(Way# 25) ACCEPTING PAIN: 48 Ways with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

[Music] hey good day everybody welcome back to beyond the seven live from jerusalem with rabbi aaron david poston uh rabbi poston has been teaching us the wonderful series the 48 ways to wisdom and this week we've got part 25. we've been going at it uh uh fast and furiously uh rabbi poston has been pulling out nuggets of of deep hebrew wisdom uh for us to grasp [Music] in light of this path to wisdom to try to understand what it takes to integrate into your life and it's just been phenomenal every week there's something more and i know this course keeps getting better and better and better so uh let's just tune right in and see what the rabbi's got to say about it because a rabbi poston so good to be with you so late in in jerusalem thank you for being with us and i am thoroughly enjoying this series thank you so much dan for uh welcoming welcoming me back and i guess providing all of this service to uh to the people all over the world i just feel a great sense of gratitude to be just a part of it small part i know you have some other wonderful speakers and you started your own uh class yeah we started doing the book of job last week it was beautiful so far we get a few usual suspects show up for the zoom chat and it's fun okay i'm so glad you started because it's so necessary now the truth is that the uh the topic for tonight i think will give a little bit of insight i hope i don't steal too much of your thunder from job but the topic is called accepting pain so no one likes that one on a certain level we're dealing with the the whole pers persona of job now i mean i don't want to take it underway i mean according to khazal corinth to the rabbis and most believe either he didn't exist at all it's just a metaphor or that he was he was a non-jew so um i don't know the other uh commentaries i don't know all the commentaries but i know those are the two main ideas and he experienced fortunately unfortunately however you want to look at it a lot of pain and how do you how do we accept pain now the truth is in other ideas remember this is the 48 ways to wisdom why would accepting pain be one of the actual ways in terms of acquiring wisdom i think we have to ask ourselves that and um hopefully through this next i guess an hour uh we'll have some insight why or how through looking forward to it it sounds like very counterintuitive right i mean today we use all kinds of drugs whether it i don't know what they're called you know different types of things that will you know mitigate numbing agents pain and it's really unfortunate i mean that we are either so hooked or addicted to the first opportunity to escape ask now look i'm some people are in real physical pain and unfortunately that can also cause addictions but um we'll have to find out right this is the uh drum roll please right this is the this is how the rosh is shiva of north weinberg when he started this seminar and and he talks about this idea um it's just the book that one can buy and purchase um there are usually links at least in my videos i put the links how you can buy the book you can look it up right i guess you can just type in read by knock weinberg's 48 ways and you can order it online or maybe someone can put it into the the link here um on the chat and so one of the questions he would ask the audience to the students listening to this class is what is the opposite of pain now they usually almost always get it wrong unless of course you've seen this video this class before right what would most people say the opposite of pla pain is pleasure of course well the rosh hashida says that is decadence to answer that way's decadence just think about it what is the greatest pleasure you have in life most people would say my children right so what is your greatest pain in life most people will say my children so what we find is really the pain and pleasure on the same end of the spectrum what is the opposite of um pain is not pleasure they go hand in hand in fact there's a famous expression in hebrew aramaic as lefum sara agra according to the pain the effort really the effort an effort is i don't it's not exactly painful but it's certainly the opposite of comfort so anyway comfort is the opposite of pain comfort is no pain right whereas i just described as an example when when the torah actually says that eve will experience let's say women kind right female kind will experience pain during childbirth now the hebrew there it may imply and you may read it as childbirth but what it really means is all aspects of childbirth and i mean from beginning to end whether it is i know this is probably you know this is not an x-rated show here but there is a and i don't know this personally but i've i've been told that um when a woman loses her virginity there is or may there may be an experience of pain so that's like the first step in childbirth there's already blood right there's already blood and pain just um from the very beginning right the first act let's say then of course the uncomfortability is that a word um carrying carrying the child and of course we know childbirth can be quite painful i should say we know i remember carol burnett i don't know if anybody remembers these stories how did how do you describe to a man what it's like to give birth so i think if anybody remembers it's like pulling your top lip over to the back of your head if you can imagine that we're just talking to a man you know to men to describe what it's like to give childbirth you know you're kidney stones but i wonder why they keep doing it i mean they have more kids right so it must be there must be a tremendous amount of pleasure right no doubt but when it's when we talk about the pain and the way it's described it's not just what i have described up until this point there's an additional pain it's called which means the pain of raising children right and that may go on and i'll say it's probably much more than 13 or 20 years it could be 6 40 or 50 in this day and age it seems yeah so look i i don't mean in terms of living at home and pam program i just mean that um you as a parent and you love your children even though you're maybe in an age of pension that these are still your children and you still want to see them happy and you're still in broke hashem bazrat still involved in their life and there's pain there's pain you know whether a child gets divorced or whatever whatever it is whatever experiences they have in life that are painful you may also experience the pain with them so this is uh my my mother met with ravnoch weinberg no he had 12 children right wow and um so he asked my mother you know what if she had three children you know would you like to sell me one of your children right a million dollars two million dollars 10 million dollars no way there's no way that oh you know a woman would would easily give up her children no matter how much money no and yeah it's right the greatest pleasure the greatest pleasure and at the same time we know this is a source of pain so i think i've gotten this i hope i got this idea across um but going back to the original point so the opposite of pain would be no pain which would be comfort right sitting on a beach with an umbrella so you don't get too much sun with a pina colada or i don't know martini i don't know what they drink you know some cool drink um with a little umbrella on it and a straw and just chilling out right comfort no worries no pain and that you know i guess you call that a safe space today we have a problem people are looking for that safe space and you're never going to reach and i'm going to say this like not as an authority but you know experienced person you're never going to reach your true potential by staying in safe spaces it doesn't mean we shouldn't you know look for some safe spaces sometimes but sometimes we have to go out on a limb so to speak in order to give us where fruits produced a businessman right there's risk to be taken and sometimes you lose but rev naught weinberg he created five different yeshivas before asiatora came to be and they all failed eventually they failed something about them did not succeed and um he says if i didn't try if i didn't make that effort and whatever experience and and learning experience that he went through that he would never have commentation if you would have given up right based on the uncomfortable experience or pain involved he never would have created the um this unbelievable yeshiva called ishitar so pain is the price we pay for real lasting pleasure right there's an expression no pain no gain right you heard that expression and so what we're going to do is learn how to accept pain now in hebrew it's called kabbalah yes which means acceptance ye surim now you serem i could translate it as pain it could be just effort right it's exerting the effort um it could be tragedy i mean pain is quite vast right it could go from just simple exertion um getting out of your comfort zone to eight damage of your toe yeah some something that could be quite tragic now in order to build relationships right loving marriages succeeding in our careers or to grow in torah right perfecting one's character it's going to take effort and it could be as well very painful we're gonna we're gonna discuss all this now unfortunately we also have and i don't think it started with the movie the peter pan movie or maybe the book came out first um but i think it's called the peter pan syndrome now what is exactly what does that mean it means i never want to grow up right isn't that the isn't that one of the you know the idea i don't want to grow up so basically it's like i don't want to take any responsibilities i don't want to take any risks i don't want to have any pain of failure i don't want any pain period right so um unfortunately you know we then we delay or don't get or have children or anything that would um we're basically trying to live a responsible free no responsibility type of lifestyle no restraint cast off right so um rather than debate the merits of having a large family versus having a small family pen many people just choose not to have any children at all and i think this is a big problem in the west i think i mean maybe maybe i'm wrong i hope i'm wrong um you know but i do know marriage is going down divorce rates go up and i just want to mention something about the fall of the roman empire now i'm not sure if all historians would agree but this is what i was told and i did look it up and there was a reason why the roman empire ended up um i guess losing many wars eventually uh seceding territory to other people uh mainly was because they stopped having many children and any you know like we think about the west right if america i don't know what's happening in china it's a little bit different right different issues um so anyway there was a certain i'm going to say and i don't want to get anybody in trouble here i just want to talk about the facts right the facts are that there was a lot of homosexuality in the ancient roman empire i'm not saying for you know anything like that i'm trying to judge i'm just telling you the facts and what ended up happening was that the men uh found enjoyment of sex with other males and um they did not necessarily lose their loss they didn't lose their aspect of masculinity in fact the heroes the way that the army ended up working in rome was that they matched up older men meaning you know let's say adult men who were warriors with young what's the word uh shield bearers people that carried the weapons and with younger men young let's say boys you know younger younger partners let's say usually they were slaves or former slaves or prostitutes or entertainers um but there was no loss of their masculinity it was a very masculine thing to do uh to to behave in this fashion but what ended up happening was and they weren't having that many children and this is what many people attribute to the downfall of the roman empire so take this lesson you know whatever lesson you're able to get out of that point um whether it's the strong family values and i'll say another thing that may sound controversial right let's say this is a fact so i'm not making this up originally i don't know if they changed it but the blm a website that describes their mission was basically to erode the family the core family values and i don't know maybe they changed it so i don't want to be held liable for anything here uh it was um you read it there yourself yeah i read it at one point again it could be that they changed it for for various reasons um and this is something that in america or let's say in the west is becoming very popular i'm not saying there's anything wrong with what's the word supporting minorities or trying to make a certain aspect of equality right without all the detriments um but once it becomes political and based on let's say immoral values we have a problem okay so i'll leave that for your homework and you can check that out good point um okay let's go back into some of the material now i want to do the overview and i want to go deeper into some of the sources and i'll just mention rough north weinberg's own words this kind of decadence contributed to the fall of the roman empire after creating the strongest military force in the ancient world and building a massive empire the roman populist lost its will to fight the army could no longer recruit enough soldiers because the people desired comfort and were unwilling to invest the enormous effort required to fight for the empire's survival left with no choice the army hired mercenaries mercenaries are in it for the money so they don't have loyalty to the country per se they didn't have any loyalty to rome and these mercenaries eventually turned on their roman employers toppling the empire again why did they need to hire mercenaries because there were no more men to hire and to conscript into the army and that was due to the um the the disintegration of the family okay got that point across now uh the roshiv also had a very interesting way of expressing this idea of um what i what i already described but i'll tell you he says real pleasure is inseparable from pain in other words it's it's hand in hand it's on one side of the spectrum pleasure and pain to go together if you ask your parents what's your greatest pleasure of course they're gonna say it's you and if you ask your parents what's your greatest source of pain well guess what it's also you it's no accident that your parents greatest source of pleasure is also the source of the greatest pain again the idea that pain and pleasure go together because the greater the pleasure the greater the effort required to attain it okay so pain is necessary for attaining pleasure the gra the gratification one experiences upon reaching the summit of a mountain now i never really climbed actually i have i shouldn't say that i haven't but when you finally after four hours of trekking through with a desert reaching the top of a mountain like by angeli you have such a tremen in fact what i used to do because i know the experience of going through four hours of desert heat by the dead sea and getting to the very top i owned the jeep and i used to organize trips for the yeshiva and i used to meet them on the top because i knew the back roots i used to set up a tent with watermelon and ice water and music and whatnot and it was just a fantastic experience yeah they really need to get that imagine but just so you can expect and it hits north of 40 degrees celsius there doesn't it it was over 40 yeah yeah it's i don't think it's fit for humankind to visit to visit it won't sustain late in the afternoon but not not in the scorching heat of midday no there's another idea i just want to bring down the gemara says that a person who let's say he's a farmer it doesn't matter if he's could be an architect could be a a carpenter whatever he does he works he makes something he produces something that if you produce something and it's worth let's say ninety dollars eighty dollars and you had a choice to get a hundred dollars as a gift or a hundred dollar gift certificate something worth a hundred dollars or that which you made which is worth let's say a little a little bit less maybe significantly less you would take that which you produced over that which you're getting is a gift let's see the general ideas because you cherish it because you put your blood sweat and tears or your efforts or your brains you know your creativity whatever it was that you felt that you had a hand in producing is much more valuable than the something as a free gift so the greater the greater the effort we expend to achieve a goal the more we really we enjoy reaching it so here's a concept in perky avo chapter five uh mishna 22. uh ben bagbag would say delve and delve into it for all is in it see it grow old and worn in it do not budge from it for there is nothing better did i make the wrong yeah okay so in in english it doesn't make sense the hebrew is much more when it says for there is nothing better the truth is the hebrew is sarah agra according to the tsar tsar is the pain or effort um is the is the is the worth is the reward um and i had a point rabbi yes please um i grew up in a uh in a uh industrial steel town uh where there was a lot of uh repetitive uh um uh industry you know heavy industry uh uh robotic uh where workers would just play a role in a certain area and you know i remember being young and seeing a study how a lot of them were dying shortly after retirement because they didn't have an outlook but the big the big drawback for them was depression because they did not see an end result of the product all day long they only worked at one little spot and they fixed this this and this alone in an assembly line and they never you know benefited with the end result and they didn't see a completion and in it weighed on them oh time day after day year after year weighed on them and i think there's big merit to what you're saying as far as exactly how the pain involved you know uh churns out the result and um when people could not see the end result or the or the product or the benefit of the product they were producing they had a sense of valuelessness and um sure i'm sure what you're saying is i think i'm i'm sure there have been uh studies research done in this uh when we were in egypt the avodah the service they gave us was called avodah means meaningless labor right it's so demeaning right i mean the the i guess i've seen movies you know i've seen these documentaries where people are pushing buttons and something's happening on the other side but they don't know what it is or they're churning something and there's a wall and it's supposedly creating or doing something on the other side but they have no idea what it is and the truth is it may be doing absolutely nothing and then you find after 10 20 30 years of labor that you did absolutely nothing except wasted your whole time of course i mean how are you supposed to feel uh less than worthless like you totally wasted your time so yes seeing some kind of results on the other side i guess businesses you know be much uh more productive right um so i'm sure i'm sure many surveys many research a lot of research has been done how to make more people more productive aside from rest and naps during work hours which they also find to be productive but to see the end result see the happy customers and whatnot i'm sure i'm sure so let's go back into like torah learning torah remember learning torah means gaining wisdom acquiring wisdom so this idea of lefum tsara agra according to the effort is the reward is one of the reasons why torah can only be mastered through what we call a miloot amilut means effort i mean that's really how to translate it oil oil that's a better word toyo and that's yeah that's perfect for today's lesson so the exertion requires to study the exertion that's required to study and understand the torah enables us to appreciate and internalize its wisdom it's more valuable to you you worked for it right if it came on a silver platter it would easy come easy as they say right now how do we take pleasure in the pain that's going to be that's going to be like the secret here because so that is part of the draw for thousands of people have you heard i guess because you're from canada i don't know if you could be anywhere in the world you'll see it on tv or uh documentaries it's called the polar bear club and they do bare plunges now i don't know what it means if you can put on a a wetsuit that is thermal or you actually go in the nude in the in there without no most people just dive right in yeah bathing suit and uh yeah bear bridges okay so you're wearing something but at least for modesty purposes uh it's you're jumping at the ice okay they did have recently there were all these different challenges you could do i think it was called the ice bucket challenge in order to raise money for people whether they had cancer or whatever there were different um non-profit organizations trying to raise money right you're familiar with the i think they call it the ice bucket challenge where you could be in your bathing suit i imagine and your friends your good friends either they pull uh the rope that's hanging above you a bucket of ice or they come you know if you don't have all that apparatus and you still want to do it right you just have your best friend to uh to uh to put maybe i don't know if you have to do it or a friend does it but anyway you're ready and prepared emotionally physically to have this done like a dunk tank does right like a yeah yeah and these people do it these people do it there's plenty of heated pools available so the pleasure comes through toughing it out we know that so the ability to accept pain can also drive people to run a marathon i mean i never ran a marathon but i i've ridden a bike i've jogged and there's a certain point where your muscles they're getting hot i mean there's a certain wall yeah atrophy yeah they hit the wall um these people just continue how they deal with the pain maybe it's mind over matter maybe like you said their eye on that what do you call that black and white you know uh flag you know the finish line perhaps i don't i don't know what goes through her mind but they know they're experiencing pain and they know it's going to be worth it for whatever reason whether it's for the glory whether it's for the money whether it's for the trophy whether it's whatever we have a bike run coming up for cancer here you know 100 kilometer run and my wife's thinking about doing it you know they gather sponsors uh to make 100 where they're donating a dollar per kilometer and you bike it and you do you do your best but the idea is to raise money for a you know a medical charity of some sort [Music] okay now another idea that nothing comes for free right don't don't think i mean unfortunately i guess there is a world out there where people do assume that i guess it's called entitlements right right right i mean free so ah though isn't it there's an illusion to think you can run away from pain and you're not going to pay no matter what either winning or losing doesn't matter you're not going to pay if you think you can avoid the pain of taking finals right you want to get a good grade you want to go into the next class you want to get your letters at the end of your name to put on the plaque on your front door to get clients whatever it is you're going to take these finals and guess what you're stuck you're stuck with the pain of being a failure if you don't do it you have to take the pain you're going to take this pain over that pain right the pain of being a failure might be too great so you'll put in the effort can run away from the pain ultimately the pain of trying to succeed is actually less painful than the pain of quitting it and it's going to haunt you forever for the rest of your life so remember this during tough situations pain is passing but the results are final so and sometimes it's just the fear of pain that stops us in our tracks more often than not the fear of pain is actually worse than the pain itself i think this goes along with because i'll say that we did talk about this in a sexual sense that when a a person dreams or fantasizes about physical pleasures sometimes i'm going to say most of the times or majority of the times many of the times that pleasure is actually much more than if he actually performed that pleasure so to the opposite keep that in mind it really is true if it works in the positive way that the fantasy is actually much more pleasurable than the real thing so the fear of the pain is actually worse than the pain itself keep that in mind what happens when you take a child to the doctor to get a shot oh my gosh right the the you gotta sometimes strap them like in you know what i mean strap them in uh what are those special jackets for the psychiatric ward a straight jacket yeah i mean hands are flying screaming like you your your your ears gonna shoot you right and yes could be that's just from looking at the needle when it's actually done and over with sometimes they don't even know you mean you're finished i can stop crying and make a body gone it's over i didn't even feel it why don't you tell me so you know of course the smarter of the doctors i shouldn't say i'm not a doctor i don't know how they but you don't show the kid the needle you know you hold it behind him i don't know exactly how they do it but it makes sense i mean i personally i just look away but anyway i'm not i'm not freaked out i just don't like to look at it going into my skin no i'm actually diabetic so i give myself needles all the time i just don't look i just do it okay anyway it can be paralyzing though too much information too much information okay um so don't let the fear of pain restrict you makes make a list of the things you would like to do if you weren't so afraid to try perhaps you want to get up half an hour earlier but you're afraid it's going to make you too tired or maybe you want to write a book ask maybe you want to ask for a promotion take horseback ridings give a ted talk or finish the whole top playing instrument yeah um now the rest of it um i mean it's really good stuff i think it's worth going through some of this but i really want to get into the source material uh it's really absolutely fascinating um in terms of what one should do keep your eye on the ball i think that's also what you're referring to as well we're talking about the the end result right one of the best ways to get rid of pain is to forget about it and focus instead on the pleasure or the results right imagine a team of basketball players running around the court now you know that they're having a good time now try just as an experiment say do all your moves but with no ball i mean it sounds ridiculous right you're shooting it where's it going you imagine it's going in yeah trying to play golf without a ball yeah yeah so again keep your eye on the way expressing it you're removing purpose back into it all of a sudden now because there's a you feel that there's a goal like hitting the the golf ball over a lake or over a hill or beyond the sand whatever they call it you know hitting the sand and hitting at least close enough where you can get the next shot in or playing basketball where at least you get it into the basket you feel you've accomplished something if you don't feel you're accomplishing anything it's um i feel like it's a big waste of time um okay now i want to go into the sources i want to get into the sources they're so beautiful so wow just unbelievable stuff we're going to talk about isaiah 53 right israel is the suffering servant and why it's beneficial for the world and for us okay can't avoid it i'm gonna have to talk about it and um we're gonna talk about why these there are three things there's a famous major famous gemara there are three things that are acquired through yeast serene usarim are difficult challenges pain right um and that is the torah even for non-jew and non-jew and the land of israel and the world to come so the truth is i thought about these three things what i'm going to teach this to non-jews first of all you should know what we what we what we hold what we understand but this is amazing because the torah or part of the torah right is yours the term is given to the world right the oral torah is specifically for the jews but that's for us to explain it to you and the torah itself belongs to on a certain level the world um eric's israel it's really gods and any non-jew we don't have this in act in um practicality today but we have discussed the idea of what aguer aguero toshav is not applicable today until a majority of the jewish population worldwide actually resides in the land of israel so we're getting close you know you did a good message on that last week didn't you so even eric's israel whatever the supply should also have an aspect in terms of acquiring it through yusureem i imagine it would apply in the world to come also so i want to go through that particular idea um and also there's another idea of just like going back to job i would assume this would really have to find it this idea of accepting out of love so i want to go through and this is all in gemara brachus 5a what i'm about to tell you now and then about those three things that are acquired through yusureem i want to focus more on the three things that are required to you serene but i have to i feel like i have to go through this first piece because it's just a very interesting idea and then you can understand the jewish people much better and understand your life and what happens like job who's a non-jew also experienced yusirim and i believe ultimately he accepted them from love so the governor explains that if a person sees he's suffering what he should do right you're suffering examine your actions think what did i do wrong what could i be doing better this is clear across the board this is what one should do now what you basically conclude by saying that is that it must be because of my transgressions meaning my mistakes okay so there's like a verse in lamentations chapter 3 verse 40 that says you want to read it i'm happy if you read it i gotta pull it up lamentations chapter what 3 verse 40 verse 40 reads let us search and examine our ways and let us return to the lord you understand in the verse itself is an obligation i must search and examine my ways and do chuva and return to god now once you do that you examined yourself and you found no transgressions right we're like somehow reminiscent of the book of jovia right i'm a pretty good guy i can't find anything i know i'm suffering why so then what you do is you we're talking about specifically jews with an obligation to learn torah and i have to say there's an obligation for non-jews as well to learn the parts of the torah that are shaikh that are related to them so you relate you attribute your suffering to the lack or dereliction of learning torah now i have an interesting way of explaining this because it's true for a jew that not learning torah is actually a sin in other words spending your time not learning torah when you could be learning torah is a sin let's say that is what you come up with okay so now you're going to fix it you can learn more torah i want to say like squander don't squander your time originally you experienced suffering and it said examine your ways and you can't find anything it could be because you're not learning enough torah to find out what you're doing wrong and that makes sense to me in other words number one examine your ways if you if you examine your ways you didn't find anything then chalk it up to not learning enough torah ah you mean not learning enough torah is a sin in itself and that's what it is i'll learn more torah that's one way to look at it or the reason why i didn't find that what i was doing wrong was because i don't know enough torah to know what is right and what is wrong beautiful idea beautiful way to put it yeah now as a uh imagining ignorance is bliss as a text proof go to psalms 94 verse 12. remember we're talking about the idea of accepting accepting these pains accepting the pain or in some cases punishment right verse 12 reads fortunate is the man whom you yah chastise and from your torah you teach him okay so this verse is teaching us that the suffering that the person's suffering will cause him to return to do the law correctly in other words that's the purpose of the suffering to come back and learn torah properly and so the person did it he didn't find he didn't find anything in other words the first thing was examine your ways fine exam ways didn't find anything oh it must be because i'm not learning enough torah well guess what i am learning enough tara so what's the end result here you didn't find that as being a problem so then be confident that the affliction is an affliction of love what an affliction of love yeah so look in the process very kind look in proverbs chapter 3 verse 12. verse 12 reads for the lord chastens the one he loves as a father placates a son okay so i'm whatever i have a little different but okay so you get this idea for whom the lord loves he rebukes as does a father the son in whom he delights okay so we're this we i am assuming that everybody who's watching this believes in the tanakh is first of all five books of moses the word of god directly and the rest of the prophets and the kasutim are however you want to call it more than divinely inspired i mean this is the word of god coming through the prophets right so what are they teaching us they're teaching us wisdom they're teaching us how to live right okay so this should be clear that one should accept the affliction out of love because god himself says that i'm giving you my love i'm giving you my love as a father gives his son who meet the lights um some more uh proofs and that's from isaiah 53 okay so they're two rabbis rav said the rav sahura said that rahuna said three rabbis anyone in whom the holy one blessed be he delights god oppresses him with suffering as it says in isaiah 53 verse 10 verse 10 reads and the lord wished to crush him he made him ill if his soul makes itself restitution he shall see children he shall prolong his days and god's purpose shall prosper in his hand okay just i know that i know the christians certain christians believe for some reason that isaiah 53 is talking about their i don't know whatever it is isaiah is a continuation of isaiah 52 and 52 and you can go back to all through the 40s and in the 50s god is constantly saying my servant the israel my servant jacob my servant the jewish people okay my servant my servant my servant is the same servant throughout and why is it singular great question because that's the way it talks right omi israel is one and it's not unique just to isaiah 63 throughout tanakh you have many times it's talked about my servant being israel being singular okay so read 53 with a new light the suffering servant right the jewish people and you can attach yourself to the jewish people right many different ways many choices okay we're not going to go through them now we've talked about that before um so that is this verse illustrates that whomever god delights he afflicts with illness sounds very not so nice so i might have thought that god will delight in him even if he does not accept the suffering of love no we're going to find out that you have to accept it with love and that's going to make all the difference in the world as the verse taught if his soul would offer itself in guilt right that's what the verse says just as a guilt offering is brought with knowledge of the person and he's not allowed to can't force somebody to bring a guilt offering so too his suffering must be accepted knowingly and if one accepts that suffering with love what would be his reward and that's what talks about his children that he might see his children lengthen in his days and that's a reward if you accept this out of love moreover in addition to the earthly rewards his torah study will endure and his torah study will be successful as it also says the purpose of the lord what's the purpose of the lord the torah itself the torah and the revelation of god's will would prosper in his hand would prosper by his hand meaning with regard to the acceptance of the affliction with love and what exactly this entails this war continues disagree there's a little bit of a disagreement one of them said that afflictions of love are any that do not cause dereliction of the torah study in other words these pains or troubles that come to you if it does not cause you one minute less of learning torah then you know that it was from love if it causes you to god forbid take away from your ability to learn tone and do mitzvahs then it's not out of love um and the other ones no and there's a continuation because it actually says happy is the man whom you afflict lord and teach from your torah so if if it affects your ability to learn torah it's not out of love so basically you should accept this out of love now i want to go into these three goodly gifts that hashem gave the jewish people and i mentioned that already that this was um the torah the land of israel and the world to come why would it be that these number one we've talked why are they gifts why are they called good and why these three things and nothing else and there's many verses that provide a source for these ideas so god is giving us something oh my god great thank you so much you gave me the torah you gave me the land of israel and you give me what the world to come but i have to suffer there has to be some level of suffering for it let's hear so it's like this it's on the same page brachot 5a the rabbi shimon bar yochai that's the famous rashbee right lag ba omer people go to meron right and the holy one blessed be he gave israel three precious gifts matano to vote three precious gifts all of which are given only by means of suffering every jew must know this which purified israel so that they merit to receive them in other words the suffering is part of the ability to receive these gifts and they are torah the land of israel and the world to come now where do we know that the torah is only acquired through suffering so go to psalms 94-12 12 reads fortunate is the man whom you chastise and from your torah you teach him so it's in one verse but the beginning of the verse is happy is the man whom you afflict so they're accepting the affliction with joy and the idea of being taught the torah directly by hashem okay so you have a a concept of torah and affliction the same verse okay what about the land of israel it says in deuteronomy 8 5. what does it say deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 5 says you shall know in your heart that just as a man chastises his son so does the lord your god chastise you now two verses later 8 chapter 8 verse 7 for the lord your god is bringing you to a good land a land with brooks of water fountains and depths that emerge in valleys and mountains so in deuteronomy by the way everyone agrees that we do smith means the proximity of verses there are relationships and two verses apart everyone agrees also that that's not that's not an issue there's a a connection so you have this connection between the rebuking and the land of israel meaning the rebuke is again is the idea of affliction in hebrew yesurim um that's the actual word yisar okay now the world to come why is the world to come acquired through affliction so look at proverbs 6 23 chapter 6 23 reads for a commandment is a candle and the torah is a light and disciplining rebukes are the way of life wow so that's profound this concept called life we're not talking about life in this world we're talking about everlasting life so this rebuke the um again in hebrew here it says musar is still for the word yes okay it's the same idea now we have to explain why are they called matanot gifts and why are they called good because that's what said they're good gifts so let's talk about the word good first all three of them are mentioned they're all good the torah is good the land of israel is good and the world to come is good so let's go through those three verses in proverbs 4 2. chapter 4 verse 2 for i gave you good teaching forsake not my instruction now in hebrew means i could purchase i i gave you a good teaching we know that it's talking about the the torah and so that let's the the torah is called good okay forsake not my instruction hebrew it says torah see do not forsake okay so i mean that's translates instruction or i don't know but it's the word is in hebrews torah so it's called good the torah is called good what about the land of israel we all know it's called good go to deuteronomy chapter 8 verse 10. verse 10 reads and you will eat and be sated and you will you shall bless the lord your god for the good land he has given you okay we all know the land is good it's called good allah right which i'm giving to you okay um and then the world to come in deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 15 the world to come is also called good which verse rabbi chapter 3 deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 15 15 behold i have set before you today life and good and death and evil so it's about the the world to come is called i'm putting before you and good it's also called good now why are they called a gift a matana is a gift but there's they're all unique in that they're they're called yerusha now means an inheritance now every thinking person unless they hate their parents will be saddened simultaneously while receiving an inheritance in other words it's like a an oxymoron going on right we make a barakah when we hear good things um there's a special blessing of shahianu or atova we make a special blessing when we hear good news and when we hear bad news we say a different kind of lesson someone dies we say baroque diana met what happens when the person dies is leaving you millions of dollars how are you supposed to feel you're a little bit of a quandary you're upset and you're also simultaneously happy but in every inheritance even though it's a i guess it's a unless you acquire debt right every inheritance should be a sad moment right it should be a sad moment meaning a veilless morning there's that's called you serene you surrender we said is pains right when you experience mourning you're in pain so all three of these ideas have this aspect of murasha or a yerusha which in hebrew means a well let's see the verses and start out with torah in deuteronomy chapter 33 verse 4. chapter 33 verse 4 reads the torah that moses commanded us is a legacy for the congregation of jacob now legacy here in hebrew is more russia it really means inheritance right that's how it's mostly translated because uh urusha is an inheritance and more russia was caused to be inherited so here you have legacy but it's try to understand that when we imagine a connection inheritance requires a sense of mourning in general right so we're asking the question how is it that there's this um these are gifts that you that are good that you have to experience some kind of suffering for so the first one is torah there is a murasha there's an inheritance uh what about the land of israel is it called an inheritance go to exodus chapter 6 verse 8. of course it is yeah verse 8 reads i will bring you to the land concerning which i raised my hand to give give to abraham to isaac and to jacob and i will give it to you as a heritage i am the lord now in hebrew it's the same word marusha okay now in the next proof about the world to come it's called an inheritance but in hebrew it's a little bit of different different word go to proverbs chapter 8 verse 21 chapter 8 verse 21 reads there is substance to give inheritance to those who love me and i will fill their treasures okay i don't think you need that much imagination to know this is talking about the world to come there is substance in hebrew it's called yesh yesh means substance to to i'm going to use the word inheritance because that's really how to translate it i have the translation there is a substance to give inheritance to those who love me who are those who love god people who are full of a ammuna faith and obedience right to the law um those who love god and i will fill their treasuries we're not talking about your earthly piggy bank or your you know we're talking about the treasuries for the world to come okay so with that i call that almost like an introduction i want to go to some of the comments on this particular gemara um okay so i think we covered the idea that the word matanat that the word tov good is listed by all three very good now the h yosef brings down that these matano to vote these goodly gifts can be described in two ways one is a little bit more easier to understand they are what we call spiritual gifts that allow a person to perfect himself in other words it may be hard for a non-jew living outside the land of israel to understand what okay i get torah that enables me to protect myself but the land of israel yeah there's at least for the jews there's only certain things you can do in the land of israel that you cannot fulfill spiritually outside the land of israel and i'm going to tell you the same thing should basically affect a non-jew as well you'll be elevated it says just walking around the land you become wise right the environment the air causes you to become wise so the land of israel has tremendous impact on a spiritual way and of course the world to come i think it's without saying right um okay you know i've never been but i'm looking forward to it i i missed a window of opportunity maybe just before kova hit i was gonna show up there about uh a couple months before covet just you know kind of got frozen in everywhere all right now july 1st i don't know how it's going to work when you return to canada but i think it's july 1st individuals can come and visit the holy land uh with all the tests and whatnot anyway i want to go back into the notes in the back of the gemara so um we find the several explanations on why these three things are acquired through youtube now i do want to mention just my own idea first because you have to think you have to be a thinking person what is it about these three things like what's the common denominator they're all what we should really like if you say give me a list of the things that are most important to you so at least for me this would reach the top of the list and therefore if like we said reaching the goal if these are the most important things this is where my efforts right should go into acquiring torah the land of israel no matter what comes down the pike and the world to come character development builds endurance doesn't it now this is the back of the kumar so he just mentions i will have to investigate so the marshall explains that torah was given through usreem it's given through your stream so if we're talking about acquiring it we have to accept this lovingly because it's the way because the way is to be acquired only through you serem why now why because the tanuge because of the pleasures of this world they take you away from torah it's just real simple right you want to sit on the beach with a you know a nice drink so you're not going to be learning torah so all the pleasures of this world take you away from learning talk um there actually is a mission in perky vote chapter six mishna for did we read that yet i don't believe if you want to i just don't have myself as or here it is such is the way of torah so i'm sure you've heard this before bread with salt you shall eat water in small measure you shall drink that doesn't sound very comfortable it doesn't sound like five star accommodations and upon the ground you shall sleep live a life of deprivation and toil and torah if you do so psalms 128 verse 2 fortunate you and good is to you fortunate you in this world and good to you in the world to come okay you're getting an idea here so too the land of israel was given or acquired through eusarim that we learned that the land was not given for its fruits right it was not it may have really nice jaffa oranges really nice dates from uh and getty it may have really nice cherries from the golan and uh what do you call it um and apples from the golan heights it may have or let's say the cherries are from grushitzion and the apples are from the golan heights it may have all that but why do you want to come to israel right you want to come to israel to eat the fruits or do you want to have the spirit i live in a fruit so the land of israel's given in order to teach us that it wasn't given for the fruits and the uh the immense pleasures the immense good pleasures we can get here um because this thing god forbid can bring one to actually uh what's the word um rebel against god it says in that earlier chapter eight of which right lest you eat and become satisfied and then you're gonna your your heart is gonna become hardy and you're forget forget about the lord your god right in our benching we thought about eating and being satisfied and forgetting about hashem so it's not about forgetting about hashem it's about remembering hashem and living with hashem um and also when it comes to whatever merit we get in the world to come that this is through we have to recognize that through yisurim which we call pains or efforts this is how we empty ourselves of sin in other words we talked about this before in the past you reach into your pocket to get changed and you come out with the wrong change that is a part of atonement process right you need to reach your hand back down that little effort and you should be so grateful this is part of the atonement process the capara right stubbing your toe you mentioned different things this is how we get all of my ba because we're cleansing ourself now in this world so we don't have to experience whatever it means with the fires of gehenna more the heat of you know hot liquid trying to get rid of the stuff in other words we can go through what we need to go through now we call tikkun fixing our character now and accepting the pain with love and then avoiding not having to experience whatever that process it may be short right we don't believe in eternal damnation in hell we're talking about whatever tikkun process happens after the physical life is over is a real process and we'd rather go through it now then later okay so that is what we're discussing here why one should accept the surim from love okay even though we're talking about torah and wisdom this is an important gamora that brings all three down now the morale brings that these three gifts they're not they're not physical like other other gifts they are the types of gifts that are holy and separated mean elevated from the physical world therefore it's not fitting to receive them except through a usureem again yusurimar i keep having to translate almost like differently uh pain right that will the pain itself limits the goof limits the body in other words diminishes the body whatever you swim you experience limits the body which is purely physical until you're able to reach these gifts so in other words there's like this i don't know how do you call it like a see-saw if the the spirit is strong the body is weak when the body's weak when the when the body's strong the spirit is weak so you're not we're not interested in the like i guess greek greece was into the body into olympics into perfect the body is and they were they would be ashamed the hellenistic jews were ashamed that they were circumcised right because oh no god created the body perfectly who are we to um what do you mutilate or whatever i guess that's what they call it's right we don't have to make an improvement no that's why god actually he wants us to make an improvement to uh to be a partner with him um okay so okay now there is a comment that i think i wanted to read well let's just continue the anecdote explains these three things they come to israel through a yerusha like i mentioned that yerusha is an inheritance just as an inheritance does not come to a person except through tsar pain and mourning so too it's impossible for us to receive to inherit these three things without some type of sar or warning okay now the then the i mentioned this before it's called the ben yahoo yada which is the benishchai he wrote another book called [Music] and he explains i i really love this explanation he says the whole idea here is to test man it's all about god testing man now it's not that god doesn't know god bless you god knows exactly what god bless you he knows exactly what we're capable and what we have in our hearts but god is not judging us all alone he has angels he has a bait den there's a heavenly court and he wants to he wants to defend us he wants us to have a good defense really so he wants us to go through certain motions that he could use in our defense when presenting the case in front of the heavenly court okay so that's the reason for the test so listen to these words the explains that the reason that god gives these three gifts through difficulties pain is in order to test man if he's fitting to receive them meaning regarding let's say learning torah it's very possible that a person will learn torah just to know just to know wisdom his goal is to be a teacher or to be wise so people would look up to him or in order to receive reward even okay that's that's revealed so in this way he's not really fit god will not give him the deepest wisdom of the torah in order to show that this man in other words does this man really want to learn the shame shaman does he really want to learn torah for torah's sake or do you want to learn torah to put some you know letters at the end of his name you know get a diploma so therefore god will bring these yesurim these tru trials and pain into his life to test him to see if he's prepared to shoulder and take on the surim in order to really reach the truest understanding of the torah has to offer and this would be like a sign that certainly he learned he's learning for the sake of heaven and um and therefore god will grant him this supernal wisdom another remember we're talking why would some why would accepting pains have anything to do with acquiring wisdom so this is this is a beautiful explanation but while we're on the subject we're talking about the land of israel in the world to come so we might as well finish the idea so regarding the land of israel the goal of giving usurim meaning pains is in order to test the person to see if he really desires to live in this land because of its holiness and the fulfillment of the mitzvahs that are dependent on the land or is he here just to eat the fruits the good stuff enjoy himself yep all right now regarding the world to come the person is being tested through these pains and meaning that through these rings through the pains it will become recognizable nikkar if the person is fulfilling the myths and involving himself in torah only in order to receive a reward and to benefit from whatever the world to come offers him because if that's the case then what's happening is he would probably be disgusted or turned away from through the serene in other words we the check and balances is the pleasure that i expect to get in the world to come worth all the pain i have to experience here and that's basically what the test is coming down to to see if the person is truly doing it for the right reasons but if he's if he ends up being happy that's the word he uses he's actually happy when he receives these um these pains it's a simmer and it's a sign that he's involved in torah mitzvahs for the sake of god for the real reasons in order to fulfill the rat zone of hashem he just wants to do god's will and since god is sending it to him even if it means that he can't learn as much torah or even do as many misters he's still going to accept them because he knows it's god's will it's an amazing idea i don't want to skip anything i just i'm afraid i think i did we said that if he's disgusted by where he's pushed off because of the pains then he's not and he's and they're going to end up causing him not to learn torah or do the mitzvahs so it's um in in a certain sense it's reducing his reward but at the same time if he doesn't care i'm going to do the will of god anyway even it's going to reduce in my mind i think it's going to reduce my world in the world my reward in the world to come but i accept it because it's god's will this will catapult him into unbelievable places in the world to come yeah well said well said anyway so that is i'm sure i skipped quite a lot of uh it's a profound concept i think yeah the cover pain not it yes it's it might be a great idea what ideas are to be incorporated it's not an easy thing i think the older you are the more experienced you are hopefully you'll deal with it better i mean as children we you know we didn't deal with pain so put your finger on the stove you're never going to touch it again the same way but as we grow older we get out of the peter pan syndrome right and well good point have children and we realize i think women probably experience is much better you know the pain involved but it was certainly worth it i hope they uh they think like that and they'll have more um this should also you know fall into the category of let's say it's an hour class so what tape it you know i would go to class and i would when i was be i was new at judaism you know i was on belcher and i i i started late in life and i would take a class and i would go listen over and over and over again the same class yeah and you found new new nuggets in there right well i i mean most of it just went over my head and i had to stop and look up words and try to get this and try to get that and you know what the effort even if i didn't get it then i got it now like it took years and you can share it that's great now so it's the effort it's like whatever you want to call you soaring right it's the effort it's the pain it's the blood sweat and tears it's the exertion i think that's a good word but it doesn't matter however comes down you in accept that out of love because this is on hashem this is what god wants find out what god wants and do it and make the effort to do it oh man beautiful beautiful i i don't i think that's some of the most sound advice you've given in this series and you've you've touched on some beautiful topics but this one makes a lot of sense and i think uh i hope you don't mind if i use some of these these uh statements as i continue to teach the book of job i mean it's been exciting to share and uh i'm doing that monday to uh monday to thursdays at 7 00 pm in israel i don't know where you folks are but uh yeah here on the noahide world center social media channels continuing the book of job we're just still in chapter one starting we just finished verse 11 and i think we're just starting to get into job's personal affliction and how it begins in his life and yeah it's neat to hear uh it's a course designed by rabbi schwartz rabbi yitzhak schwartz uh who's on the north side of jerusalem there northwest in givit zev just outside of the jerusalem city and his material he's a former rabbi from seattle and he is a community rav where he is and i just know he's uh he's a russia yeshiva of orkos kaim and communities developed around that yeshiva and it's just a joy to share uh material from uh wonderful torah scholars and he cites them album and he cites uh uh the bureau hagra from uh and a few other nakamiti sources it's just some wonderful wonderful material and it's just a joy to be able to share that i mean some noahides i keep trying to encourage them to try to find some noahide relevance and keep flashing the the shovel of its votes so that you know that we're not being accused of delving into torah but we're actually trying to find uh be familiar with the with the story from the jewish perspective but more than that also we'll see how it relates to us and um you know i appreciate you the soundness in in in the teaching today rabbi it's it's it's gold it's just gold so folks uh hopefully you enjoyed it as well out there please feel free to share it on social media uh you'll find it here on the know hide world center and uh you know you'll also see this on yebene rabbi poston's website gibene.com you know feel free to support him folks he's a rabbi who's doing wonderful kind works and i so enjoy every moment that i get to listen to him share especially him as a student of rabbi moshe weiner he's able to share this directly somebody who sat under the rabbi it's just it's exciting to see you bring it out thank you so hashem willing are we on the same time next week rabbi for part 26 sure looking forward all right hashem willing folks we're going to be back next week so have a wonderful wonderful week everybody bye for now [Music] is