(Way# 28) PROTECTING WHAT IS PRECIOUS: 48 Ways with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

[Music] hey good day everybody welcome back live from jerusalem with rabbi uh aaron david poston uh where in his beyond the seven series we've been teaching the 48 ways to wisdom and it's such a joy to hear it uh from uh rabbi poston who actually was a student of the the person who wrote the book so let's just jump right in and see what he's got for us today i know that this course keeps getting better and better and better it's like wow just starts to blow uh minds uh but uh rabbi poston you're looking good and clear today you're live and on the air so it's your class sir so i'm gonna sit back quietly and just absorb uh as you share torah hi dan hi everybody uh shavuot of hodushtov uh glad to be back we're in a little bit of a different setting here um it's been quite hot quite warm in jerusalem this week so um sitting in an air-conditioned room which is quite enjoyable i'm sure you can all appreciate that right so hope i didn't make a mistake here okay anyway i'm back with you guys um so tim went over clear you're with me okay good here you are so tonight today's lesson is at number in the 48 ways to wisdom so for those who are not familiar with this idea the 48 ways to wisdom is a um compilation of a lecture given by rav north weinberg it's based on the mission in perkier vote that describes the describes the 48 character traits that one should acquire in order to receive the revelation at mount sinai and so it was 49 days 49 days review but basically it is it's things you need to either work on or prioritize in your life integrate yeah integrate if you want to acquire wisdom now some of these things are so obvious and uh some of the some of them are not right so today's topic this the subject is osa s making a protection making offense around what the question is what what is dvorav du varav could be your words or it can mean things right davar means things or can mean word yeah so we're gonna we're gonna think about both of these ideas right um but we're gonna start pretty much with things things that are precious to you um how do we begin there's so many things to speak about basically it's creating boundaries for that which is meaningful right you have to have everyone has everyone's looking for meaning in life the question is are we conscious are we aware have we made the proper heisman the proper accounting for what is meaningful and once we have come to that conclusion hopefully especially after last week finding happiness the secret to happiness and gratitude once we've realized what's important now the next step is making sure that those ideas or those things are protected right if you hold it so dear and we'll call it preciousness right it could be family right it could be total learning whatever whatever it is that is important to you you have to find ways creative ways to protect now the truth is the torah actually commands the leaders the rabbis to create these protections i'll give you the verse uh we'll start off with this verse but basically just because they're commanded actually commanded as you'll see so too we also should take this principle into our life so for example if you go to leviticus chapter 18 verse 30. if you want to read it 18 verse 30 reads and you shall observe my charge not to commit any of the abominable practices that were done before you and you shall not become defiled by them i am the lord your god now for those who are not so familiar with hebrew explain or translate you shall guard shamar or shomer is a guard so god is telling the leadership right you shall guard my guardians his guardings is the torah right what he cherishes we just discuss this idea what you cherish you will protect you'll find ways to protect it so he wants us to protect the protection right the torah itself is our protector meaning it's hashem's word and god wants us to protect it so the rabbis have made i think that's pretty much everything that is rabbinical you could put down and you know like summarize the idea that they are protecting us from ourselves right right we have a yatzahara we're lazy for this we're that we have a lot of issues let's say that we need to protect ourselves from uh like i mentioned okay could be laziness could be addiction could be all kinds of things just simple tithers i'll give you an example like terms of marriage so truth be told the torah itself commands us not to be mensch and applies to women too who are married men should not be alone with a woman who's married to another man i mean this woman also should not be alone right we know the whole idea of sota if you're not familiar look it up s-o-t-a right the sota so she has been uh secluded with another man her husband's jealous and whatnot i'm not going to go into that but the idea is that king david everybody knows and loves king david for sure for sure yes instituted imagine the genius of king david that one should not be i mean a man should not be alone with an unmarried woman that's called a rabbinic decree so for all those detractors out there who say who the rabbis to make up these laws isn't that genius i mean just think about our society today with whether it's politicians doctors i don't know i don't want to go into the possible compromising situations yeah sure sure so it's called a guard my guardians right do do not even be alone in a secluded room locked through whatever a secluded area with a non-married woman even though according to the torah it's actually permitted right but the rabbis came and i said to rabbi take david right and it was instituted was accepted by king david and his basement and his court um so basically let's just think of it on a more i don't know just practical level you have a house that's sitting at the edge of a cliff of course you're gonna build a fence because you have kids right maybe you have some confidence in yourself i don't know but you don't want your grandkids going over it you have uh exactly you have a hole in your in your property so you're going to put a fence around it of course if you have a pool everyone knows that even society i think at least with the the municipality that i grew up in you could be sued by the city if you have a pool without a fence meaning in your yard i can't imagine anybody you know with any say unless you live like out in the middle of nowheresville perhaps perhaps maybe there's no civilized area um canada is a big place rabbi just so you know so i wouldn't say it's uncivilized we have beautiful laws of the land a lot borrowed from the united states but we still have broad huge vast areas of tundra if you will and yeah so i'm sure that anybody that has a medicine cabinet either it's raised high off where children can't reach or they even have a lock on it i mean everyone knows the medicine cabinet is you know kids look at i guess these pills and they might think they're candy so everyone would do everything they can to keep these things out of the reach of children i mean they have i think they're called i don't know what they're called child box or locks it's a simple thing a mechanism that makes it difficult to open a cavity even for cleansers underneath the sink yeah yeah that's what people make so why do you have that and as soon as you see you tell your child not to play with the the protector right the protectors there and it's not foolproof right the kid will become a genius one day and figure a way figure way into the cabinet especially he thinks there's candy in there right so we all make up our own we're supposed to be creative to let's say you have a gun i mean in different states there are actually rules and laws here in israel you know you have rules i mean many people have guns and we know it's an epidemic problem in america whatever i don't want to go into it but basically there are things that you could do to secure your gun whether it's separating the ammunition whether it's a a lock on the trigger whether it's an actual safe or a hidden place that you know that a child cannot reach whatever the rules are you have to follow them right everyone knows you to protect your money i mean that's why you have safes even safe deposit boxes um many orthodox jews do not have a television right just to get into this holiday why because there are things on the telly that are uh they're not safe for children to watch and even adults right um there are things that we have on computers called a filter right a i don't know maybe there's another name for it but it's basically a filter that could keep pornography off or certain i guess you could put in the uh the urls and then that would prevent it from ever opening up these pages i mean i really don't know that much about these ideas that parents would be wise for them to tell their children not to bring their ipad or their phones their smartphones to a meal right it's family time right where do you come up with these rules why are those because the family time is precious right we're talking about protecting what is precious so if you're you know you're smart and you want even we're talking about how to gain more wisdom you know that you're happy what makes you happy what you're living for and therefore you want to protect that so wisdom i mean you'll you know people just watch anything on television or they just do anything on alternations it drains you from really you know critical thinking um so basically one thing you have to come to understand and perhaps everything we talked about up until now especially uh happiness but what you have to know what is precious you have to decide you have to come to this um this idea and then the next stage is not to place yourself in a in a position of temptation right we have rules right even though maybe they're not all written i mean in our sh and in our moosa literature it's quite clear that if you in the gemara you have a option to get to a place but you have several options in terms of like a rerouting right you can look on waze or google maps how to get from point a to point b and it gives you three possible routes one might be longer one might be shorter but the one that's shorter goes through let's just say the red light district or it goes along the beach route which means you have access to uh to the beach front which may mean um you know it's not an empty beach so you you have to choose do i want to be a righteous or do i want to be a russian do i want to be evil and therefore choose even if it's a longer route of course you know whatever that's within reason if you're driving something somebody to the hospital and every minute counts then don't be a fool just watch your eyes so to speak so you have to know what's precious and what's meaningful and you can create i mean the rabbis have already created so many fences and we'll see real quickly there is a perky a vote that i have in here and it's really the first one the very first perkier vote that's chapter one mishna one it's really the last few words but if you want to read it from the beginning if you have it available otherwise i don't have it up rabbi sorry it's okay so moses received the torah from sinai and he gave it over to joshua joshua gave it over to the elders the elders to the prophets the prophets gave over gave it over to the men of the great assembly they meaning the men of the great assembly would always say these three things okay it's really the third but we'll hear the whole thing be cautious in judgment slow in judgment establish many students and make a safe defense around the torah vasu torah these are our words really again either means things or words that which is precious that which and the torah i hope and believe that anybody listening to this class would understand that the torah is very precious um so let's talk about shabbat for a second right so shabbat is very precious we have to admit either if you're a non-jew you understand that you're celebrating or commemorating shabbat on some level but for us jews we have a tremendous amount of more obligation but you can also adopt some of these ideas um again when it comes to like i was thinking about this today um just like chilling like we're in a rat race all week long with our cell phones and our our computers and all kinds of electronic devices that i was thinking to myself and i i actually shared this with somebody he he not only agreed with me he gave some data to back it up um that i felt that not well let's just say like this i you don't really realize when you're using all these machineries and all these texts tech technology that it's affecting your body it's affecting your brain waves it's affecting your own energy um basically it may be invisible right and it may be very subtle but just touching the machine obviously it has a battery it has electricity but that it's affecting you in ways that you're not even aware of right i'm sure your brain wired in a certain way i've heard this this idea but maybe just pushing the buttons just pushing buttons constantly thinking about where you're going next and if you're surfing the web here you're talking about total cessation just connecting with them now and so there's a thing called muksa in in judaism on shabbat i won't even touch my iphone i won't touch a pen here right i have a pen why will i not even touch it because i'm not allowed to write the very fact that i'm not allowed to write is a torah prohibition the fact that i'm not allowed to touch i shouldn't even touch the pen or move the pen is a rabbinic injunction to prevent me from coming to right this may be like crazy for some people never heard this idea before so we call it muxa anything that is set aside that i have no use for i will not even touch it's prohibition of rabbinic prohibition um so there's what's wrong with riding an animal okay you may say that it's using your animal you shouldn't be using it but the rabbis come along and say you shouldn't ride the animal because what usually happens is people break a branch off in order to hit the animal to go faster or to steer the animal somewhere so the prohibition is breaking the branch not it's a rabbinic prohibition to use to to ride the animal we do not allow to tie and break off branches as i already mentioned in thai so how would you make a raft so the point is that they say you shouldn't even swim right on shabbat we don't go swimming okay you can put your feet in the pool right you can walk along the beach but there's certain things we won't do for various reasons once you go into the pool into the water the main reason is you might go ahead and build a raft and that would be a problem but there's other issues such as squeezing out your hair or squeezing out your bathing suit okay we're not going to get into all the ideas but the rabbis have made so and this is like not going back to like 100 years or 200 years we're talking about already when they were in the desert for those 40 years and after when they entered the land of israel so many of these laws and we're talking about the time of ezra when we came back from our exile and we landed ourselves back in jerusalem when we saw people not keeping shabbos right they weren't keeping shabbos properly and that's when there was a i don't know a rejuvenation a revitalization of jewish culture if i may so-so and they instituted all kinds of extra uh stringencies with a condition that once the jews started to get back into shabbos the way they always had kept it then these um extra stringencies would be uh released they would be released from having to keep all these stringencies and that's just part of our history so you see how pre you know if you consider something precious you'll go out of your way to i guess safeguard it to make sure that it is kept precious so i hope that gives like some background and some idea and so it's not just it's so we don't weaken shadows right it's to strengthen the shabbos by creating you know there's an idea that says um i hope i'm not going to misquote it but basically good fences make good neighbors right you want to keep that person as a good neighbor then you don't you have to set boundaries you know you can't just come into my house at any time right call first text first whatever it is let's make an appointment right if you have your neighbor just walks through your door i'm not going to say they're not going to become a good neighbor right now they're a good neighbor and you want to keep them that way so to strengthen that relationship you create boundaries and that would be true not just in the example i gave but in in relationships in in general um okay so what i'm going to do is go through the the the book a little bit um so we have an idea with the roshiva he goes through this idea he begins by talking about fences guard and protect keeping us safe from harm right so that's we talked about the idea of fences around the pool fences around a a hole in in whatever wherever you have a cliff or a hole so that's very important you don't want to cause harm so basically he goes into like we'll call a little bit more philosophical what happens if you find a hole in your life right so you need to make a fence to prevent yourself from falling in you don't want to hurt yourself or others so what you need to do is to create your own boundaries you need to create you have to make you have to have methods that will help avoid help you avoid stumbling into these errors and many times we fall in over and over and over again right now this i checked it out albert einstein did not say this maybe it's a lie on the internet but i looked it up and there's a certain website that said a lot of misquotes so many people attribute it to albert einstein and that is the insanity what is insanity the definition of insanity is making the same mistake over and over and over again apparently if we keep repeating that albert einstein said it then we're just basically insane because we're making the same mistake over and over again because he didn't say it but okay apparently he didn't say it and it was attributed really to rita mae brown and it was as late as 1983 she wrote a book a fictional book and she quoted some character in the book as saying it and that's where it came into being and it never was albert einstein but maybe it was if someone wants to do some research and let us know um but i thought it was very interesting that the the within this website it mentioned that anybody that says albert einstein says it is basically making the same mistake that they're trying not to make okay so what is it so you find yourself right you don't want to fall off a spiritual cliff right so you have to be creative and figure out wait everyone's different right different people have different types right for gambling some for drinking some for maybe they just spend all their money on artwork and it's ruining their marriage i don't know everybody has their own pitfalls and they have to figure out a way that they don't keep making the state same mistakes over and over again so how many times have you tried right to quit smoking or to lose weight or to stop saying something hurtful to somebody but we keep falling into the same pit right so we talked about heshbon and nefish many times obviously you know it takes a lot of courage to be honest with yourself and know that you're you've made this i don't know resolution and you just keep failing so you need to make some kind of offense so the first fence you need to wreck is to avoid making a promise unless you're absolutely committed to keeping it and then of course once you know what you want then you figure out ways in which you can really get there something realistic um step by step yeah you have to ask yourself do i really mean this do i really want it is this what is meaningful right again what's precious what's meaningful in my life and once you really have a you know a firm i guess stance on this being very meaningful and you dish it out hopefully that will then you come to some strategy as we're about to get into strategies strategies to make it work so in michele that's proverbs 24 6. you want to read yeah i'm just pulling it up proverbs 24 verse 6. make sure i get my microphone up however 6 says for you shall wage war for yourself with strategies and the victory results from the superiority of the councilor okay so king solomon in his wisdom right you have to admit wisest man who ever lived you have you need strategies if you're going to make war and this war is not you know between uh the chinese and the russians in america we're talking about with your your heart your yates and hurrah yeah your desires your desires that are taking you far away from what you already determined is meaningful in life so this requires you can understand this requires strategy in order for you to be victorious and that is hopefully our goal now just to skip to this idea hillel himself said right if i am not for myself who is for me this is in perkier vote chapter one mission and if i'm only for myself what am i doing and if not now when right right now's that time now's the time don't be a procrastinator because you're just gonna keep making the same mistakes over and over again and attribute this to albert einstein but anyway the next thing so let's talk about strategies a little bit right yeah you you you make a step-by-step plan that's going to help you live up to your resolution and he gives different examples um and but basically you want you want you you know that the time to do it is now right once you decided this is important to you don't put it off anymore but if you're not prepared to do it now so no when will you do it be sure to set a date and a time which you will put your decision into action mark it in your calendar in other words this is also a way it's like creating look we're not talking about creating a new religion we're just talking about creating structure in your life so you can accomplish what you know is important and sometimes this creates um this helps create borders here you're just talking about strategy in itself as you craft your game plan visualize the possible pitfalls that would arise and devise strategies for avoiding them and when these obstacles do arise you must remind yourself ready this is it these are here for me to overcome to help me strengthen my resolve and grow this is my wife reminds me all the time when something i don't know people act a certain way towards you says it's not happening to you it's happening for you for you to overcome for you to grow um this is another this is now leading into the next idea which is enlisting the help of others so for all those unmarried people out there the truth be told that if you're lucky enough like i am dan and many other people that we know our spouses can be a tremendous help spiritual help in overcoming so many of the pitfalls you know they especially women they definitely help us men create boundaries okay so keep that in mind so we're gonna go to um i think actually read it in the michele at proverbs we already read this in 2026 he mentions you're not alone remember at the end of the verse it says uh superiority of the counselor who's the counselor you're not alone one of the most effective fences in getting advice from people who have gone through the same predicament that you're struggling with get advice from people who have experienced similar things and have overcome some have exceeded in overcoming the obstacles while others are still struggling but we all have insights and advice you can benefit from they all have and they are usually more than happy to share their wisdom now he mentions to get a nudnika friend like i guess they have these ideas today of a uh a coach a personal coach yeah huh what's the word you used life coach a life coach so he calls it a nunn nick you're paying somebody money if you need to otherwise you know what's a good friend for who you can say look every time i want to go into that bar pull me by my bootstraps right remind me of the last time i was there what happened right or whatever it is so a good way to erect a fence is to hire a friendly nunic if you want to diet for instance ask a friend to point out every time you take more than one piece of cake or nibble in between meals he'll help guard you against he'll help guard against your violating whatever line you've drawn for yourself or you can make like they do sometimes in in offices if people curse or use certain words or if they fail to i don't know put the toilet seat down they have to put money into a little uh a little push a little bit of a tin can or something like that in other words hang out with the right people first of all right help boost each other up so you're not in this alone and maybe that is a way of what's the word of um you know um enticing you to do the right thing you know if you know that there's a penalty a financial penalty um it might help so then if we're going to go to kohel's which is ecclesiastes chapter 4 verse 9 and 10. this is going along the idea of you're not alone right all right nine and 10 say two are better than one since they have good reward for their toil for if they fall one will lift up his friend but woe to the one who falls and has no second one to lift him up now rashi mentions this is like a wife right hopefully this is the idea whether whether it's a good friend a trusted comrade all right good people you're hanging around with but two are better than one right two are better than one since they have good reward for their toil if one would fall the other one would lift them up it's um i'll read rashi right two are better than one in all respects therefore a person should acquire for himself a companion and take his wife for they have more profit in their toil much work is done by two which the individual does not begin alone now if they would fall according to its apparent meaning that's obvious and regarding studies if his studies were too difficult for him his companion will restore them to him and if he stumbles and was not exact in what he heard from his mentor his companion will set him on the truthful course and as many of your students people who watch us know one of the main things in judaism the way people study is through right you're sitting there trying to get to the truth and you're trying to read a text and you're trying to explain it over and if you're not clear the your study partner will say you don't know what you're talking about that's not what it says or could you elaborate further and you either stick your foot in your mouth further or you're going to enlighten him one way or the other but you see how get to the bottom of it enlisting the help of others is so important in terms of what we're talking about protecting that which is precious yeah stops tunnel vision now the next idea is pitfalls there are always pitfalls ahead so we talked about the idea of making mistakes over and over again so king david says in psalms 51 5. so verse 5 reads for i know my transgressions and my sin is always before me now this is interesting because he's trying to tell us you can remember your mistakes they can serve as an effective deterrent by repeating them against repeating them again and again because it helps you remain aware of the potential pitfalls and it helps keep your guard up the whole idea of preserving that which is is precious to you is keeping a guard up so one of the ways of keeping a guard setting boundaries is not to forget review your past mistakes frequently and learn from them okay the next subject or topic is planning ahead right you know i don't know if it's still true now you have uh what do you call these phones you know these smartphones but used to go i remember we went to uh wherever we went we were going on a road trip you go to the local gas station you fill up and they had maps i don't know if they still have maps maybe so you would how would you expect to get where you're going without a map i mean okay today you can go online and you can get the best route as we talked about earlier you can do it live as timing but basically planning ahead is a big it's a big deal when you're going on any kind of road trip and we have navigation systems in our car now yeah quite often okay so i would you know look what happens if you're on the road and it went out for some reason i don't know i mean it's possible i don't want to give anything without a date though yeah especially with some new cities building new roads yeah the navigation systems go out of date so it would make sense plan ahead right if you're going to travel in europe right you'll first read a travel guide find out what to expect right what's the culture like what do people do at night life what's the proper thing to to say in a restaurant to tip or not to tip whatever it is right you don't just show up you don't want to miss any uh any important things or experiences you you there's guides you imagine going to jerusalem and never going to the western wall or to yad vashem you know you're going to come to jerusalem you're going to know what's important so the same thing is true about life right you don't just show up right be prepared many people plan on getting married so the roshi would ask how many people want to get divorced how many of you are planning to get divorced well obviously nobody raises their hand well guess what if 50 60 i don't know but you know i can't keep track let's just say a large percentage it could be 30 i have no idea um but people get divorced well guess what now's the time before you even get married figure out what is a good marriage what goes into it and so anyway planning ahead right nobody plans on getting but it's silly to think it couldn't happen to you to avoid this painful occurrence learn what you need to do to build a lasting loving marriage i think ahead consider the other pivotal phrases phases that um that you're gonna experience in your life what about your career what about parenthood marrying off children retirement and resolve to get the wisdom you need in order to navigate these bewildering phases so planning ahead is is essential what about what are you living for this is i think one of the main things that roshiva always spoke about right it just in terms of let's say there are people they say oh i would this i would um die for right i would die for a particular cause well guess what what are you living for right if you're willing to die for that it means you're willing to live for as well right we have so many jews baro hashem i'm not these are my people who would say i would die for the state of israel or i would die for the jewish people but they're not at all observant they're not at all um i just i don't like the word religious but observant and yet they would be willing to die for the jewish people i i commend i think it's great but hello what about what are you living for i mean if you really think it's that important you would put your life on the line and die for the jewish people why wouldn't you live for the jewish people right and this is like one of the most famous expressions that shiva gave to new people coming into yeshiva who were like just backpackers traveling through the world focus what is the most important thing so the most important fence you can make is to ensure you don't waste your precious life the best protection you have against this is what we've been talking about all along make a spiritual accounting everyone everyone has to ask themselves this essential question what am i living for attaining clarity about what you want out of life bottom line eliminates a lot of confusion and it guards you from frittering it away frittering i guess means wasting it right in addition to having this general outlook in place you also need a daily system of evaluating how well you performed and taking stock of where you stand we talk in judaism every night before we go to bed we say the shema israel but we make a hegemony we think about our day did i hurt anybody did i harm anyone did they say anything that wasn't right could i have done something better right and do we forgive people that we might have felt wronged us um hopefully the nephesh will bring us to the point at least the next day where we could speak to the people we might have harmed but at least before you go to bed no these are traits that you should focus in and work on he mentions every night before going to bed look back at today's events assess what went right what went wrong then make a plan for the next day to be more productive right identify your own achilles heel whether it's laziness energy indulgence or bad temper then concentrate on that and remind yourself back to that verse in i think it was [Music] in proverbs 24 6 know this is your enemy this is your enemy that you have to strategize to to in war and so that you could um be successful and victorious so identify your own achilles heel and mention that concentrate on that which on that and remind yourself this is the enemy get angry at your own stupidities and utilize utilize that anger in other words harness that's what it exists for right yeah to motivate you to change okay now building a fence against society's ills we spoke about having a a filter on the internet or not even having a smartphone it's just amazing you know 30 40 years ago when the idea of a possibility of a smartphone came into being i remember learning with my rabbi i'm going to say it was probably 20 let me just think i remember 40 years ago having a deeper like 20 years ago 20 years ago and he said that they're developing these these types of phones that you could see the person and have a conversation with them in other words we already know that's what it is but you talking about video live up to date so you know you just imagine a yeshiva boy is 19 years old he's engaged to a 16 17 or 18 year old girl and uh they're on the phone all the time talking to each other there's nothing wrong with that but when you have the video so what happens now it's 11 o'clock at night they're both getting a little tired and they're almost running out of things to talk about and who knows where this leads he said i guarantee you the rabbis are not going to let people you know religious people they're going to suggest this is a no-go zone right this is not going to it's not going to work i'm not going to fly yeah because we have our boundaries right the boundary is it's fine you know at three o'clock in the afternoon perhaps but what's going to work related purposes yeah she wants to get undressed and get into her nightgown or he wants to get undressed and get into his pajamas or whatever it is and before you know it the next thing you know anyway so we live in a society that goes contrary to torah values in many significant ways we're assaulted by a degenerate media that promotes hedonism violence and immorality every jew and every human being in this needs to erect a solid fence to print to protect his or her spiritual health carefully choosing his social media and deciding what he will allow to permeate permeate his home from the outside world i'm just telling you i remember i was in yeshi my first yeshiva i was 23 years old uh it was no it was um one of the russians from chicago came to she even spoke i think it was rabbi gifter it was either rabbi gifter of palm anyway i was like shocked they said bringing a television into one's home it's like bringing a cross it's like bringing an idol into your home i only could imagine i mean i lived with television in my home in fact we had more than one television it's a big secret no we had a television in every room growing up right from the kitchen to the bedrooms to the living room to dining everything you can imagine that it's like bringing it i'm thinking to myself how can that be i'm sure that there's some good things on television and there are right and so i what i found was some of these religious homes they had a tv without an antenna and the tv was basically plugged into a vcr and the vcr i don't know if anybody knows what a vcr is it's like an old-time disc video recording device video and basically they had kosher tapes that they all shared from one house to another um stories history science math whatever it was educational stuff and uh i said about the reality in other words i thought when this rabbi said bring a television to your home is like bringing an idol into your house i thought well these people are you know not after lunch but like you know shooting for the stars but it's a reality it can be done when you know that it can be done and it could save so much headache from what's going on in the world i mean right now the whole i should say the whole world enough of the world is quite i'm talking about america quite upset about i don't know what's called this critical race theory is that what it's called oh in the u.s yeah they're arguing against um people are upset that they're indoctrinating in doctor naming the children with what we would call heresy i mean heresy meaning it goes against our values we don't look at this color of people's skin we look so much subtlety out there right and so this is something that you want it's in your house you want your children to be taught this in school so we have to make fences right whether you're going to be homeschooling or you're going to go out of your way and choose a different school or go to the board and petition them i mean there's all kinds of things you can do and there's some things that are beyond your control that you have to make harder decisions and maybe even costly decisions but basically this is something you don't want to bring into your home so here it says regarding deciding what we will allow to permeate our home from the outside world including internet consumption films and reading material all these things have a direct value on a direct influence on a person's value therefore we're going to end with this idea set boundaries think before you consume right i mean you can go we can talk about the whole uh consumer you know market how they i know you know they basically forget the word but they they bring the level down on women's values right with when you want to watch a a a a commercial for i don't know a car they don't they don't they okay they'll show you the car but it's all about this woman who's not dressed or dressed i mean where where's rabbi yeah i work auto auto shows big international auto shows and i remember yeah when i was with jaguar i did the launch for the the the o6 uh uh um xk and that was a new sports car you know all over the first time they came out with it and they brought they brought the entire uh short skirt of girls from montreal uh to toronto just for that launch um because of how skimpy they dress they were just an attraction and yeah it's it's shameful in that regard so set boundaries think before you consume freedom freedom that's what we want true freedom is the ability to say i choose not to partake that is what we're talking about here setting boundaries and protecting that which is precious to you and i'm just going to look over my notes because i do have quite a few other things i'm not sure if i uh there is an idea we we might have spoken about in this in the past but um a wise person his eyes are in front of him now it literally means his eyes are in his head but the word rosho means ahead of you in front of you which means foresight that's great it's to see the consequences of your actions that's really true maturity and as we get older we're able to see it hopefully because we made the mistakes or we've noticed other people's made mistakes right who's why someone who learns from other people all learns from everybody it doesn't have to go through it really because they can foresee yeah so there's a lot of depth to this i don't want to go into it but this is um a major point here that if you want to be wise because we're talking about the 48 ways to wisdom learn from your mistakes learn from other people's mistakes set the boundaries right you can already see the consequences of being alone in a room with that woman even though she's not married or picking up a pen on shabbat right or picking up your iphone even though it's off uh you know the next thing you know it's on uh there is just a little bit of like a hint to this in deuteronomy chapter 19 verse 14 which is dealing with neighbors good neighbors hopefully they're good neighbors deuteronomy 19 and which verse rabbi 14 14 says you shall not pull back your neighbor's landmark which the earlier ones have set as borders in your inheritance which you will inherit in the land that the lord your god gives you to possess okay so basically it's one of the 613 commandments i mean basically stealing but you're not supposed to infringe now this is not just a uh a real estate argument right where does your border end where does your border begin and then moving somebody's borders right this is it's wrong it goes all the way to the idea that if i lived in a small town and i want to open a business where someone already has a business the same right there are borders there right they let's just say pizza a pizza parlor and you let's just say you need like a hundred customers to stay in business and there are only 100 or 125 or 150 customers in this town so it would be forbidden for me to open up a pizza parlor that is similar like his in other words if i it was a little different it was spaghetti and other things perhaps it would be okay but if it's a very similar business just pizza so i would have a problem in doing that because you're infringing on someone else's borders so you have to set your uploaders you have to know your faith your pronouns are going to come from somewhere else don't do it same two here you know good neighbors how's it go good borders make good neighbors so here you want to have good neighbor you want to have a good name in the town don't infringe on someone else's business i think this just goes into the same idea here um there's a few other verses that make a lot of sense ecclesiastes 10 verse 8. ecclesiastes chapter 10 verse 8 reads one who digs a pit shall fall therein and one who breaks a fence a snake shall bite him okay so on a certain level you're just talking about a regular fence right we're talking about the fence that the sages made the fence that you yourself made this is where you're going to fall into the snake so when we think about the rabbis themselves have as we saw throughout this class right whether it's in perky vote the first one that the sages should make and we know that in history they have made many and it was all for our benefit so too that if you break a fence that the sages made you're asking for it a snake will bite you rashi says and one who breaks the fence a fence of the sages to transgress their words a snake will bite him death by the hands of heaven and since he spoke with an expression of breaking offense he mentions his recompense with an expression of the biting of the snake which usually occupies the holes of broken walls of houses another verse proverbs chapter 21 verse 23 proverbs chapter 21 verse 23 reads he who watches his mouth and his tongue guards his soul from troubles now we mentioned the very beginning that the words assassinated we translated as things or concepts but we also said davar could be words so hashem gave us protections right we have lips and we have teeth and then we have a tongue deep inside somewhere right and we have the vocal cords and all that so before we open before we speak and stick our foot in our mouth god forbid or before we hurt somebody right we we have these borders we use them think twice before you you know utter these words the the tongue will will speak he who watches his mouth and his tongue guards his soul from troubles so this really is like full circle um i think we'll leave it leave it there as full circle that it's not just things but on a very practical level it's also speech um but um i think that every one of these 48 ways is golden and i'm not the only resource i'm not the only source i told you we're using this book the 40 ways to wisdom many many many people all right great rabbis have shared yes you could hear from others who you might be able to relate to more um there's just this this is this is gold this is gold so continue your search for wisdom and find the tools and this is just one of many rabbi what was that verse out of ecclesiastes chapter 10 verse eight verse eight okay that one i found uh very very very key um ten verses eight one who digs a pitch shall fall therein and one who breaks a fence a snake shall bite him and uh i think that's some sound words of advice from solomon on the matter i mean you know we need fences for these reasons i think you've touched on so much today that is is is wise for us to integrate but i love how you talk about you know having some foresight you want to have you want to have a a game plan in in in play um there's if you if you think you're going to flutter through life like a kite uh you definitely are are up up for potential crashes and and and problems i mean you know you've got a you've got to have a direction and i find uh so many people don't have a compass they don't know the bearings and direction and i always encourage you know get hooked up with a rabbi so you can get put on a learning curve he's going to teach you how to learn but also on a learning curve that's taking a trajectory in the upward direction and [Music] i think with everything that we've discussed today there's just there's there's a reason why the sages and the wise of of of that have gone before there's a reason why they put up all these fences for sure and you've just you just touched on it but i think they need to be honored but understood understood wisdom would understand why um i've tried to get into some and and look at what why rabbinic uh certain rabbinic uh rulings are different than than halakic and um you can usually ascertain that there are circumstances that warrant it not being halaq don't make it a law you can't they can't they they don't make it a law for a reason but the rabbis that have gone before have made an offense for uh your protection as you've touched on today so i'll tell you a secret it makes sense right and it's not just politics that there's a statement in the gomorrah says the rabbis will never make a ruling that the people won't accept first of all for them it it whittles away their credibility right if they make too strong of a um yeah and nobody keeps it then the whole thing's a joke so they're it may sound political right they'll downgrade it they'll make it the word in a way where it'll be they won't do they won't enact something that is not acceptable and we have three thousand over three thousand years of history that shows what was accepted what wasn't accepted and why they decided to i'll just say i don't know re retract um i mean full of sugar helps the medicine go down huh i said a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down and so what you see in today's judaism is a collection of what worked okay that worked what didn't work i'll give you an example and it may sound very strange but have you had there is a concept after having relations with your wife your wife included they go to the mikvah they go to a ritual bath and it removes a certain type of impurity okay now what the rabbis institutes from around the time of ezra was that every man before he studies and prays should go to the mikvah and you know what happened people stop being with their wives they they okay that's what the rabbis have to go to the mikvah can you imagine with my wife the night before before i go to say i have to go to mikvah i don't want to go to mikvah i'm tired i'm lazy it's too cold it's too hot it's too far i don't want to get up early enough to yeah you know what i just won't be with my wife and the rabbi said no obviously this is not working now it still says in the rook that it's praiseworthy to do such a thing but that's how they worded it's not an obligation it's not even strongly suggested in a very whatever uh forthcoming way but it's if you the law this rule was retracted but if you decide to do it you get a blessing that was you understand i hope i was we're still like uh you know no there's some profound depth in there i i sure as heck hope all the banana that are out there that are listening realize this uh i think you've been you've been very uh great at bringing this kind of concept alive in this beyond the seven series so that people aren't uh just thinking that that the answers of of of the sages are just you know uh quick thoughts they're they're obviously practiced and and and tested and true in in ways wait another thing one of the ideas i just want to make sure people know that when the rabbis let's just say make offense it's around the torah there's always a torah law or concept that they're trying to progress coming from left field like i guess other religions they're looking for control or donations you know you can talk about the the christian church for all these years but they're talking about the tour itself there's something rooted in the torah whether it's a direct quote or a hint don't dabble with yeah don't it would always be attached to and the gemara the oral torah much time is spent where did the rabbis come up with this idea we want to know and therefore it goes back in time to either a personal account where they came up with it or the logic behind it smoothly brought up something a verse a hint remember it's a seahawk to the torah it has to have it has to be anchored and rooted in the torah itself and you have every right to question because the gemura does very nice rabbi you tell me this is what we do why where did it come from how did it develop what was the motivation behind the rabbis when they said this is the right thing to do what prompted them and this and their clarity like we said protecting that which is precious the torah there's nothing more precious than torah and therefore to make a sea og around the torah guard my gardens god says guard my guardians he says that to the rabbis and therefore we are going to follow the rabbis filters it rolls downhill lives find um things to i'm not trying to make things up but if you find pitfalls you find those those places where you could fall or you making the same mistake over and over and over again you need to figure out creative ways to strategize right prioritize know what's precious and guard it oh man well said rabbi thank you so much i appreciate you sharing this course i know it's a big body of text and uh we've made it through 28 we're we're closer to the end than we are to the beginning at this stage rabbi so it's always good to see you smile you've been staying up see the end i don't see the end in sight the only thing i think i see is the next the next topic that's it so but we're off next week correct correct um either we're fasting or feasting we don't know yet right the tissue of is a moie right the prophets speak about these rabbinic fast and this is another idea they're called rabbinic fasts right from the 10th of teves the 17th of tamu is right this the the day after rosh hashanah the fast of goddalia tishbov it's in the tanakh it's in the navy it's the prophet speak about it and yet people want to say who the rabbis to make these things up these are commemorations of calamities these are days of reflection these are times where we have to do truva and when our troop is heard and when things turn around these days will turn in the prophet says will turn into feast days good boy so we don't know what's going to happen next sunday right but either way we can't learn because uh i'll be feasting or i'll be fast okay so we'll be back in a couple weeks hashem willing two weeks shem these guys hashem willing so yeah we are going live on the roku station this week so i am uh gonna i've already set up for beyond the seven to start playing right back to the very beginning so if you're going to check out the international noahide network on roku if if you do that sort of thing we hope you'll enjoy uh and i want to thank rabbi poston for even allowing me to uh download and upload some of uh rabbi breiter which is uh shears or just beautiful beautiful teachings and everything that he does with gibene you can always find his material yibonay.com you can find him on youtube you can find him on on facebook as well uh they're an organization worth supporting folks because they do lots of practical outreach there in in jerusalem and uh rabbi poston thank you for today's uh lesson beautiful lesson and uh we're gonna miss you next week but i look forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks and may you continually be blessed as you you bless many others god bless you all all right so have a wonderful day folks we'll be back with beyond the seven in two weeks from the today at the same time have a wonderful wonderful weekend [Music] is