(Way# 37) NEVER BE SATISFIED WITH YOUR LEARNING: 48 Ways with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

[Music] hey good day everybody welcome back to beyond the seven live from jerusalem with rabbi aaron david poston uh who's been sharing with us the beautiful series the 48 ways to wisdom and i encourage each and every person to check out each one and see how we can acquire one step or stage of wisdom and exactly understand more about what it is and how we can uh you know integrate it into our lives i think last week we talked about distancing ourselves from honor it was a beautiful beautiful session you can check that out in in the nohyde world center or on yebene but let's jump right in today and see how the rabbis doing rabbi poston you're live on the air so good to be with you and we so appreciate you staying up late in israel uh to share with us the beauty of torah shavuot thank you dan for having me welcome everybody who's watching now and of course later as well i'm glad to be here so uh should we just get started okay so yeah for 37 of the 48 ways for those who number 37 who don't understand what it is we're here discussing we're discussing jewish wisdom jewish wisdom in the sixth chapter the sixth mishna describes 48 character traits one should try to acquire in order to uh in order to acquire torah in order to acquire acquire wisdom and some of them i would say most of them i think every single one of them is just very simple i mean anybody living this living on this planet you know should want to um could actually see the benefit from it beauty and the benefit of of trying to um you know follow in these ways and this was the i wouldn't say hidden wisdom this is the revealed wisdom and this is what we're doing here we're spending some time discussing each one and uh it's it's actually just mind-boggling it's actually mind-boggling that something that is so simple um we just need a little bit of a push a little bit of uh you know the the red carpet laid out so that we could follow in the footsteps of um you know the great sages who and that's what we're going to talk about tonight this right now um the the inspiration to want to keep learning and the the number 37 is in hebrew is lo megis libo the talmudo which could be translated as never be satisfied with your learning to know that there is always more now even before we begin i want to mention that um when you think about i mean i met a lot of old people i mean i'm not that old myself but i do know you know you mean you meet old people those especially those older rabbis right the ones that spent their whole life learning very wise yeah we're not just talking about reading yeah we're not talking about reading an english bible we're talking about and we're going to talk about it tonight going in depth never being satisfied to go deep deep deep as deep as you can possibly go is is extremely helpful um in stats and keeping away what we call cognitive decline even though that's not the topic i just realized you know that there's so much benefit and we'll call it a health benefit i mean it may not be obviously uh you know exercise and diet uh is is going to benefit the physical health but what about the mental health what about me and i'm gonna use uh spiritual and intellectual health as well and i came across a website it's the nih it's the national public health in america anyway and it's um it's a study association of lifetime intellectual enrichment with cognitive decline in the older population and those who made it a lifetime you know achievement to try whether it's reading books stay sharp yeah i mean it could be crossword puzzles it could be anything right that has to do with keeping the intellect um you know sharp is going to get the light on and i'm going to spiritually you're keeping the light ons right keeping you intellectually uh sharp spiritually sharp there's another idea and i know that i've discussed the idea of a 12-step program before to some of the listeners there's an idea that spirituality is never stagnant there's no such thing and we actually learn that from the bible itself when yaakov is envisioning having a vision a dream about the latter and the angels are going up and there's angels going down and the clear car anyway discusses it i'm sure many others do and many others do as well that there is no such thing as stagnation when it comes to spirituality so you should basically what i'm trying to tell you is never be satisfied with where you're at you know on your own journey in terms of spirituality in terms of learning you can always learn more we discussed this idea when you so true he's happy with your lot right who's who is wealthy someone who is satisfied with what he has or she has so we discuss this idea when it comes to physicality you should actually look down it doesn't mean looking down at others it just means looking down at the people that don't have as much as you and you have or you should um garner up a certain amount of appreciation and gratitude wow this is what i have on the other hand when it comes to spirituality you're supposed to be looking up see people that have more than you and i'm not talking about jealousy in a negative sense but i'm talking about keynote so frame uh there's a concept that says when you have when the sages have a healthy jealousy towards each other that increases wisdom because you can see that oh wow he has gone through that massacre that tractate or or he has read that book or he spent a certain amount of time with a certain uh god daughter a certain sage and he's acquired so much more and therefore i'm jealous not in not not in a stagnation type of way but in a motivational type of way that you also want to acquire that as well hungry for yeah exactly hungry so we've also defined love several times meaning we've redefined it the same way several times and that is the appreciation and but it's a it's a it's an emotional response to the appreciation you have for let's say another human being you love another human being because you're looking at their virtues so too when you think about learning the virtue of learning itself you should be you should i'm i'm talking like i'm telling you what you should hollow by if only right you had this love for learning for something new and that's what we're going to discuss as well tonight um basically the way the roshiva of north weinberg do i have it in my backyard right here you know the book is based on this the series is based on the book um from the mission of perkiavot it's titled or he titles it um in his videos never be bored never be bored how can you be bored right be fascinated with life right try to imagine i mean it's very hard to but let's try to imagine um maybe we shouldn't imagine about ourselves but try to imagine somebody who was blinded for several years in other words they had they were healthy they could see everything and then i don't know it could have been three five ten years without sight and then by miracle whether it was a um a procedure a surgical procedure or something happened and they got their their site back what would you be doing if you were that person and now you could see again i think you would be looking at everything with such uh not just appreciation but to see the colors and the shifts of colors and shapes of things that you had i'm going to say were robbed or whatever you were missing for x amount of years so we come across pieces of wisdom how how fascinating we could be and should be when when we see this and one should be fascinated with life right life is a journey right and we should never be uh stagnant or or feel i don't know like there's no growth helpless do feel that you have to make a shift right you're driving a car and you're in a certain gear let's say a lower gear and uh you're trying to pick up more speed and you you you hit the gas all you see is the i don't know what it's called rpms the rotations it's going up and up and up but you're not going as fast as the the sounds makes it you know you hear the motor going so much faster but you're not actually picking up you need to shift into that next gear right you need so this is this is what life's about know that there's another gear to to go into um so let's take the word magees right maybe don't be maggie's your heart in your learning mages means like bulky and coarse like in when you buy salt so it's uh mella guth it's the you can get thin salt or table salt or you can get rock salt the kosher salt the rock salt that's in hebrew it's called uh gus so you're learning should not become gus what does that mean coarse or bulky or like as maybe even like it's a burden but rather we're rough but rather you want to thin it out you want to crush it down you want to get into it make it you want to be able to absorb the salt into your body so here you're talking about whatever wisdom i want to talk about the word wisdom itself it's in hebrew hebrews okay but the same letters would spell when we think about wisdom it's means abilities actually it means potential ma like what potential there is in acquiring wisdom if we only you know when you're hanging out with and it could be i don't want to say a secular example but i let's say you're a student you're a freshman in college and you see this just brilliant professor so how did that professor get so brilliant okay it could be they were born with a certain amount of brilliance but they put in the work they studied and hopefully this i mean i'm sure not all professors are like this but hopefully this professor is a an icon some kind of an example for you that he or she is constantly not trying to get more letters at the end of their name but trying to acquire more wisdom right we talked also about the idea of learning the idea of learning is really in order to teach and those who maybe they have the gift maybe they don't have the gift of giving it over you have to figure out how to give it over the best way possible the best way of learning which we all know is like wow what a great mitzvah to learn right we have to learn um but it's the the source as the rambam says is from the verse in the shema and you shall teach your children so the actual source for learning which we all know is important is to teach it over is to have the willingness is to have the clarity is to have the oomph right the incentive to whatever you found fascinating and that's like that's like what avraham avinu stood for and i'll talk about that in a second is to want to wanted to give it one to give it over um i spoke about this idea on my thursday night class recently before avraham comes to the land of israel or when he refers to the time he was still in the land of of ur khasdeen he refers to god as the god of heaven but only when it comes to eret's israel and he's living the life so to speak and he's able to um let's say profess i use the word proselytized but i don't know if that's the appropriate word here but let's say share the good news about the living god transmitted yeah he was transmitting him then he refers to god as the god of the heavens and the god of the earth and that that's what we want to bring to the world a a real understanding so we have to live it number one but it has to become real to us as well okay beautiful and let's now that was like a little bit of a introduction right so here we go have you ever heard information say listen i heard already of course how often do we catch ourselves saying that well i mean the truth is it's very nice that you heard it but maybe you'll hear it a little different you know even when i was an advanced yeshiva student i made it my priority to always spend a little bit of my time going to beginners classes why number one i wanted to hear what the teacher had to say and how he presented the information because yeah i heard it all before but i want to hear something new i want to hear it presented in a new way so that was one major impact why i went always to begin very humble too yeah okay yeah that's true and the other idea was i wanted to hear the questions posed by the students look if i want to go into teaching that's one thing it's true it's good to know what they're going to ask but my i myself i found myself through my journey that and that's what a harusa system is all about as well learning with somebody else is that sometimes you cannot totally formulate the question in other words you know that something about the information being presented to you is it's not registering 100 it's just out of reach yeah you think you're getting it and you're you're almost confident maybe it's a false self-confidence oh yeah i got it but all of a sudden somebody asked a question and you're saying to yourself why didn't i ask that question i was too confident that i understood it and that was a great question and you know what even though when i heard the question the first time i i even dismissed and said oh what a foolish question oh it's so simple and then you know it can resonate a little bit and then actually you can hear the answer and the the teacher is able to pick up on what's really bothering the student because many times we actually ask a question we're not even sure what we're even asking um sometimes the the teacher has much more clarity in what's bothering the student than the student themselves and that's what an answer also is you know people go to psychologists they whatever psychologists say a psychiatrist they they they present their life story and they think maybe they're they're presenting what they think is the problem well if they knew what the problem was they wouldn't be sitting there paying 100 or 200 that's right an hour anyway and it takes a lot of wisdom for and maybe object objectivity for that i call them professional right that mentor to be able to actually get to the the root of the problem because we're not always honest with ourselves i talk about this a lot in order to really grow in order to make let's say not just strides but to continue on the on the straight path and move forward it takes a lot of honesty on our part and that unfortunately is lacking for whatever reason and maybe it's just the eights of hurrah uh maybe it's external factors uh maybe society where we're now in but there's a lot of uh a lot of um what's the word i'm looking for and attractions that's it distractions to get to the and that's usually the yates of hara is doing a pretty good job okay so no so the first thing we have to know is the complacency is the enemy of growth i remember yitzhak berkowitz he was the roshiva actually he's never now the roshiva they shot but he was the one who who uh was running the smika program the ordination program and um basically the bottom line is to describe what judaism is to describe what we call yiddishkai we're students he always spoke about the point of life the point of learning the point of it's all about growing that's what yiddish kite is that is what our i'm going to use the word religion i don't like the word religion but that's what judaism is really leaving to hashem it's about growth and people get tired of life when their ideas become fixed that's true it doesn't matter what your age is your occupation or station in life we familiarity breathe contempt very good we have to be fascinated with learning being open and curious keeps you young at heart and it's essential for increasing your wisdom that sense of staleness settles in any time we become used to something and start overlooking its intrinsic beauty which brings me back to that original point we say love learning right so you're talking about the emotional response to seeing the positive attributes right so what happens when we don't have this it loses its sparkle and it's um it's glistening right it just becomes dull so you know i'll just give you an example i'm not saying that i'm in that state but if i find myself in that state i'm reading i was learning gemara rosh hashanah learning it with different cabruses sometimes on my own through elo of that was the month before rosh hashanah so i was reading gomorrah going through it studying russian and i decided the truth is i had a student who was into the flat earth theory whatever so i thought okay you know i'm going to try myself here i really wanted to know more about how they think okay and why not right one of the ideas in judaism says learn how to answer a heretic learn how to answer nappy chorus so it's not for everybody right because you could get stuck and become a heretic yourself but i said okay if this flat earth theory is correct so then we should be able to answer a lot of questions what about all the the phases of the moon what about everything i learned is the earth round or is it flat so i went ahead and i bought a bunch of different books that so many so many now books on jewish astronomy and i'm really going deep into it so the idea is in other words when you not feel not that you feel stuck but that when you want you need to you feel the need to go deeper and that's the motivating factor and i was like a whole new universe opened up and one of the first of them it was in a certain book that i bought that actually it discusses that there actually are ghazal this is the the sages that discuss the earth being flat and others that discuss it being around and this is going back thousands of years and it doesn't make it a difference because the way that it's actually described in in khazal is neither flat nor round it's a whole nother it's like not even what you expected so i'm not going to go into that now but it's absolutely fascinating um and uh i spend every i would say you know every free moment i have uh when i'm not learning these other things that i'm preparing for classes uh learning what hazal had to say about the the phases of the moon and the astronomy and as well as astrology okay first of all never assume that your viewpoint is the only valid perspective whether you understand all there is to know about a subject i mean the very fact that there is gaza to talk about the earth being flat and there are ghazal that speak about being around and then they put them together there's always that middle road and that is just again absolutely fascinating to say i don't want to hear it because i know it's false which it is false but there's some levels of truth and that's the most amazing thing about anything in life i i discussed this before if you take let's say uh anything let's take a cup so we have five people sitting around this cup and we're all we're trying to find the absolute truth what is the cup what is it what does it say what does it do so we all discuss our perspective but every one of us only has i'll say 180 degree or whatever a certain uh dimension or whatever yeah sitting around describing what they see and what i see we can come to a better um a better vision a better uh clearer picture of what it actually is as opposed to just me alone we talked about this before two birds what are you two two people right two is better than one two opinions are better than one opinion i hear he says here you may have heard a concept a thousand times but then someone presents it from a slightly different angle and you discover an amazing new insight you've never considered before okay so this is the idea here and that's why this kavruta system sit on your sitting and learning on your own i'm not going to say it's dangerous but it could be a big waste of time obviously there's a time and once you're more advanced in learning there's a lot more you can do on your own but it's years till you get to that point and people i guess you know this i'm not going to say it's that it's here could be what we talked about last week um looking for honor and thinking you have everything here you're saying no you don't be satisfied with your learning if you're sitting by yourself are you going to get past that point where you think you you know it as soon as you sit down with someone else you realize you weren't even translating that word properly right because he he'll bring you proofs from other texts in in in the torah where it means something else and that would uh what do you call it would um expand and your consciousness and that's what we want to do we want to expand our consciousness so here listen to ideas as if you're learning them for the very first time i know it's very difficult when you're hearing the same words over and over again but with enough humility as you discussed earlier you're able to hopefully get to that point we read the torah every week every year in others time but um but we we have a cycle where in public we read the same portion now i've heard people oh yeah it's so boring there's certain partial there's nothing boring about it if you are sitting hopefully find the right kabuto find the right teacher find the right shirim the class is online find someone who who takes it a step further than what you're you're used to hearing or even a page of the talmud that you yourself have reviewed dozens of times right with this attitude you will be surprised by the deeper levels you discover and thank god i'm learning with a guy who's pretty new at first time he's ever learned in gemara and i find myself going into things that i i know that i never expressed so it's it's very good it's very good to learn with people obviously who know more than you but also who know less than you and that helps you um as a teacher as well yeah to be able to speak it out things that you already know but you're able to um perhaps discuss it on a deeper level here's another very important idea and i'm sure that this is a very common phrase the more you learn the more you realize how much more there is to know now that's an english phrase but there is and the clear car brings it down and i don't remember his source he did bring it from the actual torah itself um i don't remember exactly where it was but he did bring this idea in aramaic he's he spoke it out in aramaic that the tachlet that the purpose of acquiring wisdom is to know that you do not know and it's uh it's almost mind-boggling in other words it's bringing you to a point of humility because the torah is wider than the sea it's longer than the earth it everything is in it and that's where we're going to go to right now there's a mission in perky a vote i believe it is in chapter five of perkier mishna 22 so i'll just tell you uh ben bagbag which we'll have to discuss his name who would have a name ben bagbag he said turn the torah over and over for everything is in it so i want to spend some time on this and i'm afraid if i go through it now we won't get to the rest of the information that i want to go through but i think it's um it is necessary i don't know okay so let me just mention another statement the rabbi writes the keep looking at the torah from different angles and you always find something new and fascinating and if you don't the problem is with your learning not the torah that there's a pasik in the torah in deuteronomy chapter 32 verse 47 it says about the torah for it is not an empty thing for you for it it's your life and through this matter you shall you prolong your days on the land we understand this important point that the torah is not empty if you find it to be unsatisfying then the failure stems from the word nihem because it's it's not it's not an empty thing for you means from you you are the one lacking not the torah the torah doesn't lack anything okay i think that i think we have to go into this mission in percyavo and as well as with the ramban nachmanadi's rights in his introduction to his commentary on the torah absolutely fascinating so let's start with the mission itself the mission of says like this ben bagbag would say delve and delve into it which in hebrew is means like turn it over turn it over left of the screen rabbi it could be i mean that's what you would do with a doe you would turn it over turn it over um it's almost like if you were sitting in that group of five people looking at something maybe turning it around you're all getting the same perspective um we'll have to talk about what that means but it says the coolable everything is in it and then it continues for it is your life and through this thing i'm sorry it's reading the wrong part sorry see with it see with it um grow old and worn in it do not budge from it for there is nothing better now that's the first part that the same mishna brings the then heihei so we had ben bagbag and now we have ben heihei and he's the one who says the fumsar agra which means according to the effort is the reward now the first thing we have to know is who are these two people they were converts they were converts already in their name just hearing their names sounds like very crazy we're not even saying who they are they have their own names they're just the son of somebody one is the son of bhagbag and the other one is son of heihei so believe it or not the the name ben beth gimmel is a bed is a two and a gimbal is a three which equals five he's the son of five five and the next tana is ben hey hey the son of five the son of five so think about like this we call them we know that they're converts and there's this idea first of all the mission is written in aramaic these words are aramaic um right the fumes are agra why is it in aramaic so aramaic there's two reasons one is that's the language of the people this mission is telling talking to everybody not to the great sages they already know but everybody should know this the the language of the people was aramaic and this is the the lesson for all mankind okay so whatever lesson is who's bhagbag so abraham avinu avraham is five letters and what letter was added to his name the hey also sarah and any convert we say is the son of abraham and sarah so it's amazing just within their names itself bhagabog which is hey hey and the next time is hey that hey five letters in abraham's name and also it's the hay that was added to both his name and sarah and we know that converts are called the son of abraham and son another reason why it was in aramaic is because they themselves were converts and that's the language that they spoke okay so it's the language of the people it was also a language for the person themselves so that's very issue because usually mishna is not aramaic there's a few other examples where mission some aramaic crept into the mishnah but by nature itself the mission itself is hebrew and the talmud which discusses the understanding of the mishnah is usually an aramaic okay and let's go back to the beginning here okay i think i discussed that so actually it's mama's fascinating um where do we start okay that the idea the yavitz and the miri they both write that it's incumbent upon man to do this to like turn the torah over as you said needing it constantly because through this everything that is difficult to you in the learning itself that you'll begin to answer it in a very deep way so don't ever take anything at face value everything has depth now there's an example um that he brings in this uh commentary uh ahav aka was an evil king and he was the king of israel and um you might ask what did he what did he do to merit to be successful in war i mean if he was such an evil king how come he won different wars so um he mentions first of all there's an idea that he he was very much into unity and not speaking lush and hurrah even though he was a russia and he worshipped idols and he was a murderer there were other factors in his life that you could see that he himself um merited somehow to win the wars for israel but there's one particular example in first kings and it's in chapter 22 verse 35 where he's his mom is dying i mean he actually dies a few hours later but with all his strength he sits up in his chariot so as to not cause his own men to flee when you read the verse you don't see exactly what's happening here but through the learning through what we're being taught is what chapter was that again in first kings rabbi in first kings chapter 22 verse 35. let me read that uh 35 reads the battle became more intense that day and the king was standing in the chariot against the arameans he died that evening and the blood of his wounds ran out into the inside of the chariot now one of the lessons you don't see it in the words but one of the lessons is that when there is fear on the behalf of the of your own army when they see your own general or king right the guy leading the battle they you know the enemy cuts his head off and puts it on a stick you you you run away with fright right i mean you basically give up you wave the white flag but what did he do he with all the last bits of energy i mean you know you would think okay take them off the front line and send them to the to the nurse's station right to the to the tent no he cared so much for the unity of the people and that they should win this war i mean he basically used his last bits of energy to sit up so the point is that and he bled out yeah this is one of the beginning of the downfall is fleeing he could have caused his own people to flee from the front lines when they see the king die or you know giving up the fight but he stayed there so you don't see it in the words but every every verse every letter is just full packed full of so much meaning and this you made like okay okay so what this is a very important lesson you know we don't have too many words today i mean maybe we do maybe i'm not so you know enlightened but i know that the world war one world war ii i know we have these little squirmishes here and there but maybe because i wasn't really in the uh an act of war so i i don't know but this was part of everyday life you know you have the movie braveheart uh you know the guy standing on the front line of course we have our own uh um um the mess the uh the cohen who serves called the messianic cohen who stands there and he really gives uh um you know his strength and lets everyone know we're fighting for god and we're going to win this war they're supposed to give a tremendous amount of and i use the word but strength and fortitude um and reason to win the battle to the soldiers before they go out there well even coaches in certain sports function that way rally the troops yeah yeah it's a necessity it's a necessity uh but based on this uh this verse which you don't really see in in the verse itself right you have to learn it out and this is the idea of going back over and over and going deeper and deeper another idea is really the same concept but we know that there are 70 faces to the torah interesting why 70 70 really is a it's a um it's a code word for infinite so there really are in infinite um levels of the torah okay um i want to go back into just so much here there is this um introduction by the ramban now how did i come to this because behind me over here this is the maharal's explanation of perki avot and i went to that on this mishna and he quotes this ramban and i think that it's absolutely fascinating and i'm afraid that if i start getting into it i'm not going to go and cover what we need to so let me cover what we need to and then we'll come back to the ramban the russian again talks about appreciating life human nature is to take things for granted try to reconnect yourself to that feeling you had when you really attained something new whether it was something physical and a relationship or a knowledge right so what was that like your first few days on the job you had this fascinating job or your first year of marriage or a new piece of clothing try to recapture that fresh enthusiasm right before you walk through the door tap into the feeling of being newly married to your spouse right you're gonna hi honey i'm home like you were when you you came home after your uh what do you call it the honeymoon then enter your house and greet your spouse with that same warmth and excitement same thing about waking up in the morning with gratitude for the gift of life as everyone knows a jew says which could be translated as i'm a jew but it doesn't mean i'm grateful as we all know the word yehudah is based on the word modera as you leia proclaimed how she was grateful she got more than she deserved by having a fourth child that's what a jew is and of course we're sharing jewish wisdom of course everybody can wake up and say uh how grateful they are that they that god put their soul back into their body that god gave time for us listen not everyone wakes up in the morning right they gave you your life back um basically open your eyes to the awe-inspiring beauties of daily life another way to refresh your view of life is to appreciate the people that people actually care about you really reval your approach to your parents how often do we think ah i heard this my parents all the time the only thing about themselves no they actually do love us and they actually are trying to to teach us something and obviously when you're young we take that for granted and as we get older then we realize well you know they really were trying hopefully right uh he talks about the stagnation syndrome one way we shut ourselves out ourselves down by telling ourselves i can't i discussed this before roshiva says if you say i can't it's akin to idol worship so imagine yourself saying i can't i can't trump my temper i can't speak in public i can't love i can't love my mother-in-law i can't change the world i can't even change myself every time we say i can't we're holding ourselves back from growing right we're created in the image of god don't say i can't right yeah be a can-do person um he suggests pick an item on your list commit to turning the word i can't into i will you'll taste a new dimension of living when you open the door to new possibilities and work to work on actively making things happen um the roshiv himself he he said this quite proudly i mean i i i don't know how he you know when he saw asha torah develop so i can understand why he can say it but he started five yeshivas before asha torah and they all failed and he said if had i not tried and failed i wouldn't have had ashatara so i do get it right but how do we feel when we fail so i was in real estate for a while so every time i spent time showing a client and they said no i said okay i'm getting closer to the yes right i understood that and that's how it works in in sales but the the truth is you have to learn from the lessons and if you don't learn from the lessons i don't know how close you are going to get to that success unless you're just counting it off as a randomness and coincidental but the truth is if you can learn from your lessons then yes then failure hopefully will bring you to the next step another idea he mentions is exploring new topics which are pretty much kind of discussed but one important idea is says one sure one sure fire way to become re-energized with a topic is to teach it to others the act of preparing it will bring out new insights teaching someone else will reconnect you to the passion and excitement you have for the topic and the questions other well said yes we'll infuse the topic with renewed depth and vitality um i'll just sum it up he says like basically you have to know what you're living for right if you don't know that you're not living right many people say you can't know the purpose of life this is a dangerous thought because when you think you can't know something you give up on the chase never say i can't know the truth we often resist asking existential life questions because of the great effort involved in researching and developing the answer know what you're living for it is absolutely crucial the question should be on the forefront of every person's mind and i think that's really the difference between us and the animals i hope animals come across this exit the existential question what am i living for but this is what separates us from the animals right knowing ask yourself today what am i living for and he has a few other suggestions and i want to get into this idea that everything is in the torah everything is there and if you really truly know that then you you'll you'll i don't think you'll ever be bored i don't think you'll ever not be motivated to go to the next level right so i'm going to read some of this to you this is from the the introduction of nah monitors on the book of genesis he says that is you should know that it's true and clear that the entire torah from the very beginning of genesis until the very last few words which is in the site of israel you could find that in deuteronomy 34 verse 12 reach the ear of moses from the mouth of god himself and just as it says elsewhere in jeremiah for example jeremiah 36 18 it says and this is by baruch his scribe saying what he heard jeremiah say he pronounced all these words unto me with his mouth and i wrote them with ink in the book this is what moses did moses wrote down what god told him so this is the important part god informed moses first first of the manner of the creation of heaven and earth and all their hosts that is the creation of all things high and low in the elvio nim and the likewise he informed them everything that has been said by prophecy so in other words every prophet that ever existed later they got their energy they got their level of prophecy streaming through moses himself moses had everything right we know that the prophets can never say anything that what that wasn't already foretold in the torah that is a very important point i think christians don't get that but okay uh he's informed of everything it has been said by prophecy concerning the esoterics of the divine chariot such as in the vision of ezekiel the processes of creation which we all know this has to do with we keep shabbat right when i say we keep we observe shabbat we celebrate shabbat because this is an act of cessation of creation just like god rested on the seventh day and stopped from creation so we too it's a microcosm of right whatever went into building the temple we cease the temple the tabernacle is a microcosm of the universe everything that we need to know is in the torah okay and this was all transmitted by the sages by the sages and moses was informed about these together with an account of the four forces in the lower worlds i'm not going to go into what they are right now with regard to all these matters their creation their essence their powers and functions moses our teacher was appraised he understood them all and all that was written in the torah explicitly or by implication he's going to go into the idea what do you mean ex to ramazing through gamatrias through we're going to discuss it how the letters were and those crowns on the letters and how they're separated our sages have already said this is in gumara roshana 50 gates of understanding were created in the world and were all transmitted to moses with the with one exception but there's a verse a very important verse in psalms chapter eight verse six that god made him meaning mankind a little lower than the angels okay there's a lot i mean when you realize this is the transmission the torah itself and how really how much potential how much potential we actually have i'm going to continue i'm going to skip a bit everything was transmitted to moses our teacher through the 49 gates of understanding and it was written in the torah explicitly or by implication in the words in the numerical value of the letters or in the form of the letters that is whether it was written normally or with some slight change in the form such as a bent or crooked letter or other deviations or on the tips of the letters with their crownlets as the sages has said okay i'm not going to go into the whole story but moses went up to heaven and he found hashem was busy uh attaching crowns to to certain letters um he asked why what's taking so long and the story is that god said there's going to be a man rabbi akiva who's actually responsible for the oral torah being written down and whatnot and and part of his transmission uh later on is that he's going to be able to derive so many laws from the hints but everything here is to be understood means it goes from mouth to mouth in other words what happened in that story when moses goes up himself is befuddled he he's wondering not only why god is waiting and taking his time putting on these crowns but what's the purpose what's it for and god says that rabbi kiva is going to to to derive certain things but before that point moses is you can see god saw that he was a little bit um perplexed and um he said i don't understand i mean i didn't even learn this so god so what happens um actually he's sitting like it's like i think of that movie it's some it's a some movie about christmas i remember um scrooge scrooge right there's like this ghost of uh christmas past or present whatever it was and uh carol christmas carol this is what the story reminds me of a little bit so he's sitting in this class and he's he's like actually sitting in a class and watching rabbi akiva teach and he himself is saying i don't understand any of this how could this be the torah the same torah that i received that i gave over to the jewish people and there's someone in the class that asked the very question right remember i even mentioned sometimes we don't even know how to ask the question but all of a sudden somebody in the classroom he's like he's like sitting and watching from afar this class and he doesn't know he doesn't even understand what's rabbi keep is saying and so the the person asked well how did you know this rabbi kiva and rabbi akiva says it's halacha moshe messinai it was transmitted from moses from god to moses all the way down to present day and moses says oh i get it now remember i shouldn't say remember but we have the 13 harmonical principles everything that we need to use the tools that we have to derive the halachos were transmitted by moses like in other words how do you know that a an elevator or a escalator can you use it on shabbos or not well they didn't have 3 300 years ago the mechanics they didn't have light switches yeah but the principles were taught over by moses and that's what moses heard it was the principles and rabbi he was able to bring it out for that generation um beautiful beautiful stuff we know king solomon was the wisest man of all where did he get his knowledge yes it was a gift but he got it from the torah itself so king solomon peace be upon him whom god has given wisdom and knowledge derived it all from the torah and from it he studied it until he knew the secret of all things created you know he talked to the animals he talked to the trees he knew the language even of the forces and characteristics of plants so that he wrote about them and even a book of medicine and we know this um in first kings 5 13. we're not going to go into it now but uh it says he spoke of trees from the cedar that is in lebanon even into the hyssop that spring it out of the wall um there's some good stuff here i don't think it's worth skipping so i'll read it this is the ramban is saying this he himself has seen an aramaic translation of the book called the great wisdom of solomon now this is a book that's apocrypha meaning it was never canonized it wasn't part of the bible but a book called the great wisdom of solomon in aramaic and he's testifying in it was written there is nothing new in the birth of the king or ruler there is one entrance for all people into the world meaning as uh who said it recently i think david chappelle dave chappelle said that everybody comes through uh the two legs of a woman right we come from between the two legs of a woman there's only one entrance for all the people in the world and one exit alike therefore i have prayed and the spirit of wisdom was given to me and i have called out and the spirit of knowledge came to me i chose it above scepter and throne of course when god asked him what do you want riches or wisdom and he chose wisdom and god gave them both and but he chose wisdom over everything else and it is further said there it is god alone who gives knowledge that contains no falsehood meaning enabling one to know how the world arose the composition of the constellations the beginning the end of the middle of the times the angels i'm sorry the angles and the ends of the constellations and how the seasons are produced by the movement of heavens and the fixed positions of the stars this is what i'm getting into right i told you earlier and the benign nature of cattle and the fierceness of beasts the power of the wind the thoughts of man don't you want to know these things right everyone is so into science well guess what it's all there ready the relationships of trees and the forces of roots everything hidden and everything revealed i know and this is what king solomon said in this book all this solomon knew from the torah and he found everything in it in its simple meanings and in the subtleties of its expressions and its letters and its strokes as i mentioned i think there was something i actually skipped and i want to go back to it but you know what let me finish this and then we'll get back to what i skipped uh let's switch scripture likewise relates concerning him meaning solomon and solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east that is to say he was better versed than they in divination and enchanting for this was their wisdom yet meaning they were very wise but yet he excelled because he knew the and secrets the very end of this little paragraph he says and i think we discussed this also we have yet another mystical tradition that the whole torah is comprised of the names of the holy one in other words from the first bet of breishit until the last lamin we consider it one big name of god and um basically the letters of the words separate themselves into divine names when divided in different manners as you may imagine by way of and he gives an example which i'm not going to give right now but there's another example that i have talked about and that's the 72-letter name of god there are only three verses that have exactly 72 letters that are retrieved that are um back to back and that you can find in exodus chapter verse 19 20 and 21 and those are the great verses of fascinating um the jewish people israel israel is going through the the splitting of the sea and they're singing the song unbelievable um miracles happening and revelation is happening it says that we we the even the lowest of the jews could have been a uh a huer of wood or a draw of water reached higher levels than ezekiel even when ezekiel was able to see the the chariot that was such a high level prophecy that all of israel even the lowest of us the handmaids even reached a higher level of prophecy okay so that was the 72 letter name of god is it's really 72 three-letter names of god from these from these three verses so he sums it up by saying it's for this reason that a scroll of the torah we all know that if the mistake is in if there's one extra letter or one letter missing the whole thing is disqualified we're talking about being the name of god himself you want to know god who wouldn't want to know god you have an opportunity to sit with god and know about everything and that's through the torah and hopefully through a qualified teacher so let me let me go back to there was a point that i wanted to say um i just want to go back to the actual mission itself because it says and right ben bogbog said like we just get the translation here right delve and delve into it but for everything is in it but the word it says and through it you'll be able to see the word seeing like a seer like through prophecy that hashem will grant you again this is only if you do it right with a proper jewish teacher orthodox of course um you'll be able to see it that you could be filled and will be filled will be called the holy spirit it's a level of prophecy you'll be able to see it deceive grow old you'll be able you should grow old with it as i mentioned earlier in the very beginning about the cognitive deficiency that happens with people who just don't use their their intellectual um you know uh abilities through their life use it while you drive while you're young and you continue and use it to grow up grow old with uh and and become worn out in it in other words this whole idea it's a very interesting verse in numbers chapter 19 verse 14. it says zos torres this is the torah of man meaning god gave the turret to man when and what the the torah is talking about when somebody dies in a tent a cohen becomes impure or a regular jew also would become impure and would have to have the the what do you call the the the ashes of the red heifer but the important way to learn this torah is that a man should die in the tent for the sake of torah so in other words it just seems to be saying when a man dies in the tent then he the the person who's alive the tent was the study hall the place of exactly exactly so it's very interesting i just want to mention that um facebook has now a new name so for those who aren't aware it's a big deal anyway the name is metta so anybody who knows hebrew knows what meta means this verse death the new name of facebook is death just keep that in mind anyway um it's it's a bad joke for facebook anybody who knows hebrew that's basically the end of facebook if you ask me um so then it says also right um do not move from it okay in other words constantly be what's the word um uh yogia try to work work hard in it and he and he ends by saying there's nothing greater than this this is going to be the best thing you can ever do now it says in um joshua chapter one verse eight loya mush say for torah do not remove the safer torah from your mouth it's interesting from your mouth the and you should study in it day and night very interesting because we asked the question and the gemara asked a question when can we learn um you know greek uh culture when can we learn greek philosophy when can we learn non-jewish ideas don't we have time for that so the problem is you don't because if god wants you to have this torah in your mouth all the time yonvalilah so the answer is once there is no day or night then you then you're really permissive it's permissible to go out and and learn other things the torah is so full it's so rich that god is really telling you you spend all your time try to spend all your time even when you're not learning let's say torah but think of torah what does this do for my service to god how is this going to make my life have better quality how am i going to bring a higher level quality to those around me how can i make tikkun olam right everything i'm doing is the shame shamanized for the sake of god right or for the sake of the jewish people the sake of the land of israel for the sake of the world right that's what we're here to do to make a tikkun so everything is in the torah okay so then that's that's we'll start well there is um yeah i think this is all about digging roots in deeper and and and staying vital keeping the vitality alive yeah there's probably a lot more but we'll stop here um this is like i wanted to stress this is like an introduction to the 48 ways really because there are recordings of the roshiva there is this book that's behind me there's also the website that has a little bit of a different take on asiator.com on the 48 ways there's so much more that you could use to go deeper than just what i'm using here for uh one hour for about an hour for each one of the 48 ways so let's use this uh as an introduction hopefully a motivation for each person to go and decide oh rabbi i think you brought it out beautiful it's almost like a cook in the kitchen where the aroma is just so beautiful that we want to never be satisfied with the with where we're at and to our learning where we're waiting to you know dive in and and uh pursue more and i know that the banana i've come across uh every week it just seems there's always somebody looking for some something deeper something uh you know in in the questions the questions that come forward are just so useful so folks don't be afraid to ask questions uh you can always reach out to myself you can always find uh rabbi poston uh on his website yibbene.com or on his uh uh youtube channel uh for yebene uh beautiful beautiful stuff um good comments uh in uh the youtube chat room today we did have somebody ask a question somebody from uh poland uh asked a question as you were speaking talking about a um [Music] a song that had something to do with the palaces if if you knew the name of the song i don't know she said after abdullah there's a song after shabbos and that just provoked a memory of a beautiful moment rabbi how beautiful is the torah you know and um yeah i think i think uh you're really uh uh if you you know what i've learned um is that when because i live in a more drier region than where i used to be that when when when it's near drought times the roots tend to go deeper and you you can see in my area we had a bit of a a long delay of rain months without without rain and the point is if you looked in a field you could see where the size of the tree had actually drained the area around it and you could see the ground was drier and that's the roots are digging in they're trying to pull moisture wider wider wider from wherever it can get it from and we know that the torah is infinite as you as you mentioned today the infinite depth of the wisdom that is there that we should never be satisfied with it that if we probe deeper we will get to draw more out uh it's never dry it's always alive and i like how you mentioned about bringing finding different angles somebody who you can learn from somebody you can learn you can teach and you'll just learn from their questions as well it's let it be expansive and fruitful folks let your life be fruitful uh as you uh stay rooted in torah and i think that's what you got across with us today rabbi i just want to mention after you mention what you said i want to you know when i learned different masecto different track tapes to deal with different aspects of jewish life i found myself in this in the beginning and i know this is true till today that wow everything is in the talmud everything is in the torah you're talking about not just personal responsibility with damages and how other people think and when you're going to be obligated to pay or not to pay or how much you're going to pay and who's going to pay how when animals do damages or how you have to guard your animals and what even how animals think and behave and when you're when you're talking about the tree and the water like there's so many agricultural tractates and discussing how the the roots interact with each other i mean you're talking about every aspect of science every act nature yeah knowledge of nature and it's it's all there everything that god wants us to know sorry everything that god wants us to know is there you're not going to find it when you're reading in english scripture you're only going to find it when you're sitting with a a torah scholar going through what he was transmitted to him from down sinai about any particular subject and you go deep and deep and if you can't find it for him he'll probably tell you where you can find it um but everything everything is there and a strong interconnect interconnect everything is beautiful delicious beautiful stuff well thank you rabbi is that is that it for today that's it for today now uh hashem willing are we on for 38 next week yeah yeah just uh okay so tentative but but we'll be dealing with uh the daylight savings time we may end up being an hour early i've got a chat with rabbi kaufman and see if he wants to start an hour early uh here in the west we don't go to daylight savings till next sunday so next saturday we'll we'll be in a parody of an hour with uh israel and so we got to adjust so keep an eye out for the posters for next week folks i'll be advertising uh what time we'll be going uh we don't want to miss any one of you i appreciate each and every one of you that come and join us here on the noahide world center uh social media pages and even those on the international no hi network that eventually we're going to see this uh thank you for everyone here for listening to this wonderful message but most of all let's thank hashem for for for the beauty and the wisdom uh that he's woven into all of creation that is revealed uh to us out of torah and uh thank you uh baruch hashem uh as you often say rabbi um so let's we're gonna uh sign up for now folks we wish you all a wonderful wonderful week and uh until next week bye for now [Music] is