(Way# 34) LOVING THE STRAIGHT PATH: 48 Ways with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

[Music] hey good day everybody welcome back to beyond the seven live from jerusalem with uh rabbi aaron david poston who's been sharing with us the tremendous series the 48 ways to wisdom and each and every lesson is something for you to acquire and integrate into your life put into practice in everyday uh uh use and make the world a better place and i loved last week's lesson was on loving righteousness it was beautiful and uh i'm not gonna be leaguer anymore about this let's just jump right in and see how the rabbi's doing rabbi poston you're live on the air and we've got you uh uh we're we're so looking forward to hearing more of the 48 ways to wisdom great thank you thank you chabutov to everybody who's listening and to those who are still whatever in shabbos or out of shabbos or watching this after we're broke hashem we're doing well and i'm glad you're able to join us and i'm glad to be here so we're in number 34 of 34 today yes 34 unbelievable right making a good time last week we spoke about loving to fulfill your obligations and that's interesting because today we're talking about the translation is loving the straight path but oh sharim so this really means beyond your obligation that's how we're going to explain it right because in hebrew there's a concept called lift name is hidden beyond the letter of the law is how it's commonly translated and people do understand what that means so once you have an obligation if you go beyond that that's called beyond the letter of the law now why should that be something you should love to do that is what we're going to discuss tonight or today or wherever you're listening so interestingly enough we have to discuss what it mean well let's just define again what love is and then we'll talk about what it means to be maeshar to be straight okay and why why are we understanding it as beyond the letter of the law so what do we just say what did we say love really is so we define love as an emotional response but it's basically it's a pleasurable experience a pleasurable emotion when you see the beauty or you see the virtues or anything good in another human being and you will experience we call love you're identifying with them with that person that which is good okay now what is exactly straight so let's go to deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 18 and we'll see that god wants us to do whatever it is that is straight um you want to read i think it's 18 and 19 so you just got a full context 18 says and you shall do what is proper and good in the eyes of the lord in order that it may be well with you and that you may come and possess the good land which the lord swore to your forefathers to drive out all your enemies from before you as the lord had spoken so let's just think about it in context whatever it is that you're going to do that is proper and good which we'll discuss in a second it's so that it will be good for you there's going to be some benefit and it seems from the you know the continuity of the verse that you're going to come into what we call the holy land let's say that is as next week's parasha and that abraham is told to go to the land of israel because really that's where he will try find his true self it's going to benefit him to be in this land and we're not going to get into it but there is some aspect of let's say redemption personal completion or perfection by being in your destined land and we might even call it um you know like the opposite of exile we'll call it redemption that a person especially a jew being in the land of israel is uh is where he's meant to be so let's say it's like you found your perfect balance in the land of israel so let's go back to the beginning of the verse when it says and you shall do what is proper and good in the eyes of the lord so let's see the hebrew the asita yashar that's the word that we're looking at right you love the straight path what is your shar right if you ask a jew in israel if you ask somebody in israel an israeli how do i get to this place they'll say you sure you're sure you're sure either so just keep going straight okay so there's uh there's something to be said the fact is we we are supposed to go in a straight path and a proper path i remember when i used to take students hiking i haven't taken them hiking in a long time but i used to tell my students it's safe if you stay on the path if you veer off the path first of all you may get lost but you may lose your footing right stay on the path keep drinking right in israel it's very hot it was like almost like a mantra not a joke but a mantra when you go with me you're going to stay on the path you have to stay on the i'll not that i'm going to yell at you but as the leader of the group i i i insist i insist you stay on the path so in hebrew it says yashar the hatov so you're going to do whatever is your sharp and good in the eyes of of god now let's look at rashi a second rashi tells us right away on this verse this refers to what we call sharp shara means compromise so let's just read the rest and it means acting beyond the strict demands of the law so in hebrew its left name is short in that means going beyond the letter of the law and that's what compromise could be you could be right you could be in court and that's what the jewish courts actually are encouraging both litigants both um parties when they come even though they'll say you know we really believe that you know a is correct and b you're going to end up owing a money but can we reach a compromise somehow somewhere right and that everyone should walk out feeling like a winner right so maybe he'll only pay 75 percent or whatever or there's there's a negotiation going on okay so nobody's jaded right don't don't jade somebody it could be that even though a is right there may be an admission on some level mission of something and that would satisfy b and then b would then pay the full amount you know maybe you would say you're right i it should have been written in the contract better you know next time whatever and a compromise will be made so this is like very important this is what god wants this is what god wants and it takes a lot of skill and a lot of wisdom to get there understanding for sure yeah now that we have that like as a basis right for for what we're going to discuss so the roshiva writes in this book that i have here on my left shoulder right this is the book that we're using the 48 ways to wisdom he mentions in the book the previous way to wisdom loving your obligations involves doing what is right and just this way involves being this way involves being attuned to the spirit of the law not just the letter of law we have to go beyond the letter of the law doing what is proper and fair so you understand right and just and what's proper and fair given who you are and unite unique circumstances you're in and we're going to discuss people who are let's say wealthy and they go to court and um and really the poor person owes them money and the judge will hopefully prompt the wealthy person to forgo and forgive and do what is let's say proper and fair as opposed to what is right and just okay the next thing the roshiva mentions is in um in kadoshim that's in chapter 19 actually it's verse 1 it begins there and god tells us if you want to read it it's 19 1. one second and the lord spoke to moses saying speak to the entire congregation of the children of israel and say to them you shall be holy for i the lord your god am holy okay just remember in judaism we are to imitate god right the whole torah is written in a language that man can understand and we know that because god doesn't have an arm he doesn't have eyes that see he doesn't have all those would call anthro morph from arvisms yeah morphism the torah was written in a in the language of man so you can understand obviously the torah is the you know a very high mystical metaphysical book but it has to be relatable and if and if we're told we are told to cleave to god to imitate god and hear in this verse when it says you shall be holy for i am holy so yes you're supposed to imitate god what does holy mean actually in hebrew means separate okay it's true means supernote means supreme means all these you know highfaluting metaphysical metaphysical ideas there's no question about it but this is a um let's just say an extraordinary a command to be like god now when it says separate what does it mean separate it can mean separate on many levels right but what the ramban explains is just because something is permissible to you i'm sure you guys have heard this before i know you have i some of your listeners have just because something is permissible to you like this cake i have this big cake in front of me it's kosher right it's kosher but you know what it may not be good it may not be the best thing for me so i should limit myself in that which is permissible right being with my wife for example i shouldn't be like a chicken in the in the hen house right there yeah places in this modesty right um anything that is permissible to you does not mean it's like takes you all out right go for the gusto right right it means don't abuse it abuses abuse is abuse right there's um even the word modesty right we're supposed to write walk humbly i mean in sense modesty with our god um it means don't overdo things right don't go seeking attention all this stuff so here in a certain level this is a very important lesson so far we saw that god tells us in deuteronomy 6 18 right to do what is proper and good in the eyes of the lord and here he's telling you to be holy means to have some self-control and it's just because it's right doesn't mean that you do it so there's a gamora in bubmancy 83a i'd like to do but i want to see if there's a few things before that yeah i just want to mention this is a very before we get to that gamora as a continuation of what the ramban was saying that yes so let's say somebody is holy and doing everything let's say on the right side the correct side but you can be a repulsive and disgusting individual god forbid staying within the parameters of the torah right so that's why we need to feel um we need to get into what we call the spirit of the law right you hear there could be right i'm just saying theoretically there could be a jew who's very legalistic and gets into the very uh nitty gritties of all the details you can't you can't convict him for from for missing the mark but overall could be he's missing a great amount of what we call the spirit of the law and um therefore when you give charity as an example you should just because you're giving charity because it's a law right it's a decree it's something you have to do and you start counting your pennies whatever it is um one should give charity with a warm and caring smile that ultimately lifts the recipient's spirit and restores his humanity right so don't be what we call a novel satoru don't be so um bogged down by the details that you miss the whole picture again i think they say in a phrase you get lost in the trees you know through the forest so too god forbid one should um get lost in the details and and not raise their head up and see the whole picture so here's an incident in the government 83a in bubba mitsia it's very short but we're going to get into some other ideas here so the gomorrah relates an incident involving rabbah bar bar there were certain i guess movers porters that broke a barrel of wine it was his barrel of wine after he had hired them to transport these barrels now he took their cloaks i guess that means their jackets could be the shirt off their back but he took their their clothes as payment for the lost wine now this rabbi happens to have been very real wealthy and these people working a minimum wage job uh broke the barrel and it makes sense they broke the barrel they should pay so they went before the base in rough by rob was the rov of the bastion um you know the the head of the basement said to rabab you know what you should give them their clothing back but he said he said to the the head is this the halacha is this the the way is this the letter of the law and um he actually says yes now the truth is it isn't but remember what we discussed earlier it depends on on who you are and the circumstances involved what is fair okay so he gives an example of why it should be the law for you for this particular rabbah barbar because it says in proverbs 2 verse 20. if you want to read it it's actually 20 21 and 22 just to get a full view but uh proverbs 2 2 verse in order that you go in the way of the good and you'll keep the ways of the righteous for the upright shall dwell in the land and the perfect shall remain therein but the wicked shall be cut off from the land and the treacherous shall be uprooted they're from i brought in the other two verses just to show you the context similar to what we saw in deuteronomy 6 18 and 19 that there's this relationship to doing what's good or proper in the eyes and being able to have a a stable i'm not even sure it means a government but let's say stability within the land without being distracted with all your enemies so too here as well you see in proverbs if you do in order you go in the way of the good and you keep the ways of the righteous that you will have a foot upright the upright will be able to dwell in the land i just want to see the hebrew le mans taylor right in order that you should walk in the derek it doesn't mean that it's right and just it just means it's good the sadiq and the ways of the righteous tishman you should guard okay so that's very important to hear to hear the actual hebrew as well to understand the difference between what is the letter of the law and what's going beyond the letter of law okay and that's we're going to call derek yashar this is going to be a very interesting idea how do we know right it's true we have an obligation to learn even noah heights must learn what they need to do but we have what we call an internal compass it's it's been proven even scientifically so um there's a verse in cohellis at cohes's ecclesiastes 7 29. if you want to read that yes sir 7 29 says see only this one have i found for hashem made man straight but they sought many intrigues so again the word straight is yashar so god made man yashar think about this we're saying that man has an internal compass now there's a jewish tradition that a fetus from conception onward until the ninth the end of the ninth month when the the the baby then comes out into this world that he or she is being taught by an angel right so what is this all about the the the fetus is alive yet the soul is not yet fully entwined ingrained embedded right until the baby comes out and takes its first breath it it has it's alive meaning it has life but it's not a full fledged life yet so there's a gamora in needha 30b that i want to go through as well um so i'll start with that and then we'll we'll explain it a little bit further so in gamora need the 30b it says a candle is lit for it above its head meaning the fetus inside the mother's womb now obviously it's not a real candle or else the mother would be burnt so we're talking metaphysically and since as i mentioned this soul is not yet embedded in the physical world it's able to gaze from one end of the world to the other what does that mean like the soul that is not in bed like we're like we you and i we're walking around with the soul so we're not able to see clearly the truth but this soul before it enters the world can still uh see let's just say the emmis the truth what it means from one world to come and yeah and there's a verse in job now it's not really one verse i would take job 29 verses 2 3 and 4. we're going to deal with some of these verses separately but if you read all three of them together i think it would give us a good two three and four of job chapter 29 say would that i were as in my early months as in the days that god watched over me when he said so we're talking about in the early months god watched over me that is while you are in the womb go ahead uh when he lit his candles over my head by his light i would go through the darkness as i was in my early days when god's counsel was upon my tent okay so now just try to envision that this is what job is describing before he was born he had learned the entire torah now again job is not jewish there is going to be a discussion whether this applies to jews or not non-jews there's an opinion joke didn't even exist it's a metaphor but i want to say that um every person on their level learns what they need to know so like a woman doesn't have the obligation to sit and learn torah from beginning to end and all the theoretics like a man does so perhaps she doesn't learn the entire torah but she learns the entirety of what she needs to know and i'm assuming based on this mock locus an argument that though there would be those that agree with me that we're talking about even non-jews especially since job is not jewish also would understand that at least right the basics the the seven narcotic laws let's say the seven overreaching principles with all their subcategories everything that a non-jew needs to know in this world every human being has an internal compass i think they have well let's say it could be conscious what was that peter what's up peter pan pinocchio he had a little uh green friend or maybe what's jiminy jiminy cricket what was he called his conscious his what was that's what we have that we have that everyone has that right so when we talk about going beyond the letter of the law we have to activate this we have to know what the law is that's helpful and sometimes not always do what's a hundred percent right but even go beyond that and do what's what's proper and fair this is just to show you some of the proof text to why we have this tradition that um that the angel or let's say god himself through it well through a intermediary uh is is teaching the the soul everything he needs to know so here we have this is the gemara continuing and do not wonder how one can see from one end of the world to the other as a person can sleep here meaning in this location and see a dream right and this is uh you can see you can be remotely in spain in your dream and yet you're so this is like an idea to show you that your your mind is a wonderful thing it can really see things even when you're awake but certainly when you're in a dream okay there are no days when a person is more blissful state than those days when he is a fetus in his mother's womb because there's a previous verse and we he wanted us to read verse three now we're going to read verse two which you already read if i were if only i were as in the months of old as in the days when god watched over me and proof that this verse is referring to gestation as it follows which are the days that that have months but do not have years you must say these are the months of gestation and a fetus is taught the entire torah while it's in the mother's womb as it says now this is in proverbs 4 4. chapter 4 verse 4 reads and he instructed me and said to me may your heart draw near to my words keep my commandments and live so this is i'm king solomon he's talking about the time that he was in his mother's womb and hashem taught him and said to him let your heart hold fast my words and keep my commandments and then live it's all before let's say that moment of breath the first breath of before life itself so to speak um and then it continues the gomorrah and it also says and we read this already job 29 4 as i was in the days of my youth when the converse of god was upon my tent now once the fetus emerges into the air space of the world an angel comes and slaps it on the mouth causing it to forget the entire torah we're going to have to discuss why the mouth and it caused why would it cause you to forget everything in other words after nine months of teaching you wouldn't expect you to then have the torah so why would number one why would it uh slap you in the mouth and then whether slapping your mouth is what caused you to forget or just the idea of god himself would cause you to forget the entire torah now it's and this piece of gomorrah i did skip some of it but it ends with this one idea in genesis 4 7 when god is speaking to kion kane and he tells him if you want to read it genesis 4 7 4 7 says is it not so that if you improve it will be forgiven you if you do not improve however at the entrance sin is lying and to you it is its longing but you can rule over it i really want to just focus in on that and at the entrance sin is lying or sin crouches at the entrance so this is the idea when you take it in context that while you're in the womb there's no sin there's no desires there's nothing it's just the soul let's say learning the torah pure torah and now once you enter this world now you have the opportunity to sin what i want to say is try to explain why is it that the angel causes you to forget the torah it's um it's interesting in uh robheim lozado in the um the ram khal in the path of the just which is it's uh mesilas yasharim right the same idea here he brings out in the beginning he says i'm not here to teach you anything you don't already know i'm only here to remind you of what you were taught when you were in the womb right it's interesting so if we were if we had not forgotten the torah we probably wouldn't sin right we would be everything would be so clear and the only kind of sins would probably be um showgig what we call inadvertent unintentional yeah yeah but if everything was so crystal clear we probably wouldn't sin we're here and we discussed this before to earn right god wants to give us the greatest gift which is eternal pleasure which is earned if it was given to you on a silver platter as we say a silver spoon it really wouldn't be worth a whole lot even though it's gold and diamonds right but you wouldn't appreciate it but when you earn it you appreciate it so when you come out of the womb now your job now sin is crouching at the door meaning that the entrance is the entrance through the the womb through the uterus whatever and now you are in this world where you're faced with challenges okay i think i explained that well enough um he wants to mention here very interesting we're all programmed with natural wisdom and can look inside ourselves to learn what life is all about furthermore our soul has the ability to recognize the truth when we hear it remember the verse in ecclesiastes 7 29 it says god made man straight remember even the hebrew so basically we have intuitive we we can recognize the right thing to do intuitively however there's a problem and that is they have sought many machinations now if you i think it's back in i'm not mistaken um on seven yet go back to ecclesiastes which i'm not sure if you did read the whole thing but let's say again read the last few words of that but let's read the whole verse it says see only this one have i found for hashem made man straight but they sought many intrigues okay intrigues machinations many schemes okay so yes is what god made us straight he made us with the ability to walk in a straight line but we have so many temptations and perversions yeah just doors again that's what life is about to journey through them to traverse through them hopefully if you're honest with yourself you can admit your mistakes and learn and therefore not continue in that way to be aware of your surroundings god forbid when you hurt somebody or you notice that you're about to hurt somebody or right you don't want to step on anybody's toes right okay so now he mentions amid the confusion of life we cloud our inner knowledge with all sorts of rationalizations we adopt crooked values and distort the straight path to suit our ego driven preferences in order to straighten out our internal moral compass we must immerse ourselves in total learning scripture we need to purify our inner sense of what is proper so that it conforms to the torah's definition of reality as opposed to and this book was written many years ago society's false vision of right and wrong right it reminds me i really don't know what's going on in canada but in america they have they had they had this bail reform where you can commit a crime and not you can but people have committed crimes and they are either not arrested at all or let's say they are arrested i guess that means fingerprinted and then released free of charge not without any bail meaning to guarantee released on recognizance randy free right for any further uh discipline or even i don't know if it's worse let's just say it's similar that they have raised the bar so let's say in america and let's say in california if someone walks into a retail store and steals less than 950 dollars worth of i don't know whatever it is uh retail uh produce um the security guard will not even stop them right there's nothing to even there's no repercussions admit it so look these are just minor things there's some really big things going on in america um but you get the idea that there's all sorts of uh crooked values and distortion of what's right okay so permits the opportunity for petty crime right yeah it costs so much more to to combat it uh they figure and uh yeah we've saw it in canada with the legalization of marijuana you know they just the court systems got so inundated with petty charges that it cost the taxpayers you know billions of dollars to fight petty uh charges of uh carrying a marijuana joint or whatever so they ended up legalizing it and it's downward skid of society sure um so he ends with this one verse the more this one idea the more steeped and torah one is the more confidence the person can have that his intuition is attuned to the truth okay so now what about rising above our rationalizations so in order to reconnect to that inner sense of what is proper we need to eradicate these rationalizations pay attention to this voice inside of you right we say there's a still small voice inside of us and um that well that that could be the good voice or the bad one you have to be able to determine which voice it is but let's say here it's the negative voice that when it wants to deflect you from the straight path so so you have to ask yourself should i be spending more time learning torah the answer is probably yes right let's say you say yes but then you justify and rationalize again because i already spent a certain amount of time learning every day i'm very busy well what about should you be spending more time to help strengthen the jewish community and reach out to your fellows who are estranged from torah yeah you say the answer is yes but then you come up with another rationalization there's more people better equipped than i stop rationalizing embrace the piercing truth that your inner guide recognized before your excuses kicked in stand up to your false justifications challenge them and be ruthlessly honest drop the smoke screen and dispel the fog right in the 12-step programs they mentioned in the um i'm sure it's a preamble but somewhere in the beginning that many people have been helped through these programs it's almost um foolproof but there's one prerequisite and that is you have to be brutally honest with yourself if you're not you're doomed to failure that's that's as simple simple as that so in any um you know character development if if you have the inability to be honest with yourself then you need some real serious help but we all fool ourselves with rationalizations so we have to realize the damage that it causes us and keeps us from reaching the the true goal towards perfection so to help you avoid the trap of rationalizing rationalizing share your thinking with a friend who knows you well maybe it's a mentor maybe it's a rabbi maybe it's a parent i mean some people you know have some really good relationships with their parents that don't mind of course and you ask them do you think i'm rationalizing right it's a lot easier for someone else to see you where you're not being fully honest with yourself at the very least speak out your rationalizations to yourself as if you're dealing with someone else's situation not your own it's always easier for someone else to be well hopefully their their good friend and uh they're grounded but they could be more objective than you can ask yourself sometimes what is the right thing to do right even though you know it might be detailed on paper and it's clear objectively but what's the right thing okay now the i spoke about this before about the saying i can't is likened to idol worship okay he wants to discuss the difference do we say between saying i can't or i won't so one of the most prevalent rationalization is the phrase i can't how many times have you heard or said these words i'd love to help but i can't imagine if you were just honest with yourself and you looked at the person straight in the eye and said i'd really like to help but i won't i mean catch yourself and you realize that's really what the truth is you can but you won't and it makes you a really bad person you're trying to justify you're not a bad person you just really can't now there are obviously there are times where you really are not able to because of uh other let's say commitments or maybe you have a bad back whatever it is right so by substituting can't for won't you're transferring your responsibility for your decisions meaning you're not taking responsibility so i can't imply implies i'm powerless to do what's right you're not i won't means i do have the ability but i'm choosing not to do it and you're you're aware of this conscious decision you're just being you know and not such a nice person remember if you can't you really can't then you have a legitimate excuse not it's not a rationalization um in other words you're saying i really don't feel like it but that's at least being honest then tell yourself who says i have to do what i feel like doing i'll do what i really want to do right watch out for the excuses the butts but this but that that's stifling your natural impulse to do what's right um he suggests when you catch yourself saying i can't practice saying i won't instead don't worry about whether you really can or can't do it it's irrelevant just say i won't saying these words i won't we'll emphasize the act of the will in there yeah yeah it'll emphasize your control of decision and will expand your horizons new opportunities for success um now rotten walking the straight path that is what we're really recommended to do so rising above your rationalizations living with honesty and integrity striving to do the proper thing brings tremendous satisfaction and strength and build strength of character okay this is the this is the ultimate this is going to give you an exhilarating pleasure no natting nagging doubts no hidden adventures you're going to feel clean you're listening to your conscious which drives you to walk in this straight path now i want to mention it's a crazy crazy idea just to mention what mentioned why does he hit why does the angel hit the person on the mouth speech that's what separates us from the animals we spoke about this even god we spoke about the anthropomorphisms why in the world why the heck does the torah have to tell me god spoke and the world came into being right there's 10 times god spoke and something happened god doesn't have lips he doesn't have teeth he doesn't have a tongue he doesn't have a lyrics he has no body no bodily functions and yet the whole torah begins with the whole idea that god spoke and the world came into being again it's the language of man we need to know that this is something very godly right we're putting reality into the world so he's number one we should be very careful extremely careful with our speech um there was this piece based on that i hope i have it still here it is um this i took from i believe it's a educational institute in texas called tor the torch but it could be a different torch but anyway there's a website and i copied this over and i want to read parts of it a very small part of it but we were talking about this idea of that there's a internal compass or moral compass or this idea that god taught us the whole torah in the in the womb so this web page mentions by the way apparently the greeks had a similar mystical tradition perhaps learned from us by the way the kuzuri explains that all of whatever is true in greek um culture when it comes to scientific things they actually got from us we had all the information at the revelation sinai some of it got lost um they picked up on it we were able to recapture some of it that's why you'll find certain greek wisdom in the talmud but it's only because the the jewish sages at the time recaptured anyway so this is brought down that apparently the greeks had a similar mystical tradition perhaps learned from us or perhaps a common mystical tradition from adam the first man himself i don't know what he means by mino's slave is a character in the socratic dialogue meno page 82 385 so this must be one of the plays socrates i imagine uh no it was written by plato anyway and through and through an interesting mathematical experiment with the so-called ignorant slave socrates prove the soul already knows everything and all instruction is merely relearning so even in outside cultures they have a similar um called a myth a similar story however the maharao explains this loss of knowledge at the time of birth not as a cruel thing that god is doing but part of the necessary effect of physical biological life the essence of human consciousness is speech in order to be a conscious functional human being the overwhelming and complete knowledge of all and everything that the soul possesses the attachment to god must be mitigated getting hit on the mouth by an angel is metaphoric for the mouth meaning human speech and consciousness as the factor that leads to the soul's forgetting of complete knowledge this is necessary for human consciousness otherwise we would be overwhelmed and bask in god's glory and knowledge of all paralyzed by the greatness meaning never able to grow and achieve anything everything would be at the fingertips similar to the question of free will wouldn't wouldn't be there yeah now the morale goes on and explains a remarkable insight regarding moshe's speech impediment right the most humblest man of all the one who was able to give over clearly the torah that he heard from god and give it over to us we call moshe robin who moses our teacher with such clarity so remember he had a speech impediment as far as i understand every everybody who had anything wrong with them they were healed at mount sinai but anyway even if he wasn't healed i mean he was healed but even if he wasn't when when he spoke it was god speaking through him so it was god's voice but that's up until deuteronomy deuteronomy is at the end of his life it's his own words it's still god's approval okay we're not going to get into that right now but basically it was moses speaking okay so um it's very hard so get this idea the most humblest is that a word the most humble of all men right it says in the torah was moshe and the most the most with clarity and giving over the torah was moshe and yet he had a speech impediment so he says like this it was because his soul was on this is the mar alstom was on such a lofty level and he remained still attached to it meaning he wasn't really integrated with the body so much so that the regular day-to-day temporal function of speech and engagement with people were in a linear fashion which usually happens in a linear fashion eluded him interesting the raw bog makes a similar observation regarding moses speech impediment was not necessarily a deformity but rather that his soul and body never fully landed and never fully never became fully human like moshe was on a certain level like part angel and part human okay now i want to go into one other idea before we finish off and that is a absolutely crazy idea since we're talking about this idea of going beyond the letter of the law is that what is required of us okay you could say no but we've read so many verses that god wants that he wants that's so bad for us so there's a gamora and bubmancy on page 30 b and i'm only going to read you what part it's just a few lines basically there's a verse a shaykh assumed which they should do um i don't have the verse i mean i have the more in front of me but i want to just focus on what we're talking about here that this is referring to what people should do which means they should go beyond the letter of the law it's it did okay so rabbi yoganan asked actually robioknan said i should say this you need drumroll i know you you have some kind of problem now this is going to be very hard to swallow because we do know that jerusalem was destroyed ultimately because of the great sins right meaning the first temple was destroyed because of the three big cardinal sins and of course the second temple was destroyed because something even worse than the three cardinal sins which is um sinatra causes hatred so rabbi yokonan said that jerusalem was destroyed only because the jews kept the torah what i read again jerusalem was destroyed only because its inhabitants decided cases according to torah law ella's torah they kept the torah they kept the torah as the torah and didn't go beyond the letter of the law that's the point here so the more even asked what should they have instead decided cases according to the law of tyranny no rather this is what you should say that jerusalem was destroyed because they limited their decisions to the letter of the law of the torah and they did not perform actions that would have been beyond the letter of the law so you see that it's not just oh a sweet nice thing i get to i get the law god this is what god wants and this is in gamora mob media bubba mitsia deals at least this chapter with lost and then found objects when you need to return them when you need to go out of your way to put up signs how far does one go to return objects or when are they allowed to keep them and i remember my first time learning this i was getting into the details details oh they're so beautiful how beautiful it is to to know when someone else who lost something maybe they gave up hope and you're no longer obligated to return it or when you are it's just meant so much to me that this is a religion of trying to restore things that were lost to people it's just such a beautiful idea one of the six thirteen commandments is to return lost objects but there are times where you're allowed to keep it and you're not a thief and then i came across this in this right here there's other examples when even though you're not obligated to return the object nevertheless you should still do it and i thought wow this is this is even and then i came across this what the jewish people were exiled mean like jerusalem was destroyed because we kept the torah what does god want from us he wants us to go beyond the letter of the law um there's nothing more uh injust than a miscarriage of justice and uh when when law is used to criminalize it has completely gone in the wrong direction and we see this happen here in the west often uh where someone is criminalized and uh in fact they in fact you know they may not be a perfect person and they'll honestly admit that they're not a perfect person but when somebody tries to uh make them out to be you know some horrid monster the the the the the this is what uh uh you're talking about it we see it go on that people are in fact criminalized and and there are great law scholars that have written wonderful works against criminalization and when one uses the law incorrectly it becomes a hammer to pound down and demand and it can become tyrannical yes yeah yeah i just want to re refer to one particular comment as i mentioned is there any if we were responsible for those three cardinal sins at least in the first temple and something worse than the second temple how is it that going beyond the letter law is even worse than all those so here um comet says although the gamora there's another gamora in yuma 9b states that jerusalem was destroyed because its inhabitants acted with unwarranted hatred towards others it is possible that it was destroyed because they were guilty of both acting with unwarranted hate and not acting beyond the letter of the law now there's a lot to be said about that and that's where i want to now take you to the ben yoda that's the benice high and he explains maybe on a mystical level right when we are guilty of certain sins so we're going to be held accountable for those sins but if we act going beyond the letter of the law that means god has extra mercy because he acts always we call measure for measure he's always going to act measure for measure but if we act going beyond the letter law meaning we're acting above the measure he'll act above the measure and therefore even though we were guilty of those other sins by being guilty of this particular i'm going to call it a sin this this tragic mistake of not going beyond the letter of law then god was not acting beyond the letter of law with mercy for us so this is what it says in the beginning on this particular gemara and i'll try to sum it up because there is this whole question he doesn't really it's very difficult to understand that jerusalem is going to be destroyed because we didn't go beyond the letter of the law that's the whole reason but weren't with a more serious crimes why not list them right murder right adultery and um idolatry and that is mentioned in the fir for the first temple second time we said sinatra causes hatred is even worse we see it's worse because the first temple was only destroyed for 70 years and this temple has been destroyed for almost 2 000 years so we know that cena's kingdom let's just say on the scale is pretty is much worse so why what about those other sins i mean is it really true so there is a contradiction in two different verses one verse mentions that god does not um he's low yas upon him he you can't bribe god he doesn't look at people with fear yet in the beer gohani in the special blessing the priestly blessing it says god will show favor to you so which is it which is it is it that he doesn't show favor or that he does show favor so wait to hear this it comes out that when the jewish people are acting going beyond the letter of the law then measure for measure kicks in god will act with us beyond the letter of the law meaning with extra mercy wow beautiful words and um he won't punish us for the liabilities that we caused for those sins that we did therefore since if we don't serve him beyond the letter of the law yerushalayim will be destroyed for those sins that we did commit and that we be liable for it but if we act beyond the letter of the law then he will uh let's say show favor will because that's everything that we do he does everything he does we do in other words when we talk take take the 613 commandments god wears to fill him god buries the dead god visits the sick god god keeps shabbos god is a zionist right it's all these things so we have to imitate god right and so this is a very deep a deep concept and um so where's the wisdom the wisdom is in trying number one to be honest with ourselves and to be quiet and silent and try to get in touch with our let's say uh conscious and consciousness the inner that moral compass and try to do what's fair and just as opposed to what's right yeah you can't go wrong with being more kind can you no i guess not especially if you're married you know that real fast well rabbi i so appreciate you uh spending time with us and sharing the beauty of torah this this uh series of 48 ways to wisdom and just a profound there are things that we could probably spend hours just researching each and every topic so i encourage everybody to like the the message share it out there on social media more than that probe the topic yourself in your own personal study acquire the point that the rabbi is trying to get out and convey for each each and every message and uh if you acquire it in the sense of truly understand it grip it get it and implement it it begins to uh uh help and go a long way and i think today's message plays into that uh uh quite a long way go beyond the letter of the law especially uh when it comes to uh uh being uh favorable or just and i think that the rabbis teach that plainly that they in a lot of instances they got to judge favorably yes that's a good summary yep yeah well rabbi um we we hope that you're blessed as you continue to reach out and go beyond the letter of the law there in jerusalem with ybnay and all that you got going on there uh i encourage everybody to check him out at ebnay.com uh or his uh youtube page una dot com he's got wonderful messages uh all the time and along with rabbi yitzhak bridal it's beautiful beautiful teacher of torah always wonderful wonderful stuff and i know that you're actually impacting community there for for uh with loving uh kindness there rabbi and you're inspirational to us and we're thankful that you spend the time to share with us the the greatness of this series so rabbi is your schedule tentatively open for for the same time next week for part 35 or do we need yeah yeah but hashem will be here next week and i want to thank you all so you're doing a great job getting the word out with all your different speakers and all the readings you're doing and uh great books and yeah yes and i appreciate the uh the the uh suggestions uh when you give a suggestion it goes uh it's it's double honor and uh always try to share with uh a group of the wayward you know that that they get on a learning curve and i always try to get them to plug in with a rabbi and it's very very difficult for them to find rabbis that are open to share with bene nowak on on an individual level i mean to try to plug in it's difficult so we're hoping that communities begin to flourish one day uh that people learn how to act properly and that it becomes an attractant and almost a positive infectious uh way of living in community sustaining like some of the verses you shared with us today about about that you might dwell in the land and that it'd be good with you well with you uh i think there was some beautiful beautiful uh verses you pulled out of uh uh torah and tanakh for us today and we thank you for for all that you do and so folks we're going to sign up for now and tentatively uh we are on for um next week same time beyond the seven uh we'll be continuing with the 48 ways to wisdom with part 35 we hope you enjoyed it have a wonderful wonderful weekend [Music] is