(Way# 20) THE ART OF CONVERSATION: 48 Ways with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

[Music] hey good day folks welcome back to beyond the seven live from jerusalem with rabbi aaron david poston who i so enjoy is sharing with us the 48 ways to wisdom each and every lesson is so important that you can integrate a trait into your life in your walk every day as you uh try to make the world a better place and i'm just so overjoyed that the rabbis continue to share light out of the nation of israel and i know he stays up late for us and his time is so valuable so let's just jump right in rabbi poston good to be with you sir i i had to redo this broadcast skin uh because i was doing some saving of space and and inadvertently deleted all my uploads to my broadcast software so i had to rebuild it real quick i hope it goes off it looks pretty good so far so the class is yours sir hey thanks dan thanks again for having me you're a whiz you know i'm not gonna say mistakes but the more times you have to redo stuff the easier it is right yes that's true going over it so you're already uh we call a bucky in hebrew or i don't know what's maybe it's yiddish an expert so anyway you should go from strength to strength and keep doing what you're doing because i know you really are appreciated um and all your initiatives are great and keep it up uh so we are in number 20 of the 48 ways i always encourage people to go back if they haven't seen at least the introduction and perhaps the previous 19 right um tonight's today's topic is really which means to minimize speech now how could that be right we already talked about all the other minimizing are really to emphasize something else so one of the things i learned early on and i'm not saying i learned it as a a trait i learned it as an academic trait and applying it is a life's goal and one of the things my mother taught me was listening is a key in in having a dialogue and conversation you want to be able to speak to people you have to be able to learn you have to learn how to listen and obviously that is going to play a big part in what we're going to talk about tonight minimizing speech the title that roshiva had given in or the students in this book it's called um the art of conversation so it's a great title so much room to grow there what i did was i made a short paragraph of my own to sum up what we're going to talk about and then we'll go through it in more detail and then what i do is i also go through a lot of sources which is from another safer and that's called the major shmoil and that is a commentary and ancient commentary on the mishnah that we're dealing with mishna is the sixth chapter the sixth mishna in perky avat ethics of our fathers for those who are not familiar and i think most of your listeners know what perkial vote and this is wisdom from the ages from time to memorial that we receive the concepts we received at sinai and as the generations flowed different rabbis felt that their generations needed to hear needed to hear specific messages it doesn't mean that it was invented or discovered or publicized only at that time in history but it's somehow attributed to that rabbi because he he's the one who felt that his generation needed to hear those words that was already being passed on um as part of our part of our tradition so let me just sum up what we're going to be talking about tonight the idea of making conversation and art right we even talked about pleasure before in terms of being a connoisseur so here conversation can be an art now i will admit i blow it i blow it a lot of times um you know like i mentioned about listening interrupting uh thinking about what the person's saying and what you're going to respond while he's while the other person is still talking these are all like i would say big no-nos i mean these are going to be problematic in the art of conversation uh the problem we face today with the social media and i don't just mean social media in the i mean in a larger sense with our smartphones we can just text where we could just even make these short voice clips and i'll tell you i had one person i was dealing with and i don't know why he would never answer his phone and he just says text me or uh leave me a voice message and it was i don't know usually billing okay due to billing in their plans they don't pay for a text but they pay for a phone call sometimes in israel at least the plan that i have all these calls are free you're paying for like a monthly fee and you have i don't know so many minutes that you'll never use anyway i don't believe that i mean i believe what you're saying is true people are concerned financially to make it a you know minimize and minimize their bill right maybe that was one of the 48 ways how to minimize your bill but but what happens is when you're using the short text or these voice messaging a lot is lost you think that's the end really it's an ongoing conversation i mean this person i was dealing with it was so important and timely and the truth is if i allow two minutes for a phone conversation you can accomplish a lot and that's two minutes but when you're going back and forth it could be hours meaning i'm not looking i have other things to do i mean i'm assuming the other person also has other things to do and the two minute conversation can go for two hours and in between you can actually lose whether it means losing the thread or losing thought losing i mean you're just distracted with other things so when you give a conversation like i'm discussing here you're giving me your full attention you know you're looking if it's live right whether it's video live or like in person eye contact is very important you know let the person know you're listening here when you when you're dealing with these voice these short texts or these voice messages forget eye contact that's not happening at all so it avoids any any really meaningful in-person conversation and that could be a problem because we need that we we're we actually desire like deep down relationships with people and we we really do want and need direct communication as i guess most people over the last year and two months have experienced in hebrew called big dude which is isolation whether it's forced whether it's voluntary it doesn't matter the very fact that you you are feeling isolated there's a lot of depression there's a lot of um you just feel out of kilter you know we we desire relationships we desire interactions and because of isolation alone and we can see it's like death it's like death i mean it's really uh there's no other words to describe it's right um what about when you're sitting on an airplane right some people would have a strong desire i get it if if you like you're praying almost i hope that this seat on my left or my right remains open because it gives me the opportunity to lean over right but you know what it can be quite boring you know you could strike up a conversation and i've had conversations on airplanes where the flight it could be nine hours i'm telling you it went by so fast because i had a stimuli stimulating i learned so much about somebody else and so i think many people probably even though they hope that the seat remains open and look there are going to be bad experiences you know if somebody snores or somebody smells or somebody's let's say we wouldn't want to fat shame anybody okay but it could be that the person takes a seat and a half and and that perhaps you take a full seat yourself maybe even also a little bit and then who gets the elbow like you know what you call the elbow rest there's been i wouldn't say fights but you could be uh swirly disappointed if uh if the rights i mean how you determine the rights i don't know but anyway so the truth is that if you ever do strike up a conversation and you and was successful you know that you could remember i remember conversations i had on flights 15 20 30 years ago details of people's lives i mean just learning so much about humanity about someone else even about myself as you talk you do learn also about yourself so remember the idea is these are the 40 ways to wisdom so you see how already i'm discussing this idea how you can actually gain wisdom you know i'm going to talk about more of the details and the halacha than the sources but we i hope most people are familiar with one of the mishnoth and perki avoid one of the teachings who is wise who is a wise person someone who learns from everyone obviously if you're on a high pedestal and you're what they could really call your ego whatever it is you thought you think you can't learn from anybody else well you got nothing coming but if you if you are on that madrigal on that level where you do understand what it is to gain wisdom you could strike a conversation like i just discussed and learn not just about another person but experiences and things that you shouldn't do if they failed or whatever anyway everyone has a story everyone has a story you know i strike conversations on buses not just airplanes buses are a little bit problematic because if you're only going two or three stops i've been i've been involved in so many really good conversations i wanted to get off with the person i've had people who say i'm going to stay on longer just to have this conversation so also remembering someone's name okay so some people are good at names some people are not good at names but if you're if you having conversation you could make it more interesting by trying to remember and every time you discuss something with a bird bring up their name that's a good way to remember it it's also good good way to remember that life story throughout your life um also make the conversation real and how is this related to gaining wisdom so you're going to learn about them you're going to learn about um i just mentioned that already who is a wise person uh connect with people by exploring their experiences thoughts and feelings so we titled this as means limiting speech or a minimizing speech and yet what we're actually going to see through this is not the quantity but the quality right because as we spoke about pleasures right become a connoisseur okay so i think i pretty much covered many of the ideas that he mentions in the book although i don't you know the way the roshima discusses it it's like he's just full of passion and discusses things so um oh how about the dinner table what it used to be and what it's like today i mean i don't know my family we don't have all these smartphones we're sitting around the table and everyone but you can imagine i'm sure some people here can imagine you have a table with your five children the two adults seven people and everyone's looking at their smartphone instead of how about see when i was growing up dinner time it's a phone rings nobody answered it the tv is off it's time to share your day there's quality right so that's another idea um he speaks about the idea of this superficial virtual communication we have today has have left us feeling isolated yearning to be understood and truly heard so maybe it's selfish but sometimes you have to give out if you know you need to be heard everyone wants to be heard so it's like i don't like to work karma because it could be misunderstood but what goes around comes around i think everyone understands that point and if you put out and i do i try right you meet somebody ask them again be real about it how are you doing huh you know many people say oh yeah what's up and they're on their way somewhere else they don't really wait for the answer they don't even care it's just it comes out look up by robe wrote and it's meaningless well guess what we're going to find out when you speak to somebody how meaningful it can be we discussed this before we're going to discuss it again tonight maybe i'll just skip to that idea although it's not it's much further down on my list but i'll just talk about it now giving charity for example we spoke about giving charity that if you give somebody charity you're blessed with six blessings but if you have a conversation you smile you give some empathy you are you will be blessed with 11 blessings and i want to go through the verses um [Music] we'll do that now before we do that let me just give one verse over it's in deuteronomy chapter 15 verse 7. let's start there i better stay in order of my outlook 15 7 reads if there will be among you a needy person from one of your brothers in one of your cities in your land the lord your god is giving you you shall not harden your heart and you shall not close your hand from your needy brother okay so this idea there's two concepts one towards the very end you shall not close your hand so this is physically giving him or her charity but right before that it says you shall not harden your heart now when you really just think okay my heart should be open to give him but it's much more than that right it's a heart it's a you're opening your heart and that is through sikha through either your smile or through words of um consolation like you know is there anything else i can help you with maybe they're not maybe the money is not going to help them as much as a ride to a doctor's office or i'm just making you know thinking off the top of my head or they're looking for a job and all you have to hear that oh and what is it you're looking for exactly well i happen to know someone who's hiring somebody for that exact type of position or whatever um skill skill traits and therefore you may help him or her a lot more than just handing off a quarter or a dollar even ten dollars that is worth just even inquiring and you know what how are you feeling what do you need and going through the motions even if it doesn't pan out it's unbelievable so let's go through now i just want to go through another verse before we get into the 11 6 blessings 11 blessings and that's three verses later in deuteronomy chapter 17 10 10 you shall surely give him and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him for because of this thing the lord your god will bless you in all your work and in all your endeavors now i know you're reading in english but when you said for because of this thing what thing yeah okay you're going to give him your heart is not going to be grieved when you give him because of this thing in hebrew hadav because of davar is word by the way yes it means thing but it also means word because of the davar the gematria of hazel is 17. so it's like you get six plus you get another 11. that's all together at 17. so big lol on the count of because of the word you get 17. now let's go through how we see these these verses these um concepts it's actually in isaiah it's going to be chapter 58 and it's all through verse 7 till 12 but it's broken up so we started at 58 in isaiah forgive me rabbi i do turn down the speakers coming to me a little bit because i can get some microphone feedback and i don't want that so forgive me if i if i find you find i'm asking occasionally i don't mean and which which verse again it's chapter 58 and isaiah let's just start with seven then we'll read eight nine together but let's let's just start with seven seven says it is not to share your bread with the hungry and moaning poor you shall bring home when you see a naked one you shall clothe him and from your flesh you shall not hide okay so what do we see this is the obligation to take care of those in need and then we're gonna read verse seven i'm sorry verse eight and nine now in eight and nine it's broken down it's actually broken down into six particular blessings when you take care of the needy let me just read it and i'll break it down then your light shall break forth like the dawn that's a blessing and your health shall spring forth speedily that comes to you and your righteousness shall go before you third blessing and the glory of the lord shall be your rear guard fourth blessing then shall you call and the lord shall answer who doesn't want this and the last in this series you shall cry and he shall say here i am who wouldn't want that just by helping the poor you receive six blessings the more this by i'm quoting from the gemara baba batra in 9b and then it goes on to describe but i'm going to tell you it's a continuation from number 7 through 11 which means that if you if whoever consoles the poor person with words will then receive eleven blessings meaning altogether another um how do we do this one two three four another five blessings here six and five to one but all together if you do speak um words of consolation you receive all uh not not just 11 but compoundly into 17 as we just saw in that verse deuteronomy 15 verse 10. so it goes like this it says in verses 10 through 12 so it's 10 11 and 12. if you draw out your soul remember we talk about the heart right the soul and the heart synonymous here to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul then shall your then shall your light shine in darkness that's blessing number seven and your gloom shall be as the noon day meaning bright that's number eight and the lord shall guide you continually who doesn't want that and satisfy your thirst in drought what a blessing and that they shall be of you and that they shall be of you shall build the waste the old waste places and you shall raise up the foundations of many generations and that's number 11. okay so you see that the just the words alone add or double or triple even right from 6 to 17 blessings now you'll read proverbs 18 verse 21. well before you do that i just want to go back to rashi what rashi says on chapter 15 deuteronomy 15 10. he says when we said davar haze davar's word comes out to the gemachi of 17. for because of this thing the word divar literally means word you translated it and we have a translated because of this thing because of these words even if you said you gave him your word that you would give you will receive a reward for the saying along with the reward for the deed so speech is an additional reward okay so now i ask you to read uh proverbs 18 verse 21 21 reads death and life are in the hand of the tongue and those who love it will eat its produce so here you have biyad lashong mavis the death and life are we only talking about death and life in this world no but nevertheless the con everyone's interested you know i mean this is a major you know draw here i have in my hand the choice what am i going to say it's all in the tongue the tongue has the power over madison over death or life so we're getting an idea now rashi says over there regarding those who love it will eat its produce he who loves his tongue and accustoms it to speak words of torah partakes of its reward in this world just keep in mind in judaism it's a big deal we don't think of even though the torah says you'll have produced the right thing you're peace all these nice blessings in judaism the blessings do not come in this world we're looking at the world to come as we call the karen karen means the main principle of the reward we're not looking forward to receiving it in this world but there is produce we discussed many ways in which you could get like the crumbs the fruits some of the instant gratification of the blessings it's a whole story there's at least 26 different ways in which to receive uh blessings in this world so here is one example right if you're going to speak torah speak scripture you love your tongue doing this and you custom your tongue to do this you will receive i i don't like the word crumb sounds a little bit like crummy like but let's just say the produce right you can receive while you're karen while your main reward is waiting for in the world to come you can still experience the blessings in this world okay um what else do i want to teach over here before we get into more and i maybe i'll save this for the last okay let's continue with my source material and now we're going to go just just um what's the word um not to piggyback but to continue this thought about how the tongue if it's accustomed to speak scripture remember we're talking about quality not quantity uh cha deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 7. this is out of the shema which we say several times a day you want to read verse 7 and you shall teach them to your sons and speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the way and when you lie down and when you rise up i mean this is a big deal for us jews that we should accustom ourselves in fact this is really the difference between someone who is talking in torah as much as they can and someone who will say in hebrew um nonsense right talking nonsense obviously you need time to chill out perhaps strike up conversations to relate to people about ball games or about traffic or other things um the necessities nevertheless so here when it says and speak of them the bartabam to speak in them rashi says that your principle topic of conversation should only be about them them meaning we're talking about the torah make them the main topic not the secondary one okay um there is a gemara in yuma page 19b i'll read it to you based on this verse talk of them right the the bartabam means that one must render them the words of torah a permanent fixture and not render them a temporary exercise rather says one who engages in idol chatter without torah or any particular purpose remember there could be a particular purpose at least violates a positive command well this is for jews who have 613 commands but this is wisdom the non-jewish world can certainly learn from so we would be violating a positive command when we're not talking torah of course there might be a purpose for the other talk but at least there's a purpose so if there's no purpose at all that would be a violation and the verse as the verse says you shall talk of them talk of them and not any other matters said furthermore one even violates a negative commandment i just want to so those who understand what i'm saying and there's no such thing as a negative commandment there's ase which is dues and then there's lotta which are don'ts we just translate i i don't like the translation but nevertheless we translate the assays the dues as positive commands because there's action that you must take and the don'ts as negative i don't know where we came up with that because there's no such thing every every misses an opportunity to cling to hashem to become like hashem to take on the character traits of god himself there can't be anything negative about it but i hope you understand we're just using vernacular so every everybody can understand what it means when we talk about a negative commandment and why would it be a violation um in ecclesiastes that's um cohes go ahead right ecclesiastes chapter 1 verse 8. ecclesiastes chapter 1 verse 8. go verse 8 all things are wearisome no one can utter it the eye shall not be sated from seeing nor shall the ear be filled from hearing now going back to we said earlier on with those words that we described as um um for because of this thing we described it as big lau the word devar can mean thing but it can also mean word so take our verse we just said in kohl's 1 8 hear the hebrew kol had the varim all these things no all these words are wearisome no one can utter it meaning king solomon he's telling you don't utter it the eye shall not be sated from seeing nor shall the ear be filled from hearing these wasted words these these um these words of uh meaninglessness okay yeah um okay in perch chapter 3 mishna 10 it's really just the last few words i'll read the whole thing he used to say one whose deeds exceeds his wisdom the wisdom will endure but one whose wisdom exceeds his deeds his wisdom will not endure he will also say one who is pleasing to his fellow man is pleasing to god but one who is not pleasing to his fellow man is not pleasing to god now these are the words rabbidosa the son of horcanus would say morning sleep noontime noontime wine we already know these are probably not good stuff children's talk so in hebrew it's i would listen children are developing their their their speech there's nothing wrong with jesus talk we're talking about for adults and i don't mean the mothers who talk gibberish to their kids they're really helping their children uh you know with all the muscles and to become you know to verbalize things but we're talking about adults talking to each other having secretive uh remove drive a person away from the world i'll just read that i just skipped a few words sitting in the meeting places of ignoramuses follows children's talk so you get the idea the wisdom of the sages careful with your words right there is a statement that you know this amount of words allotted to every person so one should be very careful with their words okay there's um chapter 3 mission of 13. so we're going to hear the end against the last few words rabbi akiva would say jesting and frivolity a customer person to promiscuity tradition is a safe defense to torah tithing is a safe defense to wealth i think everyone can relate to this valves are a safety fence for abstinence and here drum roll please a safety fence for wisdom is silence so in hebrew right is golden right sometimes now it could be that if you're not so smart and you open your mouth you let everyone know how stupid you are right so sometimes you know show you know showing how wise you are you're right it could be the best thing is to keep your mouth shut but in terms of listening it's it's it's key it's such an important part of any dialogue right but anyway we'll have to understand what does it mean a safe defense for wisdom is silence so um here's just one example but now even though we did chapter three in perculvo ten chapter three thirteen we're gonna go back in the middle at chapter three mishna seven so rabbi liezer ben bartosa would say again it's really the end of it so bear with me give him what is his capital h i s hashem for you and whatever is yours are really his as david said king david for everything comes from you but is this in first chronicles chapter 29 14. king david admits everything really comes from hashem and from your own hand we give it to you in other words what we give is really god's anyway that's not the point the point now is here rabbi yaakov would say and i think we're all guilty of this me especially one who walks along the road and studies and he interrupts his studying by saying how beautiful is this tree how how can we not well guess what for a jew it's a problem or how beautiful is this plowed field the torah considers it as if he had fortified for fitted his life it's like suicide so for a jew this is very it sounds very severe you have to understand you're in the process of learning and you're being distracted you know today we've turned off our phones you know in your bait midrash you're in the study hall you're dead to the world if you're just focused that's what you're doing you're learning torah this is the greatest opportunity that you're given for the moment don't blow it by being distracted so perhaps take this even if you're in a conversation with another human being it's it's important to focus right it means a lot to the other person that you're listening and i'm not talking about just a paid psychologist right or psychiatrist as a friend as someone who's venting as someone who's in need of a relationship all you're doing is you know with this eye contact all you have to do one moment is like look at your phone it's like could be lost uh here is a king solomon proverbs these two guys are great right i sound familiar but king david and king solomon who can beat this proverbs chapter 10 verse 9 verse 19 i'll let you read it proverbs chapter 10 verse 19 reads in a multitude of words transgression will not be avoided and he who holds back his lips is wise it's amazing right berov davari like so many words so many words there's no way to avoid transgression means enlightened right when you hold back your lips you will be enlightened so rashi says there he who talks too much brings on sin and he who holds back his lips he is wise i think i'm getting the point across right and this is an interesting verse in ecclesiastes that's cohes it's also king solomon chapter five verse two all right verse two come on internet for a dream comes with much concern and the voice of the fool with many words i think it's obvious here right but let's let's see what raj has to say for it is unusual for a dream to come because of the many thoughts upon which a person ponders and thinks during the day i'm sorry it is usual we learn that there are different types of dreams some a lot of dreams are just releases of emotion of something you experienced or saw during the day sorry to let you know i mean that's we wish right because of all these unbelievable dreams but it doesn't matter it's good that one experienced this release and it could bring forth the reality of the dream coming true but nevertheless it doesn't mean that it's a message from god it means that it's something you experience during the day and you're thinking about and contemplating about it so it's usual for a dream to come because of the many thoughts upon which a person ponders and thinks during the day and it's usual for the voice of a fool to come with many words because by increasing his words he utters a voice of foolishness from his mouth for from talking too much transgression is inevitable therefore i say your word should be few and that sums up ecclesiastes uh cohelis king solomon as well and again still in ecclesiastes chapter 9 verse 17. 9 17 reads and the words of the wise are heard when spoken softly more than the shout of a ruler of fools okay look we lose it i mean we lose it sometimes you know we think we think we have to raise our voice i hear you i'm sitting right next to you you don't have to raise your voice right we think that we have to raise our sometimes and most times speaking you know let's say either i'm not saying without emotion but somehow you don't have to raise your voice remember it's quality not quantity and maybe the quad quality of the what do you call decibel also could uh ruin the message right some people get i don't know traumatic and the triggers and all kinds of stuff just from a raised voice that you're doing yourself an injustice you you want to get a message across that message will be more receptive if you speak with kinder words and of course that's always the best but the truth is i also thought about this there are times where you actually have to i'm not even saying raise your voice but you sometimes have to use some stern language again it's it's an art and we started by discussing that is the title of this right the art of conversation it's rare or maybe shouldn't be used that often but don't think that there's not a time and a place for it so let's see what rashi says on this verse again i'm going to just read the verse again the words of the wise are heard when spoken softly in hebrew when they're speak spoken softly is like pleasantly the herd whereas mizakat when it's spoken out loud like a shout it's it's a motion big ceiling it's the ruler it controls fools big ceiling okay that rules over them rashi says there what does it mean are heard when spoken softly they're accepted they're accepted by mankind people will accept it i mean i don't really know if it's a hundred percent true sometimes like i said you know it's generally the case though right yeah generally okay we're going with the the majority of times there are always going to be exceptions more than the shout of a ruler of fools moses passed away many years ago but his decrees are still accepted by israel and how many kings of the nations make decrees over israel but their words are no longer accepted so we see mojo and maybe i don't know i don't know which president of the united states said it speak softly and carry a big stick right remember which president the united states said that no it goes back quite a ways though isn't it but you know i remember i'm canadian so i know but you know like the 51st day right so okay so the art of conversation um what can i tell you i we we can all fall lincoln i think it was lincoln abraham lincoln i'm gonna take a guess it was roosevelt but um do you think it was baby four okay i'm i'm going to google it while you're at it right in and let us know you're going to google it carry a big speak softly and carry a big stick roosevelt you're right that was just a guess but um maybe it was called an educated guess um anyway so patience in the conversation like look there are times you feel like i might never see this person again i've never i've no no opportunity to say this again but you know what if it's so important you know it probably will have another opportunity we we're i'll say someone wrote in teddy roosevelt but you already found that too um we have to learn from our own mistakes how of why we should learn from other people's mistakes halloween there are books right uh i i don't know dale carnegie you know we say the art of conversation maybe you can correct me uh how to win friends and influence people something like that there are books there are books that have torah concepts i'm not saying that particular seminar is but at least the title right if you want to be able to win friends and not win arguments but uh let's say be a maship in hebrew means an influencer in fact that word is being used today for i guess youtubers or people that um run social media outfits you know online they're they're influencers they're called influencers they could be salesmen or selling ideas so there are things you can learn i guess because things are changing constantly in terms of method you could i'm not suggesting it but why not if i guess i am there are probably kosher um you know um videos or you know books that you could pick up i'm using this dal carnegie as an example i have no idea if it's kosher people could tell me because you know that a lie right the tortoise says d'var shekhar you have to stay away distance yourself from false uh statements so i don't know what they promote uh obviously it has to be done in a kosher way you want to influence people you cannot there's no reason you don't need to you know water the torah down in order to get a message across you don't water the truth down no um so that's another suggestion though there was at the end of the he he always brings suggestions by the way and i might as well bring them up so he suggests it's called applied wisdom at the end of every chapter there's like a short list and make the table a no phone zone and focus on conversing with family members with your family members number two work on upgrading the level of conversation around your shabbos table it's huge right if people are working they don't have time during the week at least shabbos okay and we share a devorator we go around and we ask who wants to share on the parsha or share about their week and what they learned this week share the var torah and prepare thought provoking questions to generate meaningful discussion since at least by jews this is what our whole existence really is about the torah to make it real prepare something and share it and strike up the last one strike up the conversation with someone you don't know the person sitting beside you on the plane a taxi driver a store keeper whoever it is and there's roth hashem you should gain wisdom right you will excel you will become a wiser person mizrat hashem you learn from other people i think also learn self i mean this is we're on a journey and art of conversation as we just described in a very short period of time is something that each one of us can improve on right i'm including myself even uh when you're typing i heard that if you type in all capital letters the people think you're screaming at them right i mean there's all kinds of you know a sense of humor it's like it's always it's always good um i'll just tell you real quick something happened to me this morning there's a guy that owes me money now she was shot this morning and i know that he was coming to daven with me because he was coming to my house for lunch and i walked out of my apartment i was cleaning my glasses with a little and so i when i take my glasses i can't see a thing and i heard somebody walking down the street singing now i'm a big risk taker instead of putting on my glasses to see who it was i said to myself this is a great time for a joke a joke this is my joke ready so anybody that's singing and they this guy actually had a very nice voice i said hey what'd you do with the money now travis we don't talk about money and especially he owes me money so i'm not going to chase him down so i said what you do with the money and he actually took it very seriously oh and i said without knowing who i was i said no the money your mama gave you is for singing lessons the money your mama gave you for singing lessons it's my it's my ongoing joke my wife knows it everyone everyone around me knows already but anyway this guy it was just quite funny but you have to have a sense of humor right it has a purpose right it could break the ice right bring it to the next level of in the conversation also anyway so that's it for tonight or today or this morning wherever you are whenever you're listening to this you have any questions or comments well rob i just wanted to say i mean i spent like i say 25 years doing a lot of presentations i was in the auto industry and i worked with a jewish family i learned a lot from them for a number of years uh wonderful people um but my point being i'm a big guy i'm six and a half feet tall you know i i i carry a strong presence usually if you're putting on some some some energy with what you share i have been un misunderstood more often than not and and you know dealing with this verse i've always known it you know that i know that if i spoke softer there are just so many people out there that you can't speak soft enough for if even if i'm whispering i'm a little bit too loud for them i don't know some people just don't they get overwhelmed with energy i i don't know what to say or adjust i i've i've gotten to the point with some people the older i get you know once you pass 50 years of age i said i can only adjust it so much you know the volume level is on your end you know and if yeah but you you could i'm not i'm you didn't even ask my opinion but i mean you could evaluate anybody could evaluate any time the other person's reaction and then reframe it's important to reframe rabbi zelik pliskin was really into reframing um you see that you're being misunderstood or you hear from their reaction that you're being way it's not even what you're talking about and there it triggered something to try to bring it back to a point it's an art i'm not saying and it may not be easy like easy come easy go for people but that is one of the ideas figure way to reframe it could mean lowering your just lowering it for the time being oh i realized this guy's not used to a very excited person right and there's certain places yeah there's just not yeah there's just no mesh i mean you just some places don't like certain mannerisms i mean we see it a lot over here in north america i mean certain etiquettes in the southeastern united states are different than california or different than up north totally different um yet there's still a baseline and we know that that torah's got the real goods and uh you know i appreciate this series so much but you know as as you were talking i was thinking seriously about what you said and my response now i just forgot one second um we talked about reframing there was another idea i thought about why you were talking that i forgot because i was trying to concentrate on what you were saying uh no no what was this just repeat the last thing you said it'll come back to me one second about different areas you know there's there's mannerisms like i i love the southern drawl uh down in the southeastern united states some of them are so pleasant you know they have a fun way of saying bless your heart to people and they're really mean and get the heck out of here right but the point is they do it in such a beautiful soft mannerism i can never function that way if i want somebody gone i'll tell them straight to their face um but but but to be the best us we can be um the torah's got the goods on exactly you know the lesson you're sharing today it's better to speak softly i really need to understand that word a little bit more the way solomon put it so one of the other ideas within the art of communication mirroring somebody and bringing them if they're all hyped up you could act a little bit hyped up and bring them back to a point where you can try to have uh you know eye to eye so to speak a conversation on the same level that could be in part of the reframing method right it's called mirroring and try to get them to where you expect them to have a civil conversation listen it's not always going to work you know sometimes it'll cause like a headbutt like rams you know just coming together and locking horns um i find there's just some some things clash some things do not um but i know that if uh if you folks out there if you if you listen and you view the rabbis like the angels if you view the message they have to share all of a sudden it comes across in that way that i think you're talking about today i mean this class is is definitely a a beautiful session okay so that's it for tonight for today and uh bizwashem we'll continue with way number 21 next week 21 hashem willing okay folks so we're gonna sign up have a wonderful wonderful week [Music] is