and gave it over to joshua joshua gave
it over to the elders
the elders to the prophets the prophets
gave it over to the men of the great
assembly
now we're talking about like 400 years
i'm sorry we're talking already
much longer we're talking about 800 900
900 years
the profits the time of the profits time
of the grain assembly
they the men of the great assembly said
always said these three things
be cautious in judgment now those are
the words let me just read the rest
establish many pupils
pupils like students and make a safety
fence around the torah
so this word the words of um
be cautious in judgment
careful deliberate i want to go back to
the gamora now
so in other words the gamora asks where
did the sages understand
this principle of being careful
slow i have interpretation temperate
but it really means to be slow in
judgment and the answer is it says
you shall not go up steps by my altar
which means don't go as don't ascend
herodly
and it's juxtaposed to what is written
now these are the ordinance you shall
set before them
that's what the gomorrah says i
mentioned what rashi says
when it says steps it means
quick and with strength
so what one needs to do believe it or
not
is when it comes to judging and i'm not
just talking about judges sitting in a
court
that's obvious i'll give you an example
how obvious it should be
if a capital crime was committed
and hearing was taking place now
remember a capital crime means a very
severe punishment
death maybe lashes whatever it is
a capital crime of some sort that if
you're
on this committee you're part of the
judges the court
and you decided amongst yourself this
guy is guilty
you do not announce it till the next day
if he was innocent you announce it
immediately why
because there may be esc i have to
tell you what i have to pronounce it
correctly it's called
exculpable evidence might come forth
right what's exculpable it means that
there is
going to be evidence that could show his
innocence
or even uh defer the blame
right something that shows that he's
innocent
so if you're talking about a capital
crime where the death penalty is
involved
why not it's not a man-made law this is
what god wants
wait deliberate maybe evidence will come
forth
sleep on it serious
decision that has to be made and serious
decisions require
deliberation okay matuni madin
that's the hebrew expression king david
himself said
in psalms 73 verse 21
now i don't know which translation
you'll use so i'll use this one
when my heart was in ferment now what's
fermented what to talk about it
then my mind was sharpened so
fermentation like when we think of
judaism uh on pesach pesach you're not
allowed to eat
fermented like specifically with grains
fermented food of course we drink wine
and that's fermented
but i'm talking about grains what
happens when you
ferment how do the grains become
fermented it's once you add the water to
the flour and you do nothing you just
let it sit
but it's the act of letting it sit if
you worked it
so it becomes matzah put it right in the
oven
okay but when you let it sit it ferments
so this idea of the king david
the holy king david said when my heart
is infirmit in other words my heart
is not reacting it is just sitting on it
and i'm delving into it and thinking
about it and
well needing it if you want to call it
but it's basically
sitting and waiting my mind is sharpened
okay it's a very radical idea
but it's a very necessary idea i mean
obviously through history at
kangaroo courts even in modern history
you know they already have a decision no
they go through the actions
here we're talking about truly sifting
through evidence
making sure you have uh the truth
before god especially major decisions so
what about us
aren't we looking for wisdom aren't we
looking for meaning in life right before
you choose a religion
check it out right okay
so the the safer that we are using of
course
written by friends of mine dear friends
of mine right and
that would be coopersmith and shraga
simmons
by the way shrages these two guys they
run the h.com
website it's i think it could be wrong
but
it's at least for sure one of the most
heavily trafficked uh websites for
jewish content in the world
of course i can just mention a few
others you know
and um the no hyde world center right
soon to be hopefully one day
anyway the ideas he wants the roshi who
wants to get across to us
is that decisions have real consequences
right yeshua needs to
deliberate okay so we have to strike a
proper balance between being deliberate
which is necessary as well as pushing
forward because
if otherwise we could um become
paralyzed right
there are many people in this world
i don't know what you know the ratio is
but they become
paralyzed and they can't move forward
because there's a decision that needs to
be made
i think that in today's rule i just
mentioned rabbi um
eric torski who just passed away
recently
um you mentioned with our generation
one of the biggest problems is we have
too many choices
right when it comes to when it comes to
choosing a wife so many go on to the
i guess websites i mean there are
websites that maybe
whatever it is when you when you're i
think they did studies when you're faced
with making a choice and the choice has
way too many like thousands people
are less likely to make a choice right
when you were growing up in a town and
you only had two
three five girls to choose from okay
so people got married right today when
you look
on the internet and you have much bigger
uh
a bigger pool right to choose from it's
i don't know he mentioned that like
overwhelming cloudy water
yeah yeah it says this is a generation
of
instant gratification is that what it's
called instant gratification
so when you're like everything's
disposable right
no it's not it's like you know
hi what a problem okay anyway he
mentions here in the safer
that many people desire immediate
results they lack the patience to
thoroughly consider
the various sides of an issue sometimes
they impulsively throw themselves into
certain course of action
just to get the decision out of the way
behind them
that's impulsive and looking for instant
gratification
and perhaps being uncomfortable with
being indecisive
others move over the decisions
excessively and they lack
some type of some type of confidence to
come to the right conclusion
and make a final decision but i'll tell
you what the roshiva had told us revenue
weinberg said
through proper deliberation hopefully
you know weighing the evidence coming
out to what you think is the best
choice and doing it diligently okay
then you make that decision and stick
with it
don't start wavering and then have you
know oh doubts maybe i didn't uh
deliberate enough or no
take the time and deliberate decide
and then stick with it and hashem will
assist you hashem will help you
and i find in my own life that he is a
hundred percent right
right of course if you make a decision
in failure after failure after failure
it could be
at some point you wake up and smell the
coffee and say okay i
i didn't deliberate enough i didn't have
all the evidence
or things changed right i mean the
reality is reality
right failure after failure but just
because you fell once doesn't mean you
made the wrong decision
okay that's what i wanted to get across
and he always said
you know another thing he said was
go to sleep every single night with a
question right if you're learning a
safer you're learning
you know and you can't figure it out
right that's a good thing
so go to sleep because there's i don't
want to get into this mystical idea of
how your
soul is somehow separates or let's just
say
the distractions during the day are gone
and somehow or another
you're able to see claire clearly but
the idea of deliberation
is to sleep on something because as
people there's this
famous expression sleep on it right
it didn't come from nowhere right
there's some idea behind it
it's basically don't make the decision
now weigh the evidence and but i'm
telling you sleep on it because
there is something that happens in your
sleep where your soul has let's say
a certain amount of more clarity
which will help you when you wake up the
next morning
okay beautiful stuff
just beautiful
and so what's the word issue
it means to be deliberate but it can
mean to sit on things
and think think things through don't be
so hasty
slow down examine all the aspects
reflect make the best decision you can
and don't become so anxious that you're
afraid to commit to a final
position again that final position after
you deliberated
stick with it hashem will assist you
he's there for you he wants to see you
succeed
okay again this whole idea is about
acquiring wisdom
so this applies to acquiring wisdom
before accepting or rejecting an idea
and i think we talked about this also
last week there's so much fake news
there's so many what do you call these
um conspiracy theories
every one of them has a little bit of
truth right
i shouldn't say everyone majority of
those that stick
probably stick because they have some
truth so you want to
delve deep into them before you totally
reject them
entirely right you can cherry pick some
things
uh that that where the truth is anyway
consider it for a time turn it over in
your mind let it percolate
percolate is a term used where the
coffee
grinds are constantly moving around and
the water is moving through them and
drawing the taste the flavor even in
judaism when we talk about
in in the talmud right in in jewish
literature
we talk about the word tom i want to
know the reason behind it
the word time is used tom means taste
and we're going to talk about that too
hopefully tonight why
why tom used so you want to
you really want to percolate you want
you want to draw as much flavor as you
can
out of it if you just then decide if and
how you plan
to incorporate it into your life okay so
now we're going to talk about this idea
in gamora aravind 54b
i want to go through a little bit
quickly it's not so
clear but um
in aravind 54 b it discusses
how the oral torah was taught over to
the jewish people
so moses obviously heard it first so
that's could be the first time he
learned it
then the gomorrah says that the sages
taught like this
that moses heard directly from the mouth
of the almighty then aaron
entered and he sat before moses
obviously moses then taught aaron
okay then
moses aaron moved to the other side and
aaron's sons
entered and then moses taught them well
aaron listened
so aaron now heard it the second time
that he had two sons but okay aaron's
sons moved aside
allows her to the right it's more to the
left of our own rib yehuda
disagree now there's a little bit of a
disagreement exactly
how it worked but he said that what
actually happened was
aaron would come back and sit at the
right hand of moses then the elders
would enter
moses taught them the lesson then the
elders moved to the side
and the entire nation entered and moses
taught them
however you look at it there's different
ways to explain it but the
more the bottom line the governor says
that our own heard it four times
he heard the lesson four times his his
sons heard it three times the elders
heard it twice
the entire nation heard it once but then
our own would teach it over so each
teacher had to have heard it four times
before you go ahead and teach it over
the important
point i'm making here about the four
times happens to be
in a gamora any gamora that we have
now this is a huge point
so as you can see at the top i know i
showed it to you very quickly
i'll show it to you again the gamora is
in the middle and you have on the left
or the right depends if it's the inside
page or the outside page whatever
you have to see me of rashi every
printer
puts four lines of rashin toastles
before they
in in the wider lines before they get
small and this is what we were taught in
the in the yeshiva
that this is to remind you to review
your lessons four times
before you can even say that you learned
it once
okay so i'll show it to you again you'll
see how in the middle you have the
gemara
and then you have russian totals on the
outside of the inside of the page
and you have four lines uh large lines
before it gets smaller
it's a little bit of a like a reminder
to
review your lessons you have to review
your lessons
minimum minimum four times
i might have said that before and
so what are these four ideas he wants to
bring down
that one should plow plant
harvest and then eat you want to make
bread now there are some verses that um
what's the word uh uh
some verses that hint to this idea
um you can look at it on your own in
isaiah 55
1 and isaiah 30
chapter 2 chapter 30 verse 23
i'll just go through quickly but the
idea is that the idea of plowing
planting harvesting and eating just as
the body
needs physical food right to enter to
nourish it so to the soul
i mean everything in this world is
the real world is the spiritual world
the the the fake world or the
illusionary world
or the world we live in is the physical
world but
they teach us lessons right it's very
hard to see the spiritual world
but just like we eat three times a day
we pray three times a day right
it's to remind us to pray three times a
day just like we
have to plow we're gonna discuss each
one of these ideas
planting harvesting and then eating
that's for the physical body the
nourishment so too
we're looking for wisdom we're searching
for wisdom we take the outside world
that we see
and we learn and inject lessons on the
spiritual side
so in isaiah 55 1 it says all who thirst
go to water
whoever has no money go by eat
we're talking about go to water who are
thursdays we're talking about spiritual
thirst
right the water is compared to torah
towards compared to water
right whoever has no money it should be
free you shouldn't charge
and that says buy and eat and go buy
without money
and without a price wine and milk
so you need this spiritual nourishment
isaiah
chapter 30 23 he shall give
the rain for your seed which with which
you shall
sow the soil and bread of the green
of the soil and it shall be plenteous
and fat your livestock shall graze
each one becoming on that day a fattened
lamb okay
the idea is to take these four
these four concepts as i mentioned
plowing planting harvesting and eating
in
um in a way of deliberating so he goes
like this
he explains we all know bread is a
physical
staff of life so how do you make the
bread first you have to plow
so the first step in preparing the food
is to
have the ground ready to receive the
seed right
you have to either uh dig out
um either holes or you have to have that
whole
strip a whole line right because if you
just throw seeds onto the ground they're
not going to take
so you have to prepare the ground itself
for for the scene yeah
so he claims this is the rashiva claims
this is the the idea of listening
attentively right
you're you're the ground right the man
the word adam is related to the word
adama
right we come from the ground so you
have to prepare yourself by
listening you have to sometimes shut
your mouth
so i'll give you uh in ecclesiastes
chapter 5 verse 1
do not be rash with your mouth
right that means you know what it means
number two then plant now after
preparing the ground then you plant the
seeds
learning in learning it means gathering
the evidence that supports what's being
said
and understanding the roots that are
going to anchor the idea so planting the
idea of planting
is allowing the roots giving it time
to go deeper and that means sifting
through the evidence and seeing what's
true and what's not true
number three is harvesting so once this
the seeds have sprouted and grown you
harvest the crops
what does it mean in learning it means
you have to address your questions and
issues now you have questions
so you're going to sort through what we
call the good stuff through the shaft
shaft chaff is the false stuff
right the evidence the hardcore evidence
now you have to see is it fitness
category
what category but either way the
harvesting
involves separating the good from the
bad
or the truth from the falsehood if it's
true
so do you accept it and you gather it in
just like harvesting
if it's false you throw the chat is the
i guess it's the the the not good
yeah it's useless it's indigestible it's
uh
yeah i'm glad you just used that because
that's the whole point the next thing is
eating it
so you only want to eat the digestible
stuff so the final step
is to take what you've harvested now
transform it into
digestible food that you can eat and
derive the nourishment
that's the whole point in learning this
means deciding how to implement the idea
in your life in a practical concrete way
okay so i'm gonna just end
his quote a few more things from the
book
i mentioned about sleeping on it right
and i mentioned what the roshiva said
many times
maybe i should just delve in a little
bit we have different
levels of our soul the highest level of
our soul is actually
always connected with hashem because we
create an image
we have so when we sleep
there's two ways to describe it okay
they're both true
either that highest level separated from
you basically it's always connected with
the sham and it's only with us when
we're
awake and when we go to sleep so there's
a disconnect
on our level now if you had a
issue a problem a question so remember
that
part of your soul is always connected
with hashem
so by disconnecting from you it's
disconnecting from the ego it's
disconnecting from all the
um distractions and
it's it's now in a place of pure clarity
now in the morning when you wake up it's
reattaching itself to you
so you are now whether you're conscious
of it or not you're going to have some
clarity
so let's assume you're not conscious of
it
nevertheless subconsciously you will
hopefully make
a better choice a better decision this
is huge
that's that's one level the other idea
is that when we
sleep we're considered 160th
of death we experience 1 60th of death
now 1 60th is the terminology we're
using cashews we use it in other
terminologies but it basically means
it's
it's negligible it's negligible
so we experience a a very negligible
aspect of death
when we wake up it's we're born again i
love that term
we're born again because hashem then
gives us back
life it gives back our soul in this
sense
that's why we wash our hands just like
we wash our hands when we go to a
cemetery
to get rid of the um let's say the
negative forces so too
because wherever there's death there are
these impure
forces so to wake up we now how does
that work by the way just a side point
so this idea of impurity only comes as a
vacuum
from life in other words when life is
infused
so there's no place for this impurity
but when life
is not there or there's a smidgen of a
lack of it
this impurity enters so when the soul is
put back into our body
this impurity leads through our
extremities
and it leaves a little residue in the
fingertips and therefore we get rid of
that
that's just a side point so now if you
don't know why
jews are so we wash our hands so many
times during the day
this is one of them right if we cut our
nails if we cut our hair
right in the bathroom obviously as many
times we
so now that the during this corona they
said to wash your hands
what's the hindus what's the novelty of
course we're washing our hands
anyway so he mentions about the idea of
a nightly recap before going to sleep
look back and review the events of your
day
try to identify what lessons you and you
can learn from them
don't just cruise aimlessly through your
week learn from each day be deliberate
it's very important
i mean this film so many reasons to do
that we call hezbollah
in hebrew means an accounting of the
soul but literally
just like in the 12-step programs you
should
make an accounting you know correct
things
speak to people who you think you've
harmed you know
this is so important to make a heshbon
hanefish
every single every single day of your
life before you go to sleep who knows
maybe it's the last day of your life
anyway king solomon i already mentioned
in cohes i mentioned
gohelis ecclesiastes chapter five verse
two
i did or five verse one sorry i did okay
um yep
okay i have some other notes here
this idea of being deliberate so the
other safer we're using
is called the midrash mole which
this is written this particular one
the 48 qualities with with which torah's
acquired
in other words even though he wrote on
perky avoid there's a specific uh
chapter just on the 48 ways to wisdom
and we're going we're talking an ancient
ancient source here
as opposed to ravenoff-weinberg which is
you know this past generation
um okay so he brings down the idea is
what does it mean to be deliberate the
intention here is that a person should
not answer hastily
don't ask her hastily to any question
posed him
okay it is true that we have a saying
that you should you should be able to
answer quickly right
to teach the word also has to do with
your teeth
being quick bite down deliberate
nevertheless that's only if it's a very
obvious answer
but it's better to say i'll take a look
at it i'll turn around open up a book
right and see what it has to say you may
not have seen it the first time
and it could be a serious question and
make sure that the person asking you
understands serious questions oh you
just off the top of your head give him
an answer
he's he might think oh why don't we have
to go to this rabbi
it's such an easy answer i'll just
figure out myself next time i'm not
saying to try to trick the person but
let him know that
it's a good thing that he came to you
that it's a serious thing
and let's look it up together and you
can show him
it's a good idea because what we're
gonna see it's very important
we're gonna you have to be able to say i
don't know okay
we'll get to that shortly you should
contemplate the matter patiently until
your mind is very settled and focused
this is because
there's there is a verse in the torah
and
saying well it's not the torah it's
cohellis 7
24.
24. you want me to read rabbi or you got
it
no go ahead is that what was is far
off and it is very deep who can find it
now in hebrew a double language of
deep we're talking about wisdom we're
talking about the torah
just knowing that it's very deep
that it's not you don't just be flippant
and and and and answer people
you need to be very settled and focused
this is very deep stuff and it's
it's so deep right i mean someone comes
to you
i think i spoke about this before but
let's say you have a chicken
and you're not sure it's kosher maybe it
was a bone broken maybe there was a
wound on it
you don't know if it's kosher or what
called traefer and
two separate people come to you it could
be on a turtle level it's really kosher
but rabbinically there are stringencies
and one who's wealthy and one who's poor
they come to you and ask you the same
question on the same chicken
meaning the exact same problem and to
one you may say it's permissible
to the other one you say it's forbidden
so the rich woman you say
you know it's real you should really be
strict go out and buy yourself another
chicken i know you can afford it
to the poor person the act the rabbi is
actually instilled
within the rabbinic laws certain
leniencies that when it comes to
financial loss
you can be lenient so to the poor person
they can't afford this financial loss
and therefore
they don't they don't they don't have to
be strict so the rabbi can answer
but he only if he knows he's thinking
he's a thinking person he's just
you know oh yeah yeah that chicken's not
good he doesn't even look up at the
person asking him
that's not right you have to be able to
take all the variables into account
okay and i think that's um you know
don't be so flippant and make such a
rash uh answer carte blanche
so unless one applies deep contemplation
such as judges they're directed to be as
we mentioned
it says in perkier vote the very first
one
to be deliberate in judgment now
we already said it also means just to
sit just to sit
right be issue and can mean to sit
so he brings down this idea of yeshiva
the idea is that one who does not learn
by sitting
with continued
and
oh it's on the same page
no one second
with continued
continued focus so when you're sitting
in yeshiva
the main thing is there's no
distractions it's just you and your
study partner
you know banging it out your phone is
off
you know you told your wife i'm dead
don't call me
right no phone calls just total
concentration
and if you don't have this concentration
this focus you won't be able to
penetrate
the depths of whatever you're trying to
get to
this is because the law cannot be
properly
elucidated and clarified without a
person devoting himself
to sit to really sit in in yiddish
because this slice
zip flesh to sit on your tuckers right
to sit on your
flesh to sit on your skin
like there are people and you know add
adhd all kinds of you know
issues today i get it but if you have
it's just
five minutes of concentration or 20
minutes
you know yeshiva guy can be sitting
there four hours in the morning another
four hours in the afternoon another
three
three hours in the evening and you're
talking about 11 12 hours of just
sitting concentrating you know whatever
it is
if it's only five minutes try to
concentrate during those
the whatever minimum amount you can
there's no way to get to the you know if
you're constantly distracted
so you have to devote yourself
definitely
there is a another mission in percyavote
it's in chapter 2 mission 7.
now it's quite long and i only wanted to
quote
a few a few a few words
in the middle to one who increases study
increases wisdom those words are marbe
yeshiva
the the word yeshiva means study in this
context
or in other words to be able to sit and
really concentrate
that is wisdom now let me just give you
the three the three phrases i wanted to
focus one who increases torah
increases life
you increase torah which we all know
what torah is
you increase life yeshiva
you're able to sit and concentrate and
focus you actually increase wisdom right
this is the whole reason number 13
yeshiva yeshua is part of the ways to
acquire wisdom
one who increases counsel increases
understanding
those are the three things i wanted to
pick out of that mission in perkier both
for all those people who love hercule
vote
you see that it brings this idea down
um now i want to
focus on a few more ideas
i think i might have okay now explaining
now we explain regarding the mishna
um and which mission is that the first
one
which we said about
be deliberate in judgment
so the rambam the rambam their notes
regarding the mishnah
some new information often becomes
available
with the passing of time as right we all
know
i mean it's just crazy when you think
about what's happening in america
with people making claims
and then thank god
time goes by and more information comes
out and then you find out this
is the hatchet job kangaroo court you
know
those are the worst kinds right everyone
is such a rush to make an accusation
and just slow prejudice
that the evidence comes out by reaching
a conclusion too quickly
a judge might be depriving himself of
information he needs to
in order to reach the truth rashi
actually comments there
that to arrive at the truth a person
must investigate the matter deeply and
to do so takes time
as i mentioned already write a guilty
verdict you wait overnight
an innocent verdict you can say right
away
rubino yona which i also give a class on
shari truva
he mentions he explains the mistakes are
common and expected
okay especially if you really think
about the idea that a capital crime or
something that is a severe punishment
you want to take your time so therefore
proper investigation requires a person
to patiently
and deeply analyze the information at
hand
after which he must allow the ideas to
percolate once again
percolating his head and to rethink the
issue this will give him new insight
which he was able to perceive before
just the idea i meant
i wanted to put together the concept of
percolating with the idea of
tom everything through the gomorrah's
what's the reason what's the reason
we want to know the reason what's tom so
the idea of percolating
allows you to draw as much
flavor right into what you're about to
consume we already said
about right um plowing
planting harvesting and then eating so
it's it's it's very apricot applicable
that helps avoid uh miscarriages of
justice for sure
yep okay now
what did we also mention the idea of
yeshiva increases wisdom right
yeshiva so the midrash
actually quotes two distinct
explanations
he who increases yeshiva increases
wisdom now he quotes
i don't know this is a old um
um what when you call it uh iraqi jew i
don't i don't know exactly
where he's quoting from who calls
themselves ibn ibn is like ben in arabic
so
joseph the son of nagnesh he explains
the word yeshiva literally means sitting
which again just reiterates the idea of
sitting with continued focus
on your lessons then he quotes yosef
is obviously babylonia right and iraq
so whoever this um iraq or iran iran
so joseph the son of shushan
he explains that yeshiva is definitely
an academy
as i mentioned before when you go to
abate midrash and
maybe there is a successful bait midrash
for vine
and but anyway you go to yeshiva it's a
place where the person is exposed
to his teacher or students and of course
we
quoted the gomorrah in times 7a right
where are you going to gain your wisdom
amongst your teachers your your
colleagues
and of course your students now
we're open to more than one
interpretation and the midji shmuel
ambiguously ambiguously means that
there's more than one
interpretation he actually says you can
use them both
so one who does not learn be a shiva
cannot penetrate
to the depths of the law this is because
the law will not be properly elucidated
and clarified without the person
learning with this clear focus
so he says i cho i choose to go with
this explanation
of sitting with continued focus that's
going to be very important
even ruby akiva think about this ruby
akiba he really learned for 24 years
straight now the gamora explains that
after 12 years he decided to go home
and to see his wife and he overheard her
from a distance
talking one of the neighbors one of the
neighbors was actually making fun of his
wife
saying ah your husband you know he
really cares about you is really you
know
becoming a tom mcconkum this is really
what you want for your life to your
husband never to be around
she says it was up to me i'd send him
back for another 12 years
before he even i mean he was only a few
feet away from her apparently
i mean he was able to hear her he turned
around he didn't even say hi
he didn't even say i traveled all this
distance i'm going to stay the night and
leave back tomorrow
his turning around enabled him to
actually be there
as if he was there 24 years because
imagine if he learned for 12 years
saw his wife stayed the night and went
back for another 12 years it wouldn't be
the same
12 years and then 12 years is not the
same
as 24 years straight i'm just telling
you like
uh quantitatively different
okay and this is what we okay
um this is an idea of continued focus
and because it is
true to the literal translation he
wanted to keep it that way
that's what yeshiva means however the
midrashma himself
explains the word yeshiva as an academy
with a different twist and this is a
real different twist for all those
people out there with
i don't know extra stimulus money right
you could support a torah yeshiva
and it's a choir it's like you're
acquiring your own wisdom let me explain
the person who increases his financial
support
of yeshiva increases his own torah
wisdom
and he gets credit as if he actually
studied all the torah that he
enabled the other students to learn i
want to just
give you an example of my own experience
you see these books like nothing asha
torah
has walls covered with books walls all
four walls
at least in the old bait midrash and
when we moved to the new bait midrash
i was the book binder i used to bind
books which means um
take it was not professional but it was
the way yeshivas do it
we would take the book out of the
binding it was already
dilapidated it was already ruined and we
would re
strengthen the binding and we would
drill holes and we would take a uh
before that you take a needle and you
sew everything up
and in order to move all the books we
decided
and today it's so beautifully shellacked
which he
color-coded on the outside so i was um
selected to be in charge i mean
obviously rob berkowitz was obviously in
charge of everything but
i was the head book binder and we
bounced every book
and i felt every page right because i
was the only one that was trusted to
drill the hole
i got all the guys uh sewing but
um so every single book went through my
hands
and i checked inside i mean it was you
know it's not like you can just
zip through it you have to check the
book out measure it
it was just like an experience and i
imagined myself
just having the books pass through my
hands that these books would last
forever
when you buy them because when you're in
yeshiva if you don't buy the book when
it's new
and that's what we try to instill then
it's just going to fall apart
and trying to bind it after it's totally
used
uh it'll never be the same you bind it
when it first comes in
but anyway we saved we actually
literally
saved i'm going to say tens of thousands
of books
we worked the whole summer like three
months right
it was just incredible amount of work
and
i just felt the privilege that it went
through my own hands physically and i
felt like
i was you know as a spiritual energy
coming out of every single book
that not only was coming into me but i
was also
helping whoever however long these books
these are going to be my energy going
into these people as well
it was like um you know in and out you
know it's just an
incredible experience and i go to the
base
and i see it and i i guess
knowing that those books are still
around we're talking now
that was over 20 years ago and those
books are still there
being used by hundreds of people every
day
anyway so that's how we end off here
support torah right by supporting torah
you're also gaining so much even if you
don't have the you know the the mental
capacity or the zits flesh as we say
the ability to sit if you support torah
you will end up uh gaining so much
so we'll able in there we'll end there
so that's tonight's
lesson called yeshuv of course you
you're invited to listen to ravnoch
weinberg himself
go through the different steps he is so
alive he's so full of energy
um he brings it down he's talking to
college students
and you know for an older man i i
imagine
in the in the videos he's in the 60s and
70s
and he's able to bring it down and he's
talking directly to these college
students
and he's touching them you know in their
hearts
and i invite you to listen to every
single one of the 48 ways that the
roshiva
is personally speaking on and you'll get
a whole a much
deeper and better perspective than i
could ever give
wow rabbi that is just amazing you know
i know how valuable
this series is and yet i had not
learned it through uh
rabbi weinberg and i i have listened to
one or two of the
the his audios uh on them
uh i'm just overjoyed to hear you share
it
and you share it and you're throwing in
what you've learned from him
but just to hear the story of touching
the books the passing on
the transmission you know just the the
prayer and the hope
and the interaction and the connectivity
over all time is it's just you know
being involved
in the affairs of godliness
is just it's just a joy and i just hope
banana out there in the world
start to grasp that hey there's a beauty
there
that we can learn from the hebrew people
in reality and you can begin to live it
and function it and develop it in your
community wherever you
are thank you so much for sharing today
so
i just want to have one more thing
because you touched on an idea you know
in the 12-step
program they talk about service right
these people are coming from
you know horrendous uh experiences with
addiction no matter what kind of
addiction it is
and being involved in service which
ultimately means helping other people
this is like a key to their survival
well i want you to know everything in
the 12-step program
came from the bible it came from us
that's everyone knows the jewish people
are supposed to be
a kingdom of priests a but the word
cohen it's not like somebody's sitting
on a pedestal
it means they're serving it's called
service
that's what they're serving
and with you no matter who you are you
want to connect to the jewish people you
know you're helping the the priest
you're like a a servant of the servant
you're a
a assistant to the priest right
you're helping them you're supporting
them you're guiding them you're
you know you're moving the service along
you're carrying even if it's plowing or
planting or
like is it harvesting and eating today
getting things in its proper flow and
order and going through every stage and
every step it's important it's important
but
it's all uh definitely purposeful and
uh connective rabbi that's beautiful so
hashem willing are we on for next week
rabbi mizrat hashem but i think the week
after we're not because it's purim
in jerusalem like it's it's respectful
it is
it's not poor it's complicated it's a
three-day event
it's like it starts thursday night and
it ends
sunday afternoon um
dancing around the the festivals
trying to do broadcasts and share them
for the last few years
and uh respectfully so uh it's just
a joy to to learn uh
especially coming out of jerusalem uh
the the light of torah
and then to see that you you actually
have to step back for a reason and a
purpose makes us want to learn
all the more so you know respectfully so
you keep you keep
being jewish you keep being the rabbi
you're supposed to be
and please do keep shining light to the
the rest of the world we needed more
than uh
ever before i think out here and uh so
rabbi thanks once again so till next
week any last words sir
just looking forward to a great week
shavuot everyone
holy
truth is we always have to be joyful
because only on adam we increase our joy
it's not like oh now you have to be
joyful
no now you have to increase your joy
which means you're always having an
obligation to be joyful and being joyful
i don't want to you know get into
anything political
but i'm not a doctor but i do know that
joy is like a great defense against
negativity
especially i'll just use the word
means bacteria right even
on a metaphysical level negativity or
things you cannot see little germs
viruses and whatnot
the the um rebecca agar 250 years ago
during an early pandemic
said no matter what's going on around
you
at the time of the pandemic you have to
be
joyful this is the best way to uh
keep keep the the negative forces at bay
wow a merry heart does good like a
medicine
but i tell you i've never heard anybody
say that the month of adar
is the time to grow in joy that is
beautiful
i'd love to know more about that and why
that's so
but i'm going to take you at face value
rabbi you're the rabbi i'm gonna
and you know what i just uh i just sure
hope i can seize
more joy as it approaches so thank you
so much
until next week folks have a wonderful
wonderful week
[Music]