Good evening, and welcome. Thank you, everyone, for coming. Of course, I appreciate it immensely. Some sponsors sponsored anonymously. First of all, I want to thank the sponsors for giving me their names. So it worked. I appreciate it. I was able to reach out to them, and I very much appreciate knowing who they were.
This week we have two co-sponsors. I know who they are. They are sponsoring for the spiritual success of our old friend, Yosef Ben Batya, and for another person’s spiritual success. Of course, these mean the most to me. I appreciate them the most because when somebody’s only goal is to be successful spiritually, that’s what we’re doing here. That’s exactly what we’re learning. To me, that’s the person who got the message. So, wonderful. Thank you very much. Help from Heaven that you should find the right avodah (service) and be successful with it, B'ezrat Hashem. And you should go to great heights. Amen.
Last week, the exercise was to nullify oneself in the place of Hashem’s will: understanding and living with the awareness of Hashem Echad (Hashem is one), Ein Od Milevado, everything about this world is only Hashem’s will. A manifestation of Hashem’s will. And putting yourself in that category, putting yourself under that umbrella, recognizing that your whole existence is also part of Hashem’s will.
We say every morning: What are we? What is our life, our favor, our righteousness? All the strong people are like nothing before You. The smart people are as if they have no brains. The wise, the just, different ways, different types of wisdom—as if people don’t think. The difference between a man and an animal is nothing. Everything is vanity, we say. Vanity. The most famous pasuk (verse): “Everything is vanity.” What does that mean, everything is vanity? The entire world doesn’t mean anything. It’s all meaningless, it’s all fake, it’s all a mirage. It doesn’t even really exist if you understand it properly.
Nefesh HaChaim explains how the entire world doesn’t even really exist. It’s all part of Hashem’s imagination, part of Hashem’s will; it’s a manifestation of His will, including our own existence, including our own physical existence. As we continue, it says, “Except for the pure,” that’s going to end up going in front of You in judgment.
Levad ha-neshamah ha-tehorah she'atidah liten din vecheshbon lifnei kisei kevodecha (except for the pure that's going to end up going in front of you in judgment).
So everything we just mentioned is nothing. All our wisdom, all our strength, everything that we have is nothing except for the neshamah (soul). That means our entire physical existence and everything about it, including the rest of the world, is nothing. And the main thing is to look inward at ourselves, also as part of that world: everything is nothing except for our spiritual side.
So we understand that the nullification of one’s physical self is the essence of anavah (humility). This is the level of Moshe Rabbeinu when he said, “We are nothing. What are we?” We are nothing. And that’s what we’re saying in the morning. We’re using the same word ma to say that we’re nothing. We’re trying to emulate the level of Moshe, who had the greatest anavah of all time, as we know.
So this was last week’s exercise. I hope you all got it. I hope everybody tried it. We were just talking before, and we had some success here. It was very nice and encouraging to hear, and I want to encourage you once again to keep going, especially if you see success like this. It should motivate you to see what you can do, to really understand and see what your potential is. If this is what you did in such a short time, imagine what you could accomplish if you keep to it. The feeling that you’re growing is the greatest feeling of accomplishment, the greatest sense of fulfillment: feeling that you’re growing in spirituality, getting closer to Hashem. This should encourage and motivate you to keep going even stronger.
You have to understand that there’s no limit to the levels we can reach. We can go as high as the Avot (forefathers). A person always has to say, “When are my deeds going to reach the level of the deeds of my forefathers?” So it sounds way out there. We don’t even understand what they were. We can’t even fathom a fraction of their level. But Yad Chachamim tells us we have to aspire to be like that, and we have to wish every day, “When are we going to be like that?” And in the prayers every day, we mention them. This is not the main thing we’re supposed to have in mind, but, you know what, it’s a good opportunity to say, “When? How? I wish.” And Chovot HaLevavot teaches us that if a person wants it, even if he can’t reach it, if he really wants it, that’s good too. Hashem sees that, and He gives help based on how much you want it.
So even if you tell me that we can’t do it, that it’s way too high for us, that we can’t even get to the next level, that you don’t see how you’re ever going to be able to do it, and, you know, you’re just not there, with the physical and the spiritual and the whole thing—if we want it really deep down, that’s also a level. Hashem sees that too, like we learned. Hashem sees your kidneys, right? Hashem sees everything. So He sees how much you yearn, how much you want. He sees it. He sees it. And that makes it a big deal. That’s a big deal. Your yearnings and desires don’t go to waste. It’s part of the whole program: to want it, to want it really badly. Even just working on wanting it is something to work on. Work on how much you’re going to want it. Get yourself to want it even stronger. How strong is that feeling? Sometimes you can have that feeling, but it’s very, very weak, very minute. You want it, but it’s not so strong. Make it even stronger, until it totally overtakes you. These are levels that we can achieve, and Baruch Hashem, we see we’re getting somewhere. So it’s motivation; it’s very encouraging to keep going further.
I think maybe one or two more classes, and we’re going to put a wrap-up on anavah. We’re getting to the end. I want to go through a few things that Chovot HaLevavot brings down about ways anavah manifests in real life. Some of them we’ve learned already. We’ll go over a few of them. Each one represents a new area of service, of work. We can work on ourselves in each of these areas. There are a lot of points. I’m not sure you’ll remember all of them, but with each one, whoever talks to you the most, you’ll see something you’d like to work on. Some of them we’ve learned already, like I said. Some of them are new.
So let’s see. The first thing we learned from the beginning was to identify with the neshamah. When a person identifies with his neshamah, that means he understands his real self is his spiritual side. The physical side is just tools, like we’ve been saying, and everything physical doesn’t really matter. It’s only the spiritual. We have to know that this develops into a real yearning to get closer to Hashem, like we were just saying. The physical, the body, acts as separations, as barriers between us and Hashem, between the neshamah and getting close to Hashem.
If a person would intellectually take his body off his soul—it’s hard to do, but it’s possible. It’s possible; I’ve done it. You can really feel the presence of your neshamah. You can take your body off your soul; you really can. You can identify with your neshamah and feel your neshamah bursting forth. And you’ll feel that magnetic pull that the neshamah has to Hashem. You can feel it. You can feel it. This will give you such a yearning just to get closer, as close as you possibly can. You’ll do anything. You’ll sacrifice everything just to get a little closer, just to feel close. It’s a deep, deep yearning. It’s an awesome feeling. It’s like a magnetic pull; you feel like you’re being pulled toward something. But you have to really identify with your neshamah. It can be a moment of inspiration. It can be a moment of clarity where, if you’re contemplating for a long time, you can really have some clarity, really understand things very clearly. You can really identify with your neshamah, and this will bring you to such a yearning to get closer to Hashem. And that’s something anavah brings. This is a level of anavah where a person could just totally do away with his body.
To be able to tolerate different situations, different people doing different things to you—not to you, to other people, whatever; things and surrounding situations that go on in your life, in your everyday life, little and petty annoyances. To be able to tolerate these things because your calling in life is to get closer to Hashem, and your calling in life is only spirituality. These things that go on in our everyday life are trivial, unimportant. You’ll feel like they’re unimportant because you have something that’s more important. It doesn’t put them down; it’s because you have something so much higher. That makes those things feel unimportant. And when something’s unimportant, it doesn’t bother you.
There’s a story about one of the great Chachamim (wise sages) who was being tortured to death. The person doing it asked the rabbi, “Please, when you get upstairs, don’t hold it against me. You know? Forgive me. Don’t hold it against me up there. I’m just doing my job, whatever you tell me.”
So the rabbi told him, “Imagine you have two little kids playing in the sand, or three little kids playing in the sand, and they build a castle. After spending so much time building a whole big formation or whatever, one of the other kids comes and knocks it all down. That kid is so upset, goes home very angry, and wants to get back at him. He’s a little kid, very angry at him for ruining all his work. Twenty years later, they grow up, and that kid meets the other kid again, the one who ruined his castle. Do you think that kid is still going to be angry at him twenty years later, as an adult? No. It’s petty. He’s a kid. He was a little kid. Of course he’s not even going to remember that. Even if he remembers, he doesn’t care anymore. That was immature, playing with stuff that doesn’t even matter. We’re on to bigger and better things right now.”
So the rabbi told him, “When I go up there, I’m going to be in such a better situation. Do you think I’m going to care about what you’re doing to me now? It’s so trivial.”
Along the same vein, that’s a high level, to think about it that way. But along the same vein, it’s not so high: when a person is focused on spirituality and understands its benefit and why it’s so great and what’s so much better about it, and then he gets one of these petty annoyances—no matter how petty or not petty they really are, how important or unimportant it is, how insulted it makes you or how offended you get, or whatever it does to you—when you put it all into perspective, you see how it’s a little kid in the castle. That’s what it is. And if it’s a little kid in the castle and your mind is somewhere else, it doesn’t bother you. That’s the idea. That’s what savlanut is: to tolerate, to tolerate. Why? Tolerate because you understand that you’re in a better place. You have better things to focus on. You have more important things to think about, more important things to focus on. And whatever happens to my physical consciousness, my mental stability, my emotional feelings, whatever happens to that, it doesn’t matter. It’s not important. I’m worried about my spirituality. That’s the idea. You can master that in some way. When these annoyances happen, think about it. And like we had before, even if it takes a few hours to really feel it, that’s good. It’s okay. Maybe next time it’ll be a little faster, and then it’ll be instant.
That’s a total part of anavah, because you’re nullifying your physical self. That’s why the Gemara gives tremendous praise to a person who gets insulted and doesn’t insult back. The natural reaction is to give a comeback line. When somebody gives you a line, what’s the natural reaction? Figure out what you’re going to answer back. Answer back. Don’t take that answer back, right? Or do something back, take revenge, or something somehow to make yourself feel better. But no, this person is going to be quiet. They hear their cherpatan (their disgrace), and they don’t answer. Not because they have nothing to say, and not because they’re not allowed to say something, but because they don’t want to say it. They’re not interested. It doesn’t bother them. They don’t have to say anything.
People who love Hashem shine like the sun in the afternoon. Imagine the Gemara calls you a person who shines like the sun. It’s not people telling you that; this is the Gemara telling you how Hashem views you. This is the view Hashem has of you. Hashem looks at you like a person who is shining like the sun. Think about that for a minute. For a person to be able to reach such a level that Hashem sees him as somebody who’s shining—it’s almost hard to imagine, hard to fathom how you can even be certain. How much of an accomplishment would that be? Think about that. Just think about that. Think about the kind of accomplishment you can achieve: to be a person Hashem regards as someone who shines like the sun. It’s unbelievable. It’s the greatest, greatest accomplishment you can imagine. Hashem is going to be so proud of you. What’s better than Hashem being proud of you? Isn’t that the greatest thing in the world? Hashem being proud of you. Right? The greatest. It’s the greatest.
And this is what you can get. When somebody insults you, I heard from my friend Rabbi Joey. He said in a speech once, “If you want your prayers to have power, you want to take your prayers and put them in the afterburners, where they’ll be powerful enough to break down anything. The next time you get insulted and don’t answer back is a time when you have this tremendous zechut (merit). Pray as soon as it happens. Go to the side, take out a Tehillim, and pray. Pray for something, pray for somebody. Pray, pray, pray. It’s a tremendous, tremendous time. Hashem is looking at you like a shining sun. It’s unbelievable the power you’re going to have. It’s like at that time you’ll be the greatest Gadol; you’ll be the greatest Gadol on earth at that time. Unbelievable.”
So that’s a good trick. It’s a good thing to do. Or Bein Adam LeChavero (between one person and another): judging a person favorably. It’s all part of anavah. When a person is judgmental about somebody else and starts looking at somebody and saying, “Why is he doing that? He must be this, and he must be that,” then we’re all guilty of this. If a person had proper humility, he wouldn’t feel that he has to judge people. He’ll always have people who are better than him in some way. He’ll find good in people, to the point that they’re better than him in some way. Even if he’s great, it doesn’t matter. He’ll find a way to make that person better than him in some way or another: “He’s better than me in this area.” And therefore, who is he to judge him? He’s going to judge him favorably.
Judging favorably is a big part of anavah. So when a person feels judgmental and puts people down in his mind, he’s getting himself respect through the downfall of others. That means even if he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t speak lashon hara (evil speech), doesn’t say anything to anyone, doesn’t do anything about it, in his mind he feels better than somebody else because of what he just saw: “Oh, that guy.” That’s mitkhabed bikhlon chaveiro: he’s giving himself respect with the downfall of others. At least in his mind, he’s getting respect. He himself is giving himself respect with the downfall of others.
This is a big part of ga'avah (arrogance), of arrogance, because he feels like he’s something special. If a person had proper humility, he would be able to see the greatness in other people. He’d be able to see all the different qualities a person can have that could be better than him. You never know a person’s situation. There are all kinds of things you can talk about. You never know that person’s situation, what challenges he’s dealing with. How would you perform in that situation? You have no idea. You don’t know what the situation is. You would never know. That’s why you can never judge. You’d always find favor in other people.
If somebody did something to you, you’d forgive him immediately. Just like we were talking before: when Miriam said something about Moshe, Moshe forgave her. You know why? Because the pasuk says that he forgave her because he was humble. Being humble would help you not hold a grudge against somebody, no matter what they did to you.
Because of what we’re talking about, your drive for physical pleasures will be dulled. You don’t even have to work on this. If you did everything else, it’s going to happen automatically. Your drive for luxuries, your drive for physicality, is going to be dulled. It’s going to be softened. You’re not going to feel that strong urge. This is what happens when I never have a soul. That drive is going to affect his actions. It’s going to affect the way he goes about his life. People will notice it if it’s real. His insides will be like his outsides. He’ll be real deep down, because his inner drive will be less, so he won’t do things that other people do.
You see things people do to make money, how much they give themselves over to things they would never do, but if it’s in the name of business, all of a sudden everything is okay and everything is right. You won’t have such a drive, because that drive is a drive to make money; that’s where it’s from. If a person is just doing hishtadlut (effort) to make a living, he doesn’t have that drive. He doesn’t have that drive. His drive is in other areas. His drive is in spirituality. He doesn’t have that strong drive. So it’ll come out. It has to be real. It has to be real deep down. The drive of spirituality will be stronger. You’ll always look for opportunities to grow more.
See, there’s a difference between physical drive and spiritual drive. Physical drive is when a person needs a physical thing, a physical pleasure. Even if he goes after that need and succumbs to his drive, after a while he doesn’t need it anymore. The person is hungry and wants to eat good food. He’s in the mood for good food, so he goes and gets some good gourmet food and eats it. After a while, he can’t eat anymore. Think of any physical pleasure in the world. If you keep indulging, if you keep going more and more and more, eventually you don’t want it anymore. You’re not interested. You lose interest. That’s physical.
Spirituality works the other way. The more you get it, the more you get involved in it, and the more it seeps into you, the more you want it. You’re never going to be satisfied. The drive just gets stronger and stronger. This is a spiritual drive. It’s a whole different thing. You can never be satisfied and say, “Okay, I’ve had enough.” No, you’re never going to feel that. The more you get, the more you feel like there’s more; the more you see the higher levels, the more you’ll feel that you want to grow higher and higher and higher. That spiritual drive never goes away; it will never be satisfied. You’ll keep praying for help. You’ll keep praying for Hashem to help you in these situations. You’ll keep trying to find opportunities. You’ll be looking for opportunities to grow. Sometimes you’ll even put yourself out there physically just to create an opportunity. You know, right or wrong, there are things brought down—I don’t know if I should even tell you this. There are great levels of great Chachamim from previous generations. They used to purposely torture themselves. It’s called Sigufim. Purposely hurt themselves. They viewed it as a challenge to grow in spirituality. It’s way above our head, way above our head. We have enough hardships that come from Hashem; we don’t need to make them. We don’t need to make them. But that’s what they used to do. It’s the same thing, just a different level: you’re giving up your physical for your spiritual. It’s just a different level; you’re going into the negative. It’s a different level, but it’s really the same. We don’t do that. We don’t advocate that just because we’re so far away from it, and we have enough trouble on our own. We don’t need to create more. But the idea is to give up your physical for the spiritual because of the never-ending drive. It’s such a strong drive; you can never satisfy it. The more you go, the stronger it gets, and it just grows, it snowballs, and it just keeps going and going. It’s a tremendous existence.
If he would do something in the service of Hashem, even if it looks low-line or looks embarrassing, he wouldn’t be embarrassed. He’d be proud because his whole goal is to serve Hashem. He doesn’t care what everybody thinks. He doesn’t care what everybody says. This is a person who understands that whatever he’s doing in the service of Hashem is the most idealistic and most altruistic way to live. If he’s doing something in the service of Hashem and everybody’s looking at him funny, he’s not even going to see it. He doesn’t even care about it. He’s going to be focused only on serving Hashem. It’s going to be the proudest moment of his life, doing it in public.
We find David HaMelech. When they got the Aron HaKodesh—the Aron—back from the Pelishtim, they were bringing it to Yerushalayim with a whole parade. So you have to picture it, visualize it. David is the king. You have to understand what a king is. Take a president of the United States: he’s a very important person, with security and all the respect and everything. A king is even more than that. A king is a whole different thing. So imagine David is the king, and he’s dancing. He’s dancing in front of the Aron. As a matter of fact, his wife thought it was unbecoming. It was below his dignity to dance in public in front of the Aron. She didn’t say anything to him. She wasn’t going to say anything to her husband, the king. But in her mind, she felt that it was unbecoming; she looked down at the act. And because of that, she never had children in her whole life, because she looked down at her husband for dancing in honor of Hashem.
The pasuk says the king was dancing in front of the Aron as Kavod Shamayim (honor of Heaven). That was Kavod Shamayim to him. That was Kavod Shamayim. It was the most respectful thing to do because he was giving kavod to Shamayim. He would sit with other kings and talk about divrei Torah (words of Torah). You know, when diplomats sit together, they don’t talk Torah. They talk politics, important things about the world economy, and this and that, issues. David would say, “I will talk your laws in front of other kings, and I’m not embarrassed.” He would sit in front of the kings and talk to them about Torah, give a class. He’s a king. And the altruist told him that divrei Torah was his proudest subject.
So this is where we have to be. No matter what it looks like, no matter what it feels like, we should be most proud to serve Hashem in public. You should know, Kiddush Hashem means when you serve Hashem in public. That’s Kiddush Hashem. It’s not what people think Kiddush Hashem is—not this and that. No, Kiddush Hashem is when you serve Hashem in public. That’s Kiddush Hashem. If people don’t understand and think it’s wrong, it doesn’t matter. That’s Kiddush Hashem, because you showed Hashem in public.
Chilul Hashem is when you desecrate Hashem in public, when you do something wrong in public, or you violate the Torah in public. That’s Chilul Hashem. It doesn’t matter if you’re doing something that’s right and people think it’s wrong because they don’t understand, they don’t know the law or how it’s supposed to be, and they think that’s wrong. Everybody tells you, “Chilul Hashem.” It’s not Chilul Hashem. It’s Kiddush Hashem, because you’re keeping the Torah in public. That’s Kiddush Hashem. Simple. Very simple. When you keep the Torah in public, it’s Kiddush Hashem. If the people around you don’t understand what keeping the Torah is, and they see you doing something they think you shouldn’t be doing, but the reality is that we’re supposed to do that, that’s Kiddush Hashem. Remember what they say: it’s Kiddush Hashem. Keep the Torah in public. Kiddush Hashem.
So when a person has anavah, he’s not going to care about all these things. He’s only going to care about doing Kiddush Hashem. Keeping the Torah in public and serving Hashem in public will be his greatest honor. He’ll be satisfied with all his situations. Back to that again: I never woke up and yearned for a different situation. I never woke up in the morning and wished my situation were any different. I was always completely satisfied with my situation the way it was, every part of it.
The situation—even though you can do hishtadlut to try to change it, yes, do hishtadlut to try to change it, yes, 100 percent—but in your mind and mentally, you’re not wishing for it to change. You’re happy and accepting of the way it is.
“What’s that? Even a spiritual situation?” No. I’m talking about physical situations. A spiritual situation—you’re supposed to... No, you’re never happy with your spiritual situation. You always have to try to get better, always have to try to grow. You never accept yourself. People have it backwards today: “Oh, I accept what I am. This is what I am.” No. You don’t accept. You accept where you are physically, not spiritually. Spiritually, you don’t accept. Physically, you accept. The other way around.
That’s the way it’s supposed to be, and this is anavah. It’s part of anavah. When you have total nullification of your physical self, then you’re not even going to care. You’re not going to care for it to change.
And we’ll talk about prayer one day. Maybe when you see something that’s against Kavod Shamayim, when you see somebody doing something wrong in public, it’s going to bother you. How to react, whether you should make a public spectacle out of it—that’s a different situation. It’s a different subject. It’s a question for another time. But at least it’s got to bother you. It’s got to bother you deeply. If you’re just going to say, “Mind my own business, live and let live,” that means you don’t care about Hashem. That means you don’t care enough. It’s got to bother you. If a person cares about bringing out Kavod Shamayim in the world, and cares about his own spiritual growth so much, when he sees somebody else doing something in public that desecrates Hashem, it’s going to bother him. It’s got to bother you. How much does it bother you? These are the levels we could be on. Does it bother you a little bit? Does it bother you a lot? Does it eat you up? Eat you up inside? Are you ready to explode? You can’t control yourself? “Yeah, one day we’ll teach him.” You know, “Can’t blame him,” that kind of talk. It’s got to bother you. It’s got to bother you. If it doesn’t bother you, that means something’s wrong with your world. It’s got to bother you. It’s got to bother you deeply. What to do about it? Okay, you have to be smart. You always have to be smart. I’m not advocating any kind of public spectacle. I’m not saying that. That’s a whole other question for another time. But at least, at the very least, it’s got to bother you deeply. You want to do something, at least. But you want to do something, and you have to hold yourself back. How much does it bother you? Those are the levels.
So, exercise for the week: you can pick any one of these. Anybody can go over what we learned. Pick one of them and work on it for this week. Next week, hopefully, we’ll do a wrap-up. This was kind of a wrap-up. We’ll do another wrap-up next week, maybe, and then maybe we’ll move on to the next one. Okay, so much along. Thank you for coming. We’ll see you next week, hopefully soon.