(Way#9) PURITY: 48 Ways with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

[Music] hey good day everybody welcome back to beyond the seven live from jerusalem with a rabbi aaron david poston uh he's been sharing with us the 48 ways we're now on chat on part nine this has been an exciting series and it's only going to get better and better and better and better when you hit point 15.20.25 it keeps going higher and higher and higher and higher in ways to wisdom and i am just so honored to hear it from a rabbi such as rabbi poston who actually learned from the author of the one book so let's just tune in and see how rabbi poston is doing in israel tonight it's very late there in israel after 11 30 p.m rabbi i am so thankful you are still willing to do this series with us it means so much to the world we need to hear the wisdom of torah and thanks for taking the time the class is yours sir thank you dan shabu tov to everybody once again wow what an introduction must first it's not about me i am uh hashem just a conduit for this information that is ancient wisdom you know you mentioned the rabbi that wrote the book he actually didn't write the book he wrote the whole seminar right he popularized this learning concept and several of his students who i know well uh just published this book last year or two right you see it here and uh he's not the only one you know this we mentioned that this is already based on the on the mishnah which is part of the oral torah going back thousands of years here's another book written by rabbi avraham yaakov rodkin and it's based on the uh perciavo specifically this this volume is based on the 40 ways to wisdom so it's a very popular concept i want to give a little bit of introduction once again like why in the world are we uh on the uh world center doing the 48 ways to wisdom which is part of the jewish i say jewish the israeli israelite uh mesara all the way back from harsinai and i want to look there's different types of people in this world right we always break it down to two there's jews and there's gentiles right it's always two kinds of people well the truth is there's really one there's mankind okay and anybody who's not in israelite anybody who's not a jew is by default called a ben north which is singular or we'll call them binay north which is plural right binay noise and there are different levels you know for those who are not privy to this idea i know this may uh sound rep repetitive to those who are aware of this but i want to go through it again that number one everybody has and is in the category of the north human being and but all human beings whether you agree or not whether you like this i mean you're tuning in so you have to understand that you're listening to our perspective has an obligation to keep seven universal concepts we call them the seven millikade laws now if one is doing it strictly because of their um you know wisdom this they think this is the best way for mankind to behave you know they're considered wise they are but there is something lacking and i look color kavod all the best to you and i thank you very much for wanting to do that but there's another level and i'll use the word to describe as a higher level and the reason i'm calling at a higher level because it's a spiritual level that allows one to actually experience the world to come yes you know heaven in the world to come and that's the belief that those laws came from god himself that these are um from hashem that was reiterated or repeated at mount sinai so the jews received 613 commandments at the same time and the the the meaning the rest of mankind was it was repeated to them and made obligated to them these seven laws and that person who believes in that and i'm assuming that most of the people watching this want to be on that level either they already are or they ascribe to be that's their goal so that's right hashem now there's another type that i didn't describe and that's someone who is a pagan an idol worshiper and perhaps they don't even keep the seven of head laws well they're still under the category the banner of benenoch but they're not a card carrying ben noah so to speak right they could not uh now those type of people i'm sorry to say they're not a lost case but hopefully if they are listening they will open their minds with an open mind and i'm going to read a verse i like when you read two but allow me to do this honor it's in deuteronomy chapter chapter four and it's verses five six seven and eight it's it's really s okay yeah let's do it okay so yeah okay you do it you do you do so well are you sure yeah i'm just going to you read the english and i'm going to read the hebrew because 5 6 7 8 says behold i have taught you statutes and ordinances as the lord my god commanded me to do so in the midst of the land to which you are coming to possess and you shall keep them and do them for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the eyes of the people who will hear all these statutes and say only this great nation is a wise and understanding people for what great nation is there that has god so near to it as the lord our god is at all times that we can call upon him and which great nation is that has just statutes and ordinances as this entire torah which i set before you this day so i mentioned i think i think just hearing some of the hebrew would be um worthwhile i know many of the listeners are not well versed but it's worthwhile trying to learn so in verse six martin de asitem right god commands the jewish people to keep them and to do them because it is it is your wisdom god tells us okay he's doing it through moses and this is the 48 ways to wisdom this is incumbent upon us as jews we should follow this path and we're sharing this with you you understand we're taking time out of our day 11 30 at night from jerusalem to share this on the wavelengths of the cyber world right or whatever that means you know from out of zion shall come forth the torah now this is what the nations will say for that is your wisdom and and your understanding in the eyes of the of the peoples okay they're going to hear escala they're going to hear how do they hear it i don't know maybe they're looking into the book maybe they'll listen to a rabbi maybe they actually you know i'm going to say read some of the books that you can find in a bookstore that aren't written by jews and it has some jewish wisdom and i'll have to tell you you know maybe it's the quran maybe it's the what they call the new testament it's plagiarism it's full of jewish wisdom believe it or not some of it is anyway and they're gonna say hmm i wonder what these people are right they're going to hear all these statutes and this is what they're going to say only this great nation is wise and understanding people for what great nation is there kimi gado what great nation a sherlock eloquene crazy malab that's close to him like hashem our god the cult we'll call upon him and which great nation is it that has just statutes and ordinances this entire torah which i set before you this day so understand and hopefully i mean i'm i'm included i'm learning too right even though i do teach that the concept of teaching is is in rooted in the learning process we talked we've discussed this before how do we know that you have to um learn torah right it doesn't say anywhere in the five books you have to learn the torah it says you have to teach it and in order to teach it you have to learn it okay i i implore you to go back to some of the previous subjects that we talked about that's called the whole the whole series is called beyond the seven and beyond the seven since we discussed the idea of seven north high laws or seven uh major principles we're going beyond because we believe that we could reach and touch the hearts of people to go beyond the seven not necessarily take on additional mitzvahs i just want to reiterate that even though it's totally permissible but it only has to come from you we're not going to push it on you but i believe that there's depth to these seven and um like just take for example do not steal how much how many you know let's say civil laws right you can institute in your community to try to make sure that people keep that law so how do you do that whether you run as a politician or you you just put forward letters of complaint to your municipality or state or government i mean there's a lot of corruption i don't want to go into it that's not my subject tonight but anybody who knows and wants to fight the corruption has to find a creative and effective way and that is one of the major problems plaguing a western society that has already basically adopted what we'll call the seven noah laws in general but there are many specific details that if you can get this information over to them you know by your own investigation trying to figure out ways to make make society a better place and more effective and not violating some of these laws that would be great okay so tonight's subject is the ninth of the 48 waves called tahara which is translated as purity now you may think this is talking about you know being pure let's say spiritual and not touching uh dead bodies or not touch or not eating um you know impure foods it may be it may very well be but that's not what we're going to discuss tonight we're going to talk about zahara in a sense of the thinking process because we're talking about a way to wisdom is to have a pure mind okay now that may involve staying away and we'll talk about that from the pleasures of this world that will definitely come into into into play but let me just explain it in a sense of being hyper focused we are plagued today with different i'm going to call them diseases or illnesses or i'm not even sure what they're called but add adhd on and on and on there's so many uh alphabet soup labels given let's just say um concentration people have a hard time staying focused and concentrating um i get it and this is not a new it's not a new thing at all um the torah already tells us right through this ancient wisdom that if you're able to have total concentration with no distractions you will actually be able to hopefully reach your full potential without that you'll you know be sidelined you'll be distracted and we're going to talk about some of the ways in which to um to accomplish this excellent so basically in order to accomplish your goals you want to be productive member of society so you have goals and they seem to always get put back on the back burner because other things come up so one of the ideas we're going to talk about is clarifying you know your goals and of course avoiding distractions and knowing what your ambitions and your goals are okay so first things first let's talk about purity of thought now i want to tell you what we do is we go through this in a little bit of a quick manner and then we're going to go back i mean this is the way i want to do it go back into details with the with the source material it could be we might get distracted or excited about certain source material as we go through it so we'll see stick through it and we'll uh we'll get we'll gain something from it for sure so the first idea is um attaining spiritual i'm sorry intellectual purity learning how to focus on one idea um and this is not so easy but meditation is is very popular now and i do recommend learning how learning how to meditate um concentrating right there are many ways to learn now i just want to tell you it's just a side point well it's such so much of a side point but we did discuss this before about how to do memorization right there are many i think youtube uh tutorial videos on improving your memory and one of the common themes is when you're learning something do it in a sing song another way is to tell yourself a story right i had a friend he could um 30 people 30 guests people he never met before to shabbos table and he'll ask everyone what their name is and where they're from and at some point later in the meal and i don't mean like 30 seconds after he heard everybody's answer he's able to repeat back everybody's name first name and where they were from and he did exactly what i'm telling you now the the oral tradition that we have if you read through any piece of talmud you'll find a storyline this rabbi heard it from this rabbi when he was in this place or this rabbi and another rabbi were walking on the way and they encountered this other rabbi or it's just an amazing way of remembering number one if it's a detail it's important so the part of the storyline will be remembered as well it's supposed to be interesting um and also what is very common you'll find in the bait midrash in the study halls is a sing-song way some kind of nikun as we say in order to constantly repeat the same learning over and over again in a sing-song way because a song is easier to remember and you're excited about it um there's another idea of being hyper focused and that is a very interesting thing that we do as jews and you can learn from us right when we're about to do a mitzvah it's called the shen okay now you'll find this mainly by the sardine and the hasidim but in even the most popular ashkenazi sidorim such as like an art scroll you'll find it a few places well in fact i wanted to read this as an example is when you're about to perform a mitzvah right you're going to do something that's going to bring god into the world that's going to elevate your actions to have concentration by saying it out loud what you're about to do so let's say you're going to drive to help your mother go grocery shopping right so say it like this is a mitzvah right honor your parents i'm going to do this and like it's almost like nothing's going to stop me right this is what i'm going to do and i'm going to be totally concentrated on but it helps when you verbalize it so here this is an example when putting on to fill in those are the little black boxes with little scrolls of the top parts of the torah in it now part of the first mention is unifying god's name i'm not going to go into the kabbalistic explanation of the masculine and the feminine but i will reveal something to you and i hope it doesn't go over your heads but the love and the hay of the word mitzvah is obviously part of the yud and the hay and the love and they have god's name whereas the memsadik which is actually you can look it up it's a very interesting a-t b-a-s-h or wikipedia will explain it is a ancient not even not an ancient israelite a jewish uh way of doing amatria but in the army the u.s army had used it in their encoding methods it's called artbash because like a z a is um inverse to z and then b is inverse with the second to the last letter in the alphabet so too in hebrew so when we're doing a myth we're performing a myth we're actually bringing hashem into the world and we're unifying hashem's name and so this is what one would say just bear with me behold in putting on this to fill in i intend to fulfill the commandment of my creator who has commanded us to put on to fill in as it's written in the torah there's four times that the film is mentioned that every verse is mentioned here right bind them as a sign upon your arm and let them be filled between your eyes and these are the four portions and then the fourth worship before portion to my israel it should come to pass the sanctity of the firstborn and when he when he brings you into the land and then he continues and these to fill and contain his oneness and unity may his name be blessed in the universe that recall the miracles and wonders because this is what god wants us to do while we're putting on filling it's just like an amazing statement of declaration what i'm about to do and that i have full what we call it hebrew or maybe a better english word is called concentration focused hyper focused concentration and this type is this type of statement of the same before so many mitzvahs are performed but you don't have to say it in the original hebrew rendition even just making a blessing before we perform amidst them before we put the mezuzah on the door right before we put on the cheat seat right before we eat the matzo on pesach before we pick up our lulav and esragan sukkot they're the abraha symbol bracha asher kitsana bemitsu we're sanctifying hashem we're saying thank you for sanctifying us right through your commandments that we're about to fulfill so that also brings just the fact that we make a blessing not just um when we see beautiful events like a rainbow or a uh a sea for the first time in 30 days right there's blessings that we say praises for things that we see uh for what we experience for food that we eat pleasures that we experience but for god's own commandment as a hyper focus it's very important to hyper focus because then you get the most out of it in fact makes sense we're doing we're doing a series by uh rabbi um asher wegbrite and it's called cavana limits the intent for the mitzvas and i think that it would help anybody jew non-jew understand what it means to be in communion with the creator through every act that you do and we're going to talk about every act that we do could be if you're hyper focused enough you want to reach that goal which is okay like i said before i'm about to drive the car my car over to help my mother with her groceries can you imagine if i have that in mind the whole way i'm fulfilling the mitzvah of will be in hebrew called honoring your mother and father right just like god forbid if someone was in an accident on the way to work the uh at least it works here in israel that the insurance company would pick it up from from your work because you're on your way to work and so too god forbid on the way home from work if something happened the insurance company from work would pick it up i don't know if that works anywhere else but that's how it works here in israel here in town you're on the way to work it doesn't work like that so uh okay so the same thing with mitzvahs when you're in the process you know all your deeds all your your efforts and we're going to talk about that okay so that that is one idea of helping now concentration is not a natural gift for the exceptional few but it is a skill you can learn you can master your mind i remember he said a mind is a terrible thing to waste i don't know if it was because of the anti-drug adverts on television or maybe high school dropped out i found it exactly the reason that it was such a popular idea minds is a terrible thing to waste but both play both ideas whether it was you know unbelievable amount of high school dropouts or people just didn't want to go to school that the mind is extremely powerful i mean i don't know what the scientists say today but when i was growing up the scientists you know science is always changing and that we only use about i'm going to guess i think they said 10 it could have been even less of our minds right it could have been i don't know i don't know but if you imagine remember we're talking about acquiring wisdom and the topic for tonight is purity of mind so purity of mind would obviously and be able to help you reach your goal in in in acquiring the wisdom the second thing is a multi-track mind now today everyone is doing what we call uh what's the name for it again multitasking asking look the truth is when we first decided we're going to learn how to drive car and maybe that was still the first month after we got our licenses and we were hyper focused we stood at the stood we sat at the steering wheel like our chin was like right there right we were a little stiff you know today how do we drive i mean we could have a cup of coffee in one hand we could be listening i mean only with the what do you call it the earplugs or on on speakerphone we can have a conversation with somebody at the same time uh and for me may i have a cigarette in one hand cut the call from the other i drive my wife crazy's action how can you drive right but anyway and so we learn we learn we learn and that's how incredible the mind really is so there's a story about rafhaim oyster rodzinski and he was one of the famous rabbis lived about 100 years ago and he was none i think he was the only one but he could write literally right forget about typing he could write with his hand his left hand and his right hand two different letters simultaneously to do different people and have a conversation with a third person at the same time listen there are people like that so we know that multitasking is possible okay now we can't even imagine what else this person could have had on his mind but nevertheless it's there's a tremendous amount of um of power imagine if you could just master just one track just forget about multitasking we know the multitasking is totally possible especially by women right anyway they can clean and tell you what to do at the same time yeah i'll take that back i best so what what one of the um one of the verses in the torah that exemplify this idea of totally being hyper focused at once and then you could let's say once you master that that's like your um your mo whatever you know your your real gust for life this one statement and you can do other things at the same time but if you get this down so in psalms chapter 16 verse 8 one second 116 verse 8 chapter 16 verse 8. sorry sir verse 8 reads i have placed the lord before me constantly because he is at my right hand i will not falter okay when we do discuss the six constant mitzvahs right which are again a series that we did here on beyond the seven i implore you to check this out one of the main the first in the whole show right which is the basic uh code for jewish law this these words appear right this is what a jew should have on his mind at all times shavita hashem negdytami that i placed hashem before me always which literally means i have a picture of the yud and the hay and the other night under my eyelid so to speak with the correct vowelization knowing how it should be pronounced but not uttering it but knowing that god sees me when i'm in the darkest of rooms when i'm all alone right that i have a relationship with him an ongoing relationship and i have to have awe and fear and also love right i have to have unbelievable um cognizant discernibility um that should be on my mind now i can do everything else and everything else i'm going to be doing is going to be pure and holy so this is like a basis for for this now you know i i'm not against meditation i'm i'm all for it and if you can figure out a way where you can meditate just on this verse alone but it but anyway what is meditation different ideas of course not everyone is an agreement either it's the total nullification of anything or it's a total hyper focused on one thing and this is according to me okay um the kohanim in the bait in the temple were only allowed to think about the specific corbin the actual um the actual offering that they were performing and when it was to be eaten even though they might not be eating it whoever brought it and where it's supposed to be if they got it wrong if they had some misinformation right they were thinking different thoughts that corbin was no good so they were actually taught to not think of anything because it was very difficult to know exactly each club there were thousands during the day and to be able to wipe out basically like a clean slate that takes a lot of concentration and that was their job just doing the job without foreign thoughts okay so for us obviously we don't have that kind of you know bombardment of all those thoughts we have our own we have our own lives so if this is going to be the underlying thought for everything we do that would be great so that's my first suggestion now unfortunately we are what we think and i say unfortunately because many people have a negative idea of themselves and the negative ideas about life and in the world so this is going to take a lot of um a lot of a lot of work you know we have i think we have tapes in our heads you know we were all young once and we had maybe a bullying and maybe we bullied ourselves right we were hard on ourselves as kids but we had maybe maybe we had a bully maybe we had an older sibling or a younger sibling maybe we had unfortunately a uh an abusive parent or a family member it's so important to get our ideas correct of who we are remember we're talking about purity here so i implore you to spend enough time learning torah and and cut and perhaps through meditation but fish to find out who you really are what your strengths are know what they are and and what you value right you have to know what is important okay now the roshiva also talked about things called five finger clarity like how do you know it's true how do you know what like a lot of times oh you know someone's bullying you so right away the emotions and yeah it must be true no five things clarity just like you know your five fingers on your hand you know you're creating the image of god you know you have a pure soul right you have to know these things with fi like as like as the example you know that your sister is forbidden to you to have relations with that's how clear every halacha every aspect of life is and okay today it's very hard because we're being bombarded with i don't even have to bring it up because i know it's controversial you know how dangerous is this uh is this uh virus you know keeping two meters the scientists themselves say no you need more no you need less that the mass are effective they're not so effective right there's so much is coming down so you're gonna have to come to as much clarity as you can and when you're in doubt okay so you go a little bit strict right that's the general rule now what about emotion emotions is not they're not so easy either um look dealing with difficult people right everybody deals with everyone knows there are certain situations you may get into before you even get into it you know it's going to be difficult right you're invited to let's say to a thanksgiving dinner and you have that relative who always starts up with you or you're going to a shabbos dinner and you always have that neighbor who says things that just irritate you how can you control memory we're talking about purity of emotion here to put intellect over the emotion having enough sense that in this situation before you even get into it you already know that this person is going to ruffle your feathers or say that trigger word right that's the word the trigger before you can actually get a hold of yourself you can you can realize in advance and it's not easy but you can you can i'm going to say it again you can control your emotions so purity of emotions is also very important um i want to mention about this idea called dying in a tent okay now that's again having to do with hyper focus i wonder if i should do it now i might as well maybe up so many more things okay i'll get back to it okay so i just want to mention we're going to real we'll deal with numbers chapter 19 verse 14. we're going to skip it for now but we're going to get back into it it's in gemara bronco 63b and it's talking about um the laws of purity since we're talking about purity and that if you're in this room and someone dies if you're even if you're not a kind right you become impure so basically it just mentions like seemingly off out of i'm not going to say out of touch uh with with with the meaning but it's referring to when a man dies in a tent and is going to be a lesson that one should kill themselves not really shown suicidal but we'll talk about it in depth like total hyper focus concentration on torah to as if nothing else matters is if you're dead to the world and the only thing that matters is getting to the truth okay so that's going to play a big part in purity we're talking about here for the sake of acquiring wisdom we will get to it because it's a major part of what i want to talk about so we'll skip that for right now um blocking negative emotions out right there are times where you have to block things out but you don't want to be totally devoid of them you just want to apply them when they are appropriate okay it's very important like i said when you're in a position where you know in advance that you're going to run into someone who's difficult what about when it comes to you all of a sudden you also have to know that this is probably not going to be the most uh productive way to use my time right now make an appointment with the person have have a civil discussion with them in private at a later time when you will have a better opportunity to focus um okay what about purifying the purity of your goals knowing your deepest needs this is what we talked about before we talked about this someone said why are you going to college oh i'm going to college to pay my bills why why do you have to pay your bill well you know like on and on and on until you i say i have to get a job and it's all about nothingness there's nothing really intrinsic about this person going to college because he wants to acquire wisdom it's all about well just to get a a good job why do i need a good job because i need the money to pay my bills why do i need new clothes what do you need to close so i can show up to work right it's like this is never ever never ending cycle so one thing you have to know is what do you really want to do what is your goals what do you want to pursue what is your passion what is your energy what is it all for so here we'll take this verse in psalms 10. psalms 10 reads all my bones shall say o lord who is like you who saves a poor man from one stronger than he and a poor man and a needy one from one who robs him so when he says call us all my bones will will speak out to hashem so that's talking about a whole integration of who you are praising hashem what does it mean all my bones all my limbs all my organs all my sinews all my veins my whole being is that should be our goal and in cohes which is ecclesiastes chapter 9 verse 10. nine verse ten sometimes computers don't move that fast rabbi uh nine verse ten whatever your hand attains to do as long as you are with your strength due for there is neither deed nor reckoning neither knowledge nor wisdom in the grave where you are going right so you you once one passes from this world there's no deeds there's no more acquisition of knowledge or wisdom right what we have here is now in this world whatever your hand attains to do as long as you're with your strength as long as you're alive and this is there's a guy on youtube very famous i think he's a palestinian israeli um and he has a picture of a battery on his shirt that he realized i forget at what point 25 percent he figured he's going to live like 70 or 80 years and he wasn't attaining what he really wanted to in life he didn't feel that it was attainable and he quit his job and he went into the uh into the blogging business or the youtube blogger and he he talks about people and doing more with their life so he has this battery and i think it started out at 25 maybe 15 25 and it goes as every year he goes on he's he's filling his battery he feels like he's really gaining power he's gaining um potential he's fulfilling his potential it's an amazing um blogger i forget his name but he's very popular in israel because he's not anti-jewish he's not anti-semitic at all and he has a lot of good messages i could be wrong about his messages i didn't listen to them all but the ones i did here are quite inspirational okay and lastly the most important goals to know is the overall purpose you are living for if you know what you want your life to stand for you can accomplish great things in this world so that's like the overview to start with just to get the idea that purity means no distractions having clarity and um to pursue the ultimate thing in this world which is wisdom now i just want to clarify one more thing because one of the main goals this sounds good it's going to sound crazy one of the main goals that we teach the main goal in acquiring wisdom is ultimately to realize how much more wisdom there is to know now that is hyper crazy right um i did i discussed this the last time and i don't know i think i think i did i think i passed that video on to you guys last time so if you look in the comments i think it's called duner kreger effect done in kruger yeah so that vid say it again spell it out the dunning krueger effect d-u-n-n-i-n-g dash krueger eu k-r-e-u euger gunning krueger effect okay so there was a research done i'm not going to go to now check out the video just type those words into your google or whatever server you're using search you're using and you'll come out with some very interesting uh concepts okay now i want to go into this idea that this is the law if a man dies in the tent going back to numbers chapter 19 14. 14 reads this is the law if a man dies in a tent anyone entering the tent and anything in the tent shall be unclean for seven days now the issue here is if you go to the previous verse uh which says 19th verse sorry 14. so i go check 13. see the previous idea was talking about basically a paraduma i mean not not literally but basically because it's talking about that special water sprinkling and that if he was contaminated that would that would purify him okay like okay read 13 right whoever touches the dead body of a human being will will have died will not have had not purified how do you purify yourself with those special waters from the paradigm now in our verse 14 this is the teaching regarding a man that would die in a tent just that word that's it just those alone right it's crazy anything that enters the tent and anything that is in the tent shall be contaminated for seven days but in hebrew it says zois torah it should say because there are many other places i shouldn't say many there's a handful of other places where this is the torah of this is the torah of a sin offering this is the torah of a burnt offering this is the torah of right it's zo zatorah with the hay it doesn't say ha adam this is the torah of man like it without the hay so right away something's crazy going on here what's the oh how always represents the tent of learning where you're going to acquire the wisdom you want to acquire wisdom you must enter that tent as if you're dead only if you okay we're not literally talking about dead because we know khaiban the torah says you have to live by these things what does it mean then to die do you have to be willing to die okay now we're going to get into some of the ideas behind it but this is a famous uh expression that most jews are familiar with that this is talking about really putting your whole gusto your whole being into learning wisdom being hyper focused so in gomorrah 63 b there's a certain verse that it brings down and that you'll find in deuteronomy chapter 27 verse 9. do you want to read it 27 verse 9. 27 verse 9 says moses and the levitic priests spoke to all israel saying pay attention and listen o israel this day you have become a people to the lord your god okay verse 9 says like this what does that mean so be attentive now the gamora here discusses how and we're going to discuss this next week because we're going to talk about how to learn and host case could mean to break down into groups don't learn on your own okay we're not going to why it means that it's going to be a further discussion but hath kate pay attention as they translate here hayyom like what this is the day that the torah was given to israel what do you mean haiyom this day you were going to become what this was the end of 40 years right what happened 40 years prior that's when we became a special people so it's like the day of the giving of the torah so let me just read the gemara keep silence they translated as silence remember it's going to be darshan doubt can mean many things and here israel this day you become a people until the lord your god the gamora offers an alternative explanation of the verse keep silence and hero israel break yourselves over the words of torah this is an acquaintance with rashford israel says from where do we know that matters of torah now matters of torah mean wisdom right we express that from the very beginning the torah is the wisdom are only retained by one who kills himself over it and says in torah this is the torah when one dies in a tent in other words read it like that zoys torres adam this is the torah a man who dies in the tent that the torah is only going to come to someone meaning true torah study demands total devotion of one who's willing to dedicate his life in the tent of torah um there's more i'm not going to read the rest i want to go into some of the commentary here because it's just absolutely fascinating awesome and this is the commentary on the gemara the eerie plan and south from the very fact that it doesn't say adam it only says adam and the maha he explains that the torah is only like embodied it's only fulfilled within a person who kills himself within the tent of torah now i would like to expand that tent that tent usually meant the bait midrash usually meant to study home i think today it means coming on to classes like this right going to uh the the internet and finding interactions of rabbis sharing wisdom so when you're on this call or you're on a zoom call like you're dead to the world your mom is you really you you don't answer and you know you set aside this time and that's it you're dead to the world the indian hamisha this idea of one who kills himself he's talking on a physical level and um and what happens when you kill yourself physically you're basically diminishing your physical desires so in other words you're putting your priorities in order right everyone wants money and there's going to be a time to work and there's a time to listen to torah and when you're listening to torah don't get interrupted you tell your secretary or your hand made secretary whoever it is that you're not taking any calls for this hour half hour 15 15 minutes whatever it is that you're totally dedicated to that learning and this is what many jews all over the world do uh and we learn it from this word this exact verse and that this is the torah when a man should die in a tent okay now we already mentioned that it doesn't say the hay that's again that's the marshall he points that out and what's interesting is the ben okay this is the benishchai and he explains that if someone wants to live he has to die now i know that in christianity because i i was familiar with this idea and you have to die in order to become born again right there's this michel there's an analogy of a mustard seed the smaller seed and within the seed but guess what that's in the talmud right that within the seed you have all the dna for i don't know how many trees thousands of generations of trees right but the outer covering the the the medrush describes the more describes that this outside of the seed has to go into the ground and disintegrate and hashem already put into let's just say whatever that external part of the seed is has all the nutrients i don't know all of them but let's say a a starter kit of uh continuing to um you know kill let's say uh part of the seed quicker in order for that birth of the the jet the gen whatever the the real life force within that seed to come alive and anyway that's ancient wisdom came from us again plagiarized but nevertheless this is what he's talking about and there he says like this what happens is what happens is i'll just read it in english i'll translate in english that you weaken the physical part through the suffering and the fasting and it says in the perky vote we all maybe are familiar with it the way of torah is bread and salt just eating salt and bread now that's not necessarily literal but it means you're not going out and having steak every night you're not having the most luxurious of foods of course everyone according to their own means but uh take you know be modest in in your physical desires and perhaps even do without if necessary and he says this is what it means when it says that one has intent uh the intent of this of this statement that one should kill themselves it actually says upon it upon it is going to be very important because the word torah which is tough love hey if you take the letters that come immediately before that spells the word is an almond but it doesn't mean it means quick early with passion and gusto because at least here in israel the very first of the trees that begin to blossom is the almond tree okay maybe in other places it's other trees i don't know but here in israel it's the almond tree and the word chakkad which is almond means early it blossoms quickly and early and this is the way for torah if you want to torah the word torah's holy itself tough love hey torah the letters that come before it is shocked just check it out i'll i'll just spell it out for you is shin it comes before the um the tough the coof comes um before the the the rash the dalit comes for the hay the hay comes before the vote so shin kuf dalit hey is exactly the letters that come before the word torah okay and that's what he explains now the khothis khaim explains he actually asked the questions we already know it says in uh leviticus chapter 18 verse 5 that if you want to read it it'll be great it's uh leviticus 18 verse 5. 18 verse 5 says you shall observe my statutes and my ordinances which a man should shall do and live by them i am the lord now so you're supposed to live by the torah not by the not die by the torah so where in the world can this russia this explanation be that one should die for the torah hello you should live for the torah so the khov khan asked this question so he says right away it says hi them you should live by them your muslims shouldn't die from them so what does it mean you one should die for it so he says he should think and conceive as if he is dead meaning nothing else exists and when he's learning he shouldn't turn to other things that's the main that's that's that's what it's all about being able to hyper focus knowing what's really really important if this is important to you this is what you would do i want to mention now about marriage right so since we're talking about and it sounds really weird because in judaism we're the one real i shouldn't say we're the one religion we're one of the main religions that do not believe in this monastery celibacy kind of thing right and it's very important you want to be a a torah scholar you should get married early not in the don't delay so here go more in conducion 29b ravuna conforms to standard line of reasoning and he says if one's 20 years old and has not yet married a woman all of his days will be in a state of sin concerning sexual matters okay this for men is very easy to understand and anybody that doesn't understand it you can write me an email we'll talk about it the gamer asks what it can really enter your mind is going to be in the state of sin all of these days so rather this is what it means all of his days he will be in a state of thoughts of sin one who does not marry in his youth will become accustomed to thoughts of sexual matters and the habit will remain with him for the rest of his life so in other words it will have a far reaching repercussions the later you marry it's just a fact okay and it was similarly mentioned in the school of rabbi ishmael he taught that until one reaches the age of 20 years old the holy one blesses me sits and waits for a man saying when we marry a woman once he reaches the age of 20 and he hasn't married his bones will swell and he's basically cursed god knows god is no longer concerned about him i think today that the age is much later but anyway ref kista says the fact that i am superior than all my colleagues is because i got married at the age of 16. and if i would have married at the age of 14 it would be like saying to the sun an arrow in your eye now this is a very deep uh concept it means that i wouldn't be afraid of the evil inclination at all what i'm trying to say by this quoting this gemara is what does it mean purity we have to be able to control like we spoke about our emotions and our thoughts and it's very difficult and for most men especially today i don't know maybe always was and and the the sooner you find your soul mate and try to um you know make a home hopefully a pure home a holy house and you'll have an easier time let's say not everyone's like that there's a gemara here the rambam speaks about it and in the torah a person should always study torah and then afterwards he should get married so he's assuming the first few years until you're 18 or 20 but if he matter if he marries first his mind will not be for free for study however if his natural inclination overcomes him to the extent his mind is not free then he should first get married and then study torah um lack and more can be said about it but i want to mention a couple more verses and in deuteronomy chapter 23 verse 10. you want to read it deuteronomy verse 10 10 says when a camp goes out against your enemies you shall beware of everything evil now what does this mean this evil first of all it could be lashin hara right we're not supposed to speak lash nahara it could be from the context we're talking about making sure you carry a shovel and you take care of your uh your business yeah you take out your business uh it shouldn't have anything evil in the camp however we want to talk about this in a different context and i'm going to bring gamora it's clean gamora vodasara 20a the gamora cites another source that interprets these okay the sages taught the brice and you shall keep yourself from everything evil which immediately is followed by another verse so read verse 11 in deuteronomy 23 verse 11 11 says if there is among you a man who is unclean because of a nocturnal emission he shall go outside the camp he shall not come within the camp okay so now go back to verse 10 it says and you shall keep yourself from everything evil and right away verse 11 is talking about the thoughts that a man had during the day bringing what we'll call a nocturnally mission for those who are not a we could look it up okay if you don't know what that is so basically what you think about during the day is going to have an effect on you at night so the gamora teaches us that a person should not think in pure thoughts by day and therefore come to the impurity of an emission at night so i hope that's kind of clear that we're talking about purity how can one concentrate on torah if all he's thinking about is the ball game or you know whatever the the bar and the parties that are going on after work right it's uh it takes a lot of effort okay i'm not going to deny it and it takes a lot like a muscle your brain is a muscle as far as i know and you can build it up you know there are connections that could be made there are unfortunately connections that need to be not made right whatever so but it's how do we say a mind is a terrible thing to waste so my wish to everybody is to take some of these lessons to heart to figure out ways to purify our thoughts our emotions uh our way of thinking our goals and in order to get there we expressed a few things to meditate on uh king david's saying in psalm 16 8 by placing hashem before you always right knowing that if you want to acquire the torah you have to die for it what does that mean it doesn't literally mean die for it but it means to weaken your physical and you know denying yourself certain um luxuries perhaps and hopefully getting married or working and having a peaceful home because having a peaceful home is one of the the best ways to ensure you'll be able to concentrate on torah because as rosh shashiva of knocho he says a happy wife is a happy life and if you're if you're not working on your marriage and it's work uh your your learning will suffer right your ability to concentrate on what's important you know you'll be sleeping on the couch who knows what you know what i mean with the dog all these are very important lessons and i hope that uh i didn't i might have skipped a few things but uh i guess you guys got the the gist of it right pretty good stuff purity for sure rabbi i i love the way each week has a different topic a different and it dives into it deep it doesn't just skim over it shallow even though you may not have gone through every lesson or every every point that you've recorded you know that this is something that could unfurl the study of purity is just and i just look forward to hearing each and every week in this 48 ways to wisdom series because there's always something there that one could take and just dive in deeper deeper deeper but purity i want to thank you you really you got me today thinking about things i never heard on this even though i've taken this class before but when you're sharing it boys some beauty in there and thank you so much rabbi all right we'll see you next week right all right then folks hashem well and we'll see you next week same time till then have a great week folks [Music] is