(Way#8) JOY: 48 Ways with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

[Music] hey good day folks welcome back to beyond the seven live from jerusalem with rabbi uh aaron david poston this class has been such a source of uh inspiration for me uh rabbi is teaching uh uh the 48 ways we're into part a today it's an exciting class i i encourage everybody go back listen to each and every one in this series it is something that is going to continually mount to more and more and more uh detail to pursue wisdom and i'm so glad to be able to be with a rabbi aaron david poston in jerusalem to hear it from him rabbi uh uh learned directly from the rabbi he's gonna share uh with us rabbi you're live on the air it's your class sir i'm gonna sit back if you need me to read anything just uh say read it and i'm there sure okay shavutov to everybody or if they're still in shabbat you'll watch us afterwards whatever we're so happy to have you all with us you may be asking yourselves what is this rabbi doing wearing white i always see him with a black jacket i just want to tell you i specifically kept on my shabbos clothes because of the topic for tonight which is simcha which is joy so as a custom i only developed i always wished and prayed that one day i would have the guts to do it is to wear white on shabbat and i started about a year ago wearing wearing white all white like i have these uh brand new white sneakers that i still wear just on shabbat but it's only shabbos afternoon shabbos afternoon is the highest it's the pinnacle of the entire week of the entire shabbat and i'm just going to turn off my volume here on the in case someone okay that's good um so basically um everyone thinks about themselves you know what other people think of them and they look sharp sir great rabbis in the old city when i was living there and um going to yeshiva there rabbi goetz the rov of the old city the kabbalist so he had a big white strim shrine one of those what they call a big fairy hat you know all white and all his entourage all his students they were all wearing white on shabbat afternoon it could be they were on all of shabbat but like people come out of the woodworks uh wearing white on shabbat especially in the afternoon and uh so on one of my trips to america i ended up buying the white sneakers which i never had a little bit more expensive to buy here but anyway so i said okay i'm gonna do it and uh it took a lot of guts and people started asking me you know well you know you i see you wearing black so i i friday night i do i wear a beautiful long jacket i wear a black hat i wear a black you know everything's black and then shabbos morning it's half white half black and then by shop this afternoon it's all late and um by abdullah it's so interesting what we do it's i want to explain let me just give you an outline for tonight and then we'll go into the details right joy the roshiva says is power okay now we spoke about humility last week if you think right the opposite of of humility is is is arrogance i'm gonna just take this off okay so the opposite of humility is is is arrogance and when you're arrogant you cannot learn there's no um there's no ability to be a vessel to recede right you're full full of yourself but if you have humility as we discussed you'll be able to be objective you'll realize how little you know one of the most fantastic pieces i'm going to hopefully share with you tonight as well one of the ideas that clear car brings down into jewish um it's a famous jew is saying the more you know the more you know that you don't know right this is like hello as long as you're arrogant there's no room as i said to grow to learn because you know it all or you think you know it all and that's a tragic mistake so the as a i guess a prerequisite to getting to this joy is number one having that humility then you can like i said you could objectively know that you don't know everything and there's going to be two aspects of this joy one is just the search for truth because you desire the truth that when you get it you will be overjoyed wow i finally found it that's called the reward of the search and the torah itself is the brother or sister the sibling of joy which we'll talk about tonight uh soon but so what did i just say so it's the result it's the reward but no it's also there's the other aspect it's the joy that will bring you to wisdom because this is the 48 ways to wisdom right and one of the four this is the eighth way joy will bring you there but again it's only as a result of what of having humility beforehand that you know that you don't know and that is already a great state to be in because if you are depressed we'll talk about that too okay let's talk about let's i have so much to talk about and it's very in my mind unorganized even though i have it all written on paper i don't feel it's gonna flow so we'll do the best we can so number one the roshiva says how joy is power and it gives you so much energy and he gave a few examples like of how joy brings you energy so we all i don't know if we all know this we i don't know if we've all experienced it but i know i have right when i was young and my grandfather said we're going on a fishing trip right so my father prepared me we the night before we put our fishing rods in order we got the tackle or whatever it was we needed to get together and um laying out the clothes because there's special clothes right fishing clothes and um i think if we if we if i were i was told we're gonna get up at 4 30 in the morning and we're leaving the house at five i think i was up at three or maybe i didn't even sleep the night before but whatever it is i didn't have trouble getting getting out of bed right when you know that you're going on a vacation or you're going to do something at least for an eight-year-old a ten-year-old might have been the best thing in the world to go fishing with his grandfather you know it's something to it brings such a feeling of energy it's so energizing having this thought of looking towards something better right so that's like one idea in other words so what we need to do what we should do is is harness this take it and and use it so once we know what it is so one of the ideas he brings down is it's the opposite of worry right why because what is this idea about joy all the goodness that comes from simra let me just go back one second like if you're looking forward to a wedding you're looking forward to the fishing you're looking the fishing trip you're looking forward to something so there's such an outlook of expectations for good i mean that's really what it comes down to whereas weary unfortunately is the expectation of bad is i mean isn't that what where he is so you see that that it's it's the opposite so i'll just read again his words that he brings down from um it's simple all the goodness that comes from simply is the opposite of worry where is the negative feeling that comes from anticipating future harm or loss so therefore joy is the opposite it's the pleasure one has from anticipating future gain or benefit now that would obviously open you up if you're sitting down with a book right you're sitting down with a book it doesn't matter what book right something that has wisdom in it and you can't wait to glean you're already anticipating you know that there's something valuable so then you i think your your eyes would perk up your heart would open up you might read it two or three times because if it didn't perk you up where it didn't hit your heart so then you would read it with more anticipation and more i don't know it's fervor more energy more and perhaps you'd even ask hashem for clarity because i'm talking about if you didn't get it the first or second time right so this is this is the anticipation so wouldn't we start every single day number one having the gratitude that we were just given another chance at life and we how grateful i am before hashem for giving me another chance the way the rosh shiva talks with such you know he's experienced like i met him in his old age right i met him i have no idea how old he was he was probably at least 60 years old so he was full of wisdom and energy and he was so charismatic so i want to also share this idea that charisma and cat and and joy is actually contagious so we have to be very careful who we hang out with who we listen to right which classes we go we should listen to and be around people that have already instilled this very important trait of joy it really is um contagious and also misery and i'll talk about that too unfortunately misery not only is it contagious but miserable people want to share it they want to bring you down they don't want to be on the bottom by themselves right it's lonely it's a lowly place infection it's infectious it's um there's a pandemic and he speaks about it he speaks about in those terms we'll get there shortly another idea is that every human being is born to be happy but unfortunately we learn to be miserable like it's i'd rather read his own words the joy of being alive is natural look at children look at you can learn so much from them they're you know they fall down okay sometimes it's a disaster but they fall down and they laugh right and they get back up again they're looking forward to being able to walk or ride a bike or you know do something properly but unfortunately i think it's the parents fault it could be the schools for i don't know where it comes along but we actually learn how to be miserable and we shouldn't so dwelling on our troubles is an acquired self-taught habit and i'm going to just read this again if we'd stop focusing on our problems our hearts would be filled with joy because we're surrounded by a world that's bursting with beauty goodness and unlimited potential um i want to get into all these ideas i did write myself again a little bit of an outline i want to go through some of the ideas so we're going to talk about serving his channel with joy it's very important we'll talk about it i already discussed this idea of anticipating good things now the lavatory said think good and it will be good now listen what does that mean and and i hope that everyone who's listening will contemplate that for the rest of their lives knowing okay there are i think there was a movie called the secret or a book called the secret and it had to do with the way you can train your mind to think positively you will see positive outcomes right listen it may be the secret that is as it says in the movie ancient wisdom and they do claim to a certain extent that it comes from the jewish people but it's so true even though the lebanese rebbe said it it's it's ancient wisdom okay and he didn't he didn't say it out of the blue it's absolutely true and let me give you some only some of my own examples there's such a thing as medical clowns now there has been research that a patient or patients who experience i'm not sure it's called laughter or some some aspect of joy will recover like people with the same you know illnesses the same statuses if they have this medical clown visit them that their recovery either goes more smoothly or more faster you know quicker where the chances of recovery are greater now what is that based on it's something that i'm going to talk about because on saturday night we do what we call have dala right we make a blessing over the separation between the holy and now it's it's um i call it mundane it's it's not so holy so there's a lot of words of joy within within the within the within itself calling the jewish people call right that there's aura there's light and there's joy that's designated for the jewish people it's true but there's an ancient yeah i'm not yemenite the ammonites do it too but there's an ancient spharnic custom and i've been turned on to it and i do it and it has changed my life and that is at the very beginning as soon as the shabbos is out which is full of joy and now we're going into what we call mundane world that the very first blessing borrepre gotham which is over the wine is i know this sounds very weird okay is enacted with a laugh okay so if you've ever been to a slaughter synagogue where they do have duller in public or as far at home and i believe everybody should incorporate this and incorporate this into their half dollar service is to let out a laugh now it's called an um involuntary or like in other words someone told a joke so that would be laughing for a reason right here you're talking about laughing for no reason just laughing and this is what they have proven in these men with the medical clowns that even if the person trying to make them laugh isn't that funny or the person didn't get the joke but nevertheless laugh and we when we smile believe it or not i mean science has also said this there are enzymes where chemicals went in the body that just creating the facial expression of a laugh or smile and sends i'm not going to call it ecstasy because i don't know exactly what what the terminology actually is but it does send happy enzymes through the body happy chemicals to the body and it's these enzymes like i said if you're looking forward to um something better you know the misery is gone and you're you're look you're anticipating something good that itself is healing right so many people we've heard who were like let's say i'm not saying on the last breath but people who are very old and fragile and the doctors are telling them they don't have that much long to live it's just old age or whatever maybe it's something worse that they had a bar mitzvah a wedding some great simcha some great and event a life a cycle event that they want to be before they die they end up living until that point and only dying afterwards when it's beyond science it's beyond reason that they made it right but it's the desire first like i said for something greater and um anticipating some uh serious um you know maybe a life-changing event or a mile marker in life you know it's a life cycle event and it's could be very it could it could keep someone alive so i talked about the enzymes through smiling about how dollar fine so all beginnings in other words all beginnings mark like a path so that's why in abdullah which marks the very beginning of the week you're starting off on the right foot hopefully it would bring joy to your entire week it's a it's a great point not just i'm not saying it's not beneficial any other time of course it is but i understand why it's in the abdullah service by the sareedeem because it's the very moment that shabbos is over and a whole new week is beginning right you understand how build the building bricks the foundation so the foundation of the week is just starting off hopefully on the right foot right okay so we talked about how kids are full of life it's a natural condition for humanity um so the next thing the roshiva talks about is being a problem solver not a problem sufferer okay we suffer through the problems and we think that's that's it we have to look forward to something that's much greater let me just put this back real quick turn the page i'm going in the right direction so in this book it's quoting um from rabbi destler who is uh the author of strife for truth and he says and this is very apropos first of all when if this i when this pandemic began i mentioned that rabbi kiva ager lived about 250 years ago and there was i don't know if it was calora cholera or some other pandemic that happened that he did not say to shut everything down he said that our we pray in minyani with many people he said try to limit to 15 people and go quickly and then change like changing the guards let the next people in don't linger around move on get on with life but he said the most important thing is do not become depressed do not have sadness this is a magnet for the virus okay which means which means that if you are full of joy he says you have to experience joy in these trying times okay that's the only way you're going to survive and it's going to be like a defense system against the pandemic so let me just read this these words from rabbi destler what is the epidemic disease of global proportions that rob us of all happiness in life our sages have already told us the answer it says in the mishnah jealousy unrelenting material desire and status seeking remove a person from this world so if that removes you that means you're left with misery right these people are jealous have you ever met a jealous person they're just miserable when that person walks in the room or is mentioned in a conversation that whole thing just changes a track to putting the person down or speaking ill and it's just or as we've talked about in the past material desires just drives a person insane and and status seeking it's all about me me me me okay so the world is god made it is a happy one it is we who have removed ourselves from the world of happiness to the world of suffering with these three desires we have to run away from jealousy from material desire and status seeking in order to transform the world into one bringing over with happiness so as a suggestion our sages they told us we have to say a hundred blessings a day right as we spoke about before the name yehudi right even those who are not jewish listening to this they know that the jewish people are supposed to be a gratitude uh praising nation based on the word yehudah right lay a ninja for a child yehudah this is what a jewish jew is supposed to be full of gratitude it's a vulgar that's the service that is what we're going to talk about tonight right the service gratitude and joy are i think they're synonymous okay because if you're not grateful you will be miserable right and if you're grateful i think you have you automatically instilling this um character trait of of joy of simcha so what should you say every day thank you god for giving me life thank you god that i can see thank you god i can use my hands and feet thank you god i can think just thinking you should be happy um okay i spoke about this okay this idea it's don't look at things as a problem right look at things as a challenge right so this goes with his words of um what were the exact words he said let me just go back to uh the last page i mentioned it maybe i didn't but um don't maybe be a problem don't be a problem sufferer be a problem solver that really that really you know um i think sums up that idea now we're going to get into this idea of the joy of wisdom itself okay imagine what we say in our prayers every night so i'm talking about when the jews get together in synagogue we say these words are saying he refer after um within eternal love have you loved the house of israel your nation torah and commandments decrees an ordinance you have taught us we're talking about wisdom you taught us wisdom therefore hashem our god upon our retiring and arising meaning all day long we will discuss your decrees and this is the key and we will rejoice with the words of your torah and with the commandments for all eternity and this is going to get into some kabbalistic ideas because on one hand i'll bring up the verse if you want to read it it's in psalms chapter 100 verse 2. psalms chapter to serve the lord with joy come before him with praise okay so there's two ways to look at it and i mentioned there's two things here there's one is the reward for searching for wisdom finally finding it and having that joy of finding the truth and also in order in order to find the truth you have to have joy so this verse i think encompasses both ideas number one it sounds like it's command serve hashem with joy and come before him with praise so that is in order to reach wisdom one should come with joy but so if you're serving hashem with joy the result will be you'll come before him in other words in order that's the reward the reward is having that relationship with god right you'll actually appear in heaven in the for all eternity only because you served him with joy you'll be able to experience that joy because this is the ultimate joy of having that intimate relationship that closeness with god for all eternity so that's what it means serve god with joy come before him it's you'll come before him with praise okay we'll get into that hopefully a little bit more as well interesting we all know we all know i shouldn't say we all know i love saying that we all should know that right total learning is a great mitzvah and jews are learning it all the time obviously for gentiles i encourage as much as you can right why not it's all about character development there's no question about it to be more like god you can do that right why not and you have seven mitzvahs they're very intricate intricate first of all like laws of thievery you have to know right what are you gonna go you're sitting at some place and you just take someone's pen without asking them do you know what that is that's the death penalty that's the death penalty right i mean it's serious i think it's hard to be a non-jew right if a jew used something without permission he used to pay up what he used so he whatever three cents five cents 10 cents whatever it was unfortunately it's it's much harder for the nanju but anyway let's go okay what what was sorry what was the last thing where was oh so when um the the certain days right we're not supposed to learn torah like tisha b'av why or or if you were god forbid right morning a close relative so we're not going to involve ourselves in learning torah except for certain types of torah right it's very limited so on tish above the kinds of torah we're going to learn are things to do with the tragedy right whether we're reading josephus or jeremiah or certain parts of the oral torah that speak about the destruction to try to make it real so you're not supposed to learn things that bring you joy and there's a whole discussion why we'll talk about it hopefully but on the other also someone mourning right it's if you're mourning you're not supposed to um just learn any kind of torah the the mishnah the word mishna and the shaman means soul mission of zero torah specifically certain parts and it's the same letters as meshama so in public at the shiva house at the morning house we do read certain missionaries especially if they really relate to the life of the person who passed away wow big question is why i mean it's because the torah brings simbra again the idea is and i think that people who were on a certain path like you and myself were not we were not privy to the truth when we were young and we were sidetracked right through i'll use some harsher words idol worship or just non-truths and it took us down a path and when we realized wow i've been following the wrong path or there's a much better path much more efficient path a much more sure how can one not be delighted how can one not be overjoyed again as a result as a consequence as a reward for finding the truth so again we said joy is energizing and joy is that um as we said in the beginning like it's it's energizing in power empowers you towards something greater right something exciting so once you get a flavor once you get a taste you want more and more of it so just keep in mind also there are we say that the main reward is in the world to come okay so all these myths there's all these things that we're doing but there are 26 and there's no no coincidence there's 26 a list of 26 things you can do in this world in order i'm sorry things you can do in order to get the reward in this world not the reward that's waiting for you but a taste of the rework so notice recall the main reward the karen the capital the main the main amount of whatever you want to call it money it's not money it's you know quantity of reward is waiting for you and you don't want to withdraw that now okay that's not your interest you want to keep that in storage for the world to come right but you could tap into what we call fruits pay roads get a taste that's what fruits are fruits are just a taste and you know i'll just give you like just a small list of i don't want to go through the 26 but i want to talk about joy joy happens to be one of them that if you let's just talk about some of the others the more money you spend right when it let's say a mezuzah or a to fill in or on a a fence around your roof right there's certain things you could do to enhance the mystical mahadrin mahadair to enhance the mitzvah nice shabbos clothes right nice shabbos food food for shabbas things that you spend money on for mitzvahs to come close to hashem you will be paid back in this world but the fruits the remember the karen will stay in the world to come but you will receive the fruits in this world again just the taste uh the effort so money is one idea but even the walking the the effort it took you to get to a class or to you know uh turn off you know other distractions in order to focus on on torah that you also be rewarded from the efforts you make joy is one of them so joy again it's the same idea that we it has both sides of the coins it'll get you better clarity because you have less distractions right you're totally focused on the anticipation towards gaining the wisdom remember we're talking about the 48 ways to wisdom this is a way to get wisdom look and anticipate right it'll help you find it as well and as a result it will just give you more joy even in this world as a result beautiful well said now now we're going to go through some of the some of the source material okay so we're using another book and that's called the midrash more on these mitzvahs and i want to discuss some of the ideas he brings down because in hebrew he mentions these words and i want to quote it exactly if you're not going to learn torah remember torah is wisdom and if you're not going to learn torah with joy then the torah e allah then the torah either appears or actually is a burden right if you're not doing it with joy then what else is it it then it must be a burden and if it's a burden then so so if then you're gonna leave it right we're just talking simple logic simple psychology if you're not enjoying what you're doing you're gonna leave it now he translates this like three or four different ways and i think they're all applicable just think about which one would apply to you so he translates it as he will eventually desist from its study and give up for no reason or he will eventually separate himself from its study because he's feeling he's wearing himself out for no constructive purpose or perhaps another translation he will eventually separate himself from its study and he will end up wearing himself out with other unconstructive activities right the point is that if you don't have joy you're not going to continue right that's for sure now one of the words that he uses and it's just interesting to know because he goes on he says that was the last part that we didn't know how to translate properly and he gave three three possibilities but it basically means you'll desist from the study and you'll give it up for no reason so there are that word appears in two different verses in the torah and it's interesting just to know the translation so in exodus chapter 7 verse 18 when the if you want to read it in english exodus chapter seven verse eight verse eight the lord spoke to moses and aaron 18 18. forgive me turn my mic back up and the fish that are in the nile will die and the nile will become putrid and the egyptians will weary in their efforts to drink water from the nile okay so the word in hebrew for will weary will become weary meaning to give up right if the nile is full of blood and they have nothing to drink forget about the fact the fish are all tired but it's just putrid i mean you can imagine i've seen national videos seen other environmental videos unfortunate you know uh i don't know how many they can call millions or hundreds of thousands of fish dying you don't want to drink that water right and they were in search and yet they had there was nowhere to find interestingly enough if a jew was carrying water it didn't turn to blood these these um these plagues did not affect the jews so a jew was carrying water in a cup it was water the gen the the egyptian had water in a cup wasn't connected to the mouth all the water in egypt turned to blood so if he took the cup and handed it to the non-jew the jew handed his cup of water as soon as the nine just soon as the egyptian held the cup it turned to turn to blood he gave it back then turned back to water it's all the plagues none of them affected the jewish people okay we can talk about that another time how that how that works i'm filled with joy rabbi so i just wanted to show you that word also in psalms is it right no sorry in genesis 19 11 that same word appears chapter 19 verse 11 in genesis 19 verse 11 reads and the men who were at the entrance of the house they struck with blindness both small and great and they toiled in vain to find the entrance so this is right the people of saddam wanted the uh wanted uh lo to come out and have a conversation about the men that were the angels that were there and of course he offers his daughters instead but in the meantime they were struck with blindness in hebrew right both great and small the pesach meaning if you're blind and you're trying to find an engine and they they couldn't find it they were it was totally in vain they toiled in vain right so we understand it's the opposite of joy you have to know there's wisdom obviously why would you pursue it and once you get a taste of it and you know it's there my gosh it's like what would you do you delicious you i'm not encouraging everyone to give up their jobs and join the yeshivas although that wouldn't be a bad idea but i think i was young i was blessed broke hashem i was very idealistic i was optimistic i i found what i thought and i know now to be the truth and i wanted to pursue it to make sure and i gave up everything i really gave up everything very painful but i did it and i would did it with joy okay it was people thought i was crazy well i was young so it was easier you know hashem um okay so this is the idea um but just to hit home some of these ideas in psalms 119 verse 54. you want to read it 119. come on 54 reads your statutes were to me as songs in the house of my sojourning yeah your statutes were to me as songs in my surgery so this is also one second your statutes hashem were to me like songs look not everyone is musically inclined okay but if you were singing a song you would sing it over and over and over again right when you had such an uplifting song this is how you would do right if you're you're look it does bring joy to many people songs in general we're talking about king david so he was not just full of song but he's talking about god's wisdom he's that's what it was to him was inspirational beautiful i have just a comment here and regarding this idea that no matter what where david hamelech was living at the time he always considered because it says in the place of my dwelling in the place of my sojourn meaning no matter matter where he was he always considered the statutes of torah as music and song he consistently learned torah with a joyful heart in the manner of cheerful singer this was despite the fact that david lived a very difficult life with relatively few periods periods of tranquility but he referred to the torah as a song and he was constantly and you know that he was he played a musical instrument and he soothed uh saul but he was a singer right sweet david sweet dave it was a singer and singer not swinger okay um the next idea in proverbs 5 19 proverbs 5 19. reads a lovely hind and a graceful mountain goat her breasts will satisfy you at all times you shall always be intoxicated with her love so the word intoxicated okay i don't know how to you know um explain that but let's just say a euphoria feeling right somewhere that you're being uplifted you're right we know that it can happen with alcohol can happen with drugs i don't know exactly but milk so there's this idea that a child and i say child i meant a a mamisha baby a teenager he doesn't have the child doesn't have memory like we do right his mind his brain is still developing right so every single taste of milk is a new taste it's not like that it's not like what he drank three hours ago i don't know how often babies nurse but it's been a long time i had kids but let's say three could be three hours five hours whatever it is he's sucking she's sucking on the the breast and he she's the child is receiving something brand new so torah even if we've you know and this is for me and i'm sure hopefully it's for most others the same piece that you thought you've mastered that you thought you really understood let time go by process it again could be could be months later could be days later could be years later you will see so much more insights and once you've experienced that then you know again that that anticipation towards wisdom wow it's all about the anticipation towards wisdom that it's something new it has a new taste and you'll be intoxicated with it like blown away like wow that's fantastic deeper yeah so there is a gemara in arabin 54 that i want to read to you that expresses the same idea what is the meaning this is the name of the name of yokonan what does it mean in proverbs 27 18 it says he guards the fig tree he who guards the fig tree shall eat its fruit why were matters of torah compared to the fig tree just as a fig tree whenever a person searches see he thinks from it he'll find things in it because they grow all year round we have along my street fig trees and we have all the arab workers or tourists coming by and looking over the tree and grabbing figs almost almost all year round because they're always available you just have to find them maybe a little bit higher up because the low-hanging fruit's already been taken maybe they're not ripe now but they'll be ripe later and they're always there so so too he says the gomorrah says so too matters of torah whenever a person meditates upon them he finds in them meaning okay you know some of the things we talked about some miracles there's things that are exaggerated just seem too far out search for the meaning don't get stuck on the details right what could it possibly mean how's that going to change my life how's it going to change my life and make my life and my family uh have a higher um degree a higher level of of life right and how's it going to change the world it can actually change the world rabbi shmuel bar nakhmani said what is the meaning of this verse the one we just quoted in proverbs 5 19 a loving hind and a graceful row let her breast satisfy you at all times and you'll be ravished always with her love why were matters of torah compared to a hain to tell you that just as a hind its womb is narrow and is cherished by its mate each and every hour like the first hour so too matters of torah are cherished by those who study them each and every hour like the first hour as a graceful row is expanded as follow as follows that the torah bestows grace upon those who study it and what does it mean let her breast satisfy you at all times why were matters of torah compared to a breast just as with the breast whenever a baby searches it from milk to suckle he finds milk in it so too with matters of torah when a person meditate meditates upon them he finds new meaning in them again the search for wisdom is the eagerness the anticipation of finding something new and meaningful amazing let's go to job chapter 41 verse 9. let's see job 41 verse 9 one adheres to the other they stick together and cannot be separated okay so let me just go back because he's let me just one second job 41 8 8 says they are so close to each other that no air comes between them yeah sorry that is what i'm looking for but okay i can't find why i brought this verse i'm sorry and basically there's lots of joy there of torah and joy it this idea that they are um brothers right in in the hebrew you can see a little bit clearer ish this man with his brother it's really talking about the torah and the joy that they will cling together they're going to stick together so much they cannot be separated that's shot okay that is the shot over there that torah and joy are inseparable okay and psalms 19 verse 9 this is going to be one of the most important verses of all verse 9 reads the orders of the lord are upright causing the heart to rejoice the commandment of the lord is clear enlightening the eyes okay so this is king david the orders of the lord are upright meaning that the commandments right the directives the the wisdom that is embedded in the torah is sharing is definitely upright it causes them causative right it causes the joy of the heart and the mitzes are of hashem borah and the eras not only are they clear but they enlighten the eyes right when you see somebody full of joy you know you can see it in their eyes right hopefully right they don't have sunglasses when they can take them up and today you have unfortunately people wearing masks you can't see the smile the smile again it joy is contagious and i think we're being ripped off but there is a there is a um a clear mask they do sell it i think it's a little bit more expensive than most but there's a clear mask at least you can see somebody smiling or you can paint or somehow um you know print onto your mask a smiling face at least minimum right we got them over here rabbi we got the masks over here that are in led and they animate with your mouth so when you talk they actually the lights move oh my gosh wow cool that's interesting but it's not the real thing but you know the pearly whites right it it uh it's important to share this and in proverbs 8 30 verse 30 reads i was a nerd i was nursing beside him and i was his delight every day playing before him at all times okay once again i forget why i brought why i brought this verse but it's one of these comments that uh show you the um the joy that comes from learning torah and i want to go now to the let's go to the aura so one of the ideas we brought down was during the morning period whether it's tisha b'av or personal morning we we're not supposed to be involved in learning torah because it tells us that the the shokanara the gomorrah jewish wisdom says that when you learn torah it brings you to a state of joy and you're not supposed to be experiencing that at this moment so there's a discussion and i want to bring this down in the shokhan that quotes a gemara between rebbe mayer and reb yehuda they happen to have argued a lot that there's a lot of disagreements in the gemara between rebbe hood and review and rebbe mayer held that it was actually permissible to learn torah if you're not accustomed to learning torah so imagine there's rabbis or yeshiva students or people that hashem spend an hour or more a day learning torah and it brings them such joy so they would not be allowed to learn torah during this morning period but what about someone who's not accustomed maybe they learn once a week or they don't learn that often so according to already there it would be okay because there's a lot of pain there's a lot when you read something and you know you don't understand it i'm not even the pain of embarrassment i'm just talking about the pain of breaking your teeth or trying to work in your head and walking away saying you know i didn't get any of it so according to redmi mayor that would be okay for a person like this we don't possibly like that that's not how we go we go like river you would it doesn't matter and the bottom line from this whole discussion is that really truly in a metaphysical way even that jew who doesn't learn torah that often and when he does he's only pained his heart is actually uplifted just from he may not be aware of it but it really does touch the heart it really does affect everybody in a positive way even if you're even if you're pain but obviously not the same if you're aware of it and work hard at it but anyway that's an interesting halacha by the way just to know another interesting halacha which he brings down and this is in the rambam in hook just to bring the idea that every jew deep inside wants to do the right thing and i when i say every jew there's no reason not for a a ben a righteous gentile to associate himself with the jewish people he knows the true god of israel he knows the torah he knows its mission so when i say jew i i mean the jewish nation but those who cling to it as well okay so okay but not in every aspect but at least in certain aspects so the the the hilltop russians like this in laws of divorce a woman can only be divorced from the husband if the husband is willing to it has to come from him willing to divorce her if he does not want to divorce her she's stuck now comes a jewish court says no nothing that's not going to happen this woman is not happy in this marriage and this man is maybe irresponsible abusive whatever it is there has to be a solution we can't allow this woman to remain in this situation now this sounds very cruel what i'm about to tell you and it's not i'm going to just use these words so we don't get banned from youtube it's basically not applicable today let's just leave it at that so what happens is the jewish court will beat him or whip him until he says i do okay i i'm willing to divorce her the jewish court has this ability to send thugs it could be i'm just telling you now when they're beating him or whipping him or let's just say pressure because today in today's society the way it works is a little different in the the jewish court will couldn't i'm saying the israeli court or a decent court would could put him in jail and say we're not letting you out until you divorce your wife or you're not you're not going to um leave the country you can't do certain things and most of the jewish community following the rules will not go into business with him he'll be ostracized until he divorces his wife that is how it's basically applied today because of these restrictions of the non-jewish governments over allowing a jewish court to beat him or whip him so it takes a little bit longer but it works okay most cases it ends up working all he has to do is say i want and then he could you know then then they're going to write up the divorce document and he's divorced the question is how can that be he's only saying i want because he doesn't want to get hit everyone admits that everyone is saying he's being hit he says okay enough enough already stop hitting me i'll give her the i'll give her the divorce document no the the rambam is telling us and the gomorrah is telling us that what happens is deep inside everybody wants to do the right thing the right thing is to follow god's directive which the basement says you must divorce her but it can only come from him if he's willing to do it and he's only willing to do it we know that deep inside but he has to still say the words okay i'll do it and even though we know he's saying okay i'll do it at least physically on the body the body level it's strictly the body level the physical level i'm tired of being hit i'll do it really there's a soul level and that soul wants to do the right thing it wants to sing it wants to praise the lord it wants to do all the mistakes that he could possibly do whether jew or gentile wants to do the right thing so this is another idea that deep inside there is this song that is directing us wow there's something deep there rabbi very deep thank you now i want to read two verses or you have you'll read them write them down so you know which one deuteronomy 26 11. and then we're going to read 2847 from deuteronomy i just want you to hear these two verses to really hit this point home very good sir 26 11 reads then you shall rejoice with all the good that the lord your god has granted you and your household you and your household you the levite and the stranger who is among you okay before you go on i just want to read the hebrew this you're supposed to be happy with all the good which hashem has given you which are amongst you okay that's the first verse i want you to read and the second now just keep this in mind is it a mitzvah to be happy there's as many discussions as it does just the holidays but it has to be i think clear as day because of the next verse we're going to read which is intruder deuteronomy 28 47 28 47 reads because you did not serve the lord your god with happiness and with gladness of heart when you had an abundance of everything now just to keep in context this is in the curses that the previous verse if you want to read it and they will be a sign and a wonder upon you and your offspring forever maybe even the verse before basically the context is that all these curses are coming to you because you had everything and you were not happy you were not satisfied and you didn't serve the lord your god with joy happiness or gladness of heart takas takas means on account of you did not serve hashem over to the world with a goodness of heart may rove call because you had everything you had abundance and you didn't serve hashem all the curses this is in other words the i don't think i've got this before but if okay i'm a rabbi i understand if you know someone says what's you know bad is murder bad yes it's bad obviously what about i don't worship yes it's all bad right adultery yes but rabbi tell me what's the worst i'm going to tell you the worst thing is to not be happy [Music] you got me well all the curses are going to come because of this not all the curses are going to come because of murder not all the curses are going to come because of idol worship not all the kurds are going to come because of adultery but all the curses are going to come as a result of not being happy i mean just let that sink in right now i i have here a few stories and um i don't know where to begin okay let's do this one so this is uh ravivardi yosef zaza passed away not too long ago he's one of the biggest rabbis he knew the whole torah more he had such a library i don't know if it was 800 000 books whatever it was and he had a photographic memory he he had books in his library that just don't even exist else you know in most homes and he was able to memorize and had such a photographic memory he was unbelievable and he was the head of basically the torah world at least in israel and especially the smarter community so once on one he was once sitting shiva for the loss of his son and rav steinman who he also passed away recently i think he was like 103. he was of the ashkenaz world and he came to visit him to console him so the uh ravadios have mentioned to him amongst other people that came to um to consult him that the um the safer magi masharim this is a story this is the book that about the yosef cairo that's the one who wrote the shogunara he had a kabuta he had a study partner who was an angel so he asked this angel where are the souls of the righteous before they're sent to the world the angel replied they're under hashem's throne of glory basking in the radiance of hashem's presence so remember this is a story within a story okay so again let's go back rav avada is sitting there consoling him and ravaria tells him a story that's written in the book the safer nagi masharim about someone 500 years previously who learned with an angel okay and he asked them where the souls is within the story he asked the angel where are the souls of the righteous before they're sent to the world he replied they're under ship's throne of glory basking in the radiance of hashem's presence so cairo proceeded to inquire doing what after amassing so much torah study and doing misses in this world where does the skull go so go afterwards so in other words it's before it comes into the world it's sitting under the throne of glory basking in god's presence then it comes into the world learns all the story does all the misses and he wants to know okay so now where does it go his answer is it goes back to the same place well what's the point of it all he says it returns to the basket of the glory of hashem so revere yosef kara says so what did the soul accomplish by twilling in this world and meriting all the tarry mitzvahs good deeds if it originated from the throne of the the soul originated that's very place called the throne of glory and it's returning back to the same place what is the point of it all so the angel replied it's taught in the gemara that if one eats from someone else's food they're it's called a shame they have a face of shame and i don't know if you have this idea down but this is one of the main principles in judaism that is called the bread of shame god created the world in order to give you the greatest reward now the greatest reward has to be earned because if it was just handed over a silver platter let me let me let me go back to this idea that and i i'm not spoiled i wouldn't grow up spoiled so i'm just trying to imagine what a spoiled person is like and i say spoiled i mean someone born with a silver spoon in their mouth and never had to work a day in their life and never so i heard that many of these people are highly suicidal they have extremely low self-esteem and they the self-worth is like zero you know and so if someone receives they don't work for something it's called the bread of shame like you you're receiving and receiving and receiving i think maybe that's even the problem today with i'm not going to call it communism whatever but you know today in america i know there's a uh a socialist entitlements and whatnot and people living on welfare and you know even though they're married they're saying they're not married in order to receive more and nobody's working you know i'm not saying everybody i'm just saying you know it's it's it's debilitating for society right so going back to the story this is basically his question his statement sorry the the the angels responding you know that if one eats from someone else's food they're ashamed to look into his face this means that the nature of a human being is that one does not wish to eat bread of pity thus before descending into the world the soul's enjoyment yes it's from hashem's holy radiance that's only a free gift that's the free gift before you come into the world but it's enjoyment afterward the enjoyment is therefore incomplete you don't get the complete earned reward however after working its way through this world and occurring much torah mitzvas and good deeds it is rightfully back in hashem's glory and there's a verse with justice shall i see your face now there's more to this story that the ravana yosef proceeded to ask those who were assembled and there's a verse in job who preceded me i shall pay him it's more of a question the hashem's holy spirit exclaims who praised me before i bestowed him with a soul the answer really is nobody right who like all the things that we do mitzvahs with for example if you circumcise your son you get you have to get the sun first you can't circumcise you can't do the midst of circumcision if you didn't have the sun you're going to put a maze on your door you can't do the mizzou you can't do the the midsole putting a mezuzu on the door without a house so all these misses that we end up doing is because there was a preparation beforehand okay let me just go through this idea so when he said who preceded me and i shall pay him hashem holy spirit exclaims who praised me before i bestowed him with a soul who circumcised his son before i gave the son who built a fence before i gave him a roof who fixed the mezuzah before i gained the house who built a sucker before i have given him a place to do so who tied tits before i've given him a garment this means the shem owes no one any payment for their deeds for all of man's actions or the direct result of the abundance hashem bestows upon a person living with such gratitude for everything that has been given to us it's just an amazing feeling and and debt towards hashem this is what's meant in the verse who has preceded me that i shall pay him nobody meaning who can say that he preceded hashem and did something which deserves reward there's no such claim everything is bestowed up upon us by hashem based on this even the soul that comes down to this world and observes the torah and mitzvas and makes and this the the claim of who preceded me and i shall pay him still exists and the reward will still be considered a free gift so if so the question that the um revolver joseph returns with to his people standing there what's the whole hassle of coming down to this world withstanding many tests and temptations until one amasses such torah you know much tori mitz's worth that the soul returns from where it originated only to bask in hashem's glory as a free gift you know he answers and says that when one performs hashem's mitzvahs enthusiastically and studies torah joyfully with gladness of heart there's nothing comparable to the reward reward one receives for this and this is something that one can only rely on one on with one's own heart and only man alone can do this because we say that everything is in the hands of heaven except the fear of heaven so too the joy he says therefore performing hashem's commandments joyfully one rightfully earns this is where all the you know the the credits the earning for his reward from hashem and is no longer a free gift for joy is one's personal labor so you have people walking around whether they're jews or non-jews i don't care and they're acting like ritually you know like robot just doing it without enthusiasm i'm not going to put them down but you understand the quantum difference this is it's all we have is the opportunity in other words the free will is yes fear but add joy into that because fear and love because we talk about that a lot that love is a higher level than fear so if fear is in your hands so how much more so for you to love doing the mises to love life to love to acquire wisdom remember this whole thing is about the desire and anticipation towards acquiring wisdom again only i'm not going to say only if but mainly those who have been tricked those who have been sidetracked those who have found you know a faulty path and then realize that you know their eyes are now open like they were blind i don't know if you ever heard such an expression they were blind but now they were found right how can you you can really you know be overjoyed with finding the truth and that would just catapult you i think that and and uh with that sense of joy or accomplishment of seeing having your eyes open to seeing the truth and knowing there's so much more there again back to what the other idea i said in the beginning is the more you know i want to just bring up this one idea here because if anybody wants to search for it um this idea let me just bring it up real quick um i should have written it down it's called kluger i think cougar let me just uh pull this up unfortunately there we go skip the ads it's a video it's not a uh let's go through real quick it's worth waiting for it's called the dunning krueger effect the dunning-kruger effect yeah okay yeah i'm very familiar with it they did this study based on people who they're really not in reality you know they took very smart people and they took people that didn't they were not as smart and the expectations they had the people who and what's the word and were not as smart thought they were smart they didn't even have the capacity to understand how little they knew and therefore their expectations were very small but the more you know the more you know that you don't know and therefore those people that were smarter realized how little they knew meaning they it's worth this is just a scientific research that proves everything we're talking about how humility comes right before this idea of joy and these people are happier right the people that know more and have little let's say lower expectations of themselves meaning that they know where they're at in real reality where these other people that are just not in reality because they are just full of themselves perhaps and that's why they never were able to learn they really think they know it all and there's no capacity to learn anyway so that's how we'll end tonight that hopefully people will understand hopefully how joy is like a mechanism that will not just catapult you towards wisdom try to understand that if you ever tasted it you want to go after more of it right wisdom is just so not just enlightening i mean it's it's hopefully life-changing enough that your priorities in order that you know that this is a invaluable you know opportunity that will catapult you not just for the reward reward to come but it itself is the motivator to get to more truth and i think that's really like i said in the beginning it's two sides of the same coin having a little bit of joy will knowing what it feels like will continue help you continue on the path for more and it's such an intrinsic part right of the search for truth knowing at the same time that the reward right as we said about king david not only eve does hashem is simple but that i'm going to come before you with even more joy just like we saw in yosef's story right it's it's unbelievable so we'll leave it for that and bazrat hashem will see you next week and we'll continue with the next subject well thank you so much rabbi beautiful beautiful course on joy you know i could put so much in into play with this thank you so much rabbi so till next week folks we're going to sign out have a great day [Music] is