אוקיי, טובה מורי, אבאים, בואו נגדל. גדול להציג אתכם. אהלן איתכם, אשם, אוהבים אתכם כלכם יום יום יום יום. אנחנו נמצאים בקרובים המסערים נשארים. בספציפית, אנחנו נמצאים ביום נשאר. פסטרנו לנסים על סגנות הפלגות. כמו פסטרנו ביום נשאר, אנחנו כאן במהלך השביל, כדי שתקחו פלגות.
In this world and the next world. But as we said yesterday, pleasures are not simple. Pleasures are things that have to be studied: what they are and how to get to them. Yesterday we described this world. We compared it to an airplane that's on a flight. We explained that on an airplane, a person can travel in different ways. There could be many people on the airplane, but not all of them have the same right. We explained and divided it up into five classes. We said a person can go first class, nothing better than that. And then we said he can go second, third, fourth, and fifth class.
Similarly, we are all flying right now on this planet Earth. Literally, we are flying. The planet, as we sit on it, looks like everything is calm and nothing is moving, but that's far from the truth. The planet that we are on right now is flying at extremely high speeds through space, making its turn around the sun. That takes one year.
So on this flight that we are on, we want to have pleasure, and we are expected to have pleasure. Before we go into categorizing these five different classes when it comes to pleasure, we first must give the rules of pleasure. We are going to lay down three rules. With these three rules, we will be able to go through each class and each category and get the maximum out of that pleasure.
Rule number one, when we are going to be learning about the pleasures, is that you have to be aware of the counterfeit. You have to be aware of those things that look like the pleasure you are looking for, that feel like the pleasure, but are not it. For every pleasure that we are going to describe, there is going to be something very similar to it. And if you go for the wrong one, you end up with nothing.
It's very similar to a person who is working day and night for many years in order to save up money so he can buy a nice home for himself. He has all of his money put away. He has cash, and he puts it away in the vault. Week after week, he is putting money in there. He accumulates millions of dollars. And when he is ready to spend it, when he finally goes years later to buy the home he has been waiting for, they tell him, when he shows up with that money, that the money is counterfeit. If a person has counterfeit money, he has nothing. He worked and worked and worked and came up with nothing.
Counterfeit pleasures are exactly the same way, but even worse. I am looking for a certain pleasure that we are going to learn about. I think I have it, but in the end, if I go for the wrong one, not only will I come up empty, like with counterfeit money, it's actually worse, as we will soon see. I am actually damaging myself. It's not like I just didn't get to the pleasures that I wanted. I am going to end up going down and actually living with a lot of pain.
That is rule number one. Before you can be a cashier in a retail store, you first have to know what the counterfeit dollar looks like, because if you don't know what the counterfeit looks like, although you can run for the pleasure you think you are getting, you may be getting the wrong thing. Be careful. That is rule number one: beware of the counterfeit.
Rule number two. We live in a country where the goal of most people, even at a young age, is to get to a point in their life where they don't have to do anything. You can speak to a 20-year-old, and you will hear that their dream is to make a lot of money. Everyone is looking to retire, basically to do nothing. Our dream is to sit somewhere on a beach chair, being served cocktails, not having to do very much. We work hard so we can have vacation. We work 5 days so we can enjoy too. Most people in this country—I can't speak for other countries—their goal in life is basically to do nothing.
Again, they may have to work very hard to get there, but this is a life of pleasure in their mind. By the way, here is an example of something counterfeit. It's not true. If you think you are going to find pleasure by doing nothing, you are extremely mistaken. A human is not built to sit around and do nothing. A human is built to work. It is actually in the work that he puts in that he will find pleasure.
So therefore, rule number two is: we must know the rule in order to get any of the pleasures that we are going to be discussing. No pain, no pleasure. You are not going to be able to have real pleasures in life unless they come with an investment, unless there is sacrifice.
For example, being a doctor is a tremendous pleasure. Here you have a person who has the ability to help so many people on a daily basis: people who are in pain, people who are at risk of losing their life. And here you are with the magic wand, able to make them feel healthy. You are able to give them life, to do a surgery and make things good again. Most people have the ability to help others by perhaps opening the door for them, perhaps writing out a check to help them financially, or maybe giving them a smile to make them feel good. But how many of us have the ability to give someone life? Doctors have that ability.
It is a great pleasure to be a doctor. It is a great pleasure to be with people on that level. But you can't have that pleasure unless you put in the pain. It is not possible to be a doctor and enjoy that type of life if you don't put in the pain of going to school, of going to medical school, of staying up at night in your studies, of passing those tests, of going to work in a hospital like a slave for a few years. You have to do residency. There is a lot that goes into becoming a doctor. Years and years of work. But that is the rule. The rule in life is: no pain, no pleasure.
Usually, you don't need too much pain for counterfeit pleasures, but real pleasures require investment, to the point that even a pleasure that doesn't require pain is probably counterfeit. So beware. Be careful. And anything that a person can enjoy in life—even the smallest pleasures, even the pleasure of playing ball. There is a pleasure in playing ball. There is a pleasure in playing the piano and making music. But you can't play the piano without pain, without investment. You have to practice. You have to get lessons. You cannot just sit in front of a piano and stop playing beautiful music. Never happened.
Things of pleasure don't just happen. You have to put in the pain. You cannot just enjoy playing basketball unless you put in the pain of practicing: practicing your shot, practicing your dribble, practicing your left hand. Only with practice, only with the sacrifice of your time and your energy, will you be able to get to a level where you'll be able to enjoy playing a basketball game.
For some people, playing basketball is so much pleasure. They can do it for hours and hours. They meet a friend—we'll call him a friend from Mars—who never saw basketball, who never saw people playing with a round ball, trying to get it into a net. And you take him for a treat. You say, "I'm going to take you somewhere very, very special." You take him to a professional NBA basketball game. It's a big arena with thousands of people sitting in their chairs. And what does he see down in the middle? He sees ten men running back and forth hundreds of times. He sees them elbow each other. He sees them foul each other. He sees them sweating. They're out of breath.
His friend tells him, "You know, this is a great game." The Martian says, "A great game? What did these people do wrong? They make them run back and forth five hundred times. Look at them, they're sweating. We're sitting here relaxed. What did they do wrong?"
These guys love it. They love it. He says, "Really love it? How could you love that?" He says, "Come tomorrow. Come, we'll play ball together. I'll show you how sweet it is."
The guy comes onto the court the next day. He comes in the morning with his shiny shoes and his tight jeans. He comes with a cup of Starbucks coffee that his friend gave him. And now he's coming to play basketball. Within two minutes, his coffee is spilling all over him. The ball is hitting him in the head. He tries to get it in, but it doesn't even go close to the basket.
After five minutes: "This is pleasure? You call this pleasure? You told me playing ball is pleasure. What pleasure? All that happened to me is I got coffee on me. I got hit in the head. I can't even get close to the basket. This is not pleasure."
Of course, if you're a good friend, you tell him, "This is not pleasure now, but if you practice, you'll be able to enjoy it." You cannot enjoy a game that needs skill if you don't put in the effort. It's a rule in life. It's not only a rule in basketball. It's a rule in anything that has pleasure attached to it. No pain, no pleasure. Take it as a rule.
So while the American dream is to enter and end up doing nothing in life, what the real dream should be is: what areas do I need to sacrifice? What areas do I have to give of myself? What areas do I have to invest in so I can have real pleasures?
And rule number three. You know, after you hear that, after you hear "no pain, no pleasure," the American mind begins to wonder and say, "Oh, forget it. I hate that word investment, sacrifice. Who wants those things?" So right away, you lose the guy.
It's true. Yeah, it's true. I want the pleasure of being able to play music on a piano. Yeah, it's true. I would love to be able to heal people and be a doctor. It's true. I'd love to be a great Talmid Chacham (Torah scholar), and I'd be able to learn the Torah. It's true. I would love that. But when I hear the word pain, it's not worth it. I'm not putting in ten years. I'm not able to sacrifice like that. As much as you'll tell me how much pleasure I will have in doing all of these things, when you hear the word pain, you step back, because we're afraid. We're afraid of painful experiences.
So someone listening now is saying, "Okay, I got the first pleasure, first rule: no counterfeit. I gotta learn what those are. Now you're telling me no pain, no pleasure. I'm not sure that I can do this. But let me tell you the third rule, which will make the second rule a little bit easier."
Let's go back to the basketball game. We have ten people on the court running back and forth, literally. If you play two or three hours, you probably run back and forth, who knows, four or five hundred times. Anybody who's in decent shape could do that, and people love it. They enjoy it.
Now what would you do if you were on a basketball court and you saw ten guys playing ball, and you took the ball away and told them, "Continue. Go ahead. Just continue running back and forth"? How many times do you think a person could run back and forth on a basketball court without the basketball?
So I can tell you from experience, I don't think you can make it past ten, fifteen times. Maybe twenty times. By the twentieth time, you're out of breath. You can't make it anymore. And it's real. It's not a fake thing. The guy feels he can't do it anymore. How many times could you run back and forth, turn around, back, run forth? Can't do it.
So I ask you, how was he able to do it for three hours? You can't do it for ten minutes without a ball. With the ball, you could do it for hours. People could play for six, seven, eight hours. The same thing. The same person. With the ball, you can go on. Without the ball, you can't do it. Why?
The answer is very simple. Running back and forth requires effort. It's a sacrifice. It's part of the game. You're not going to be able to play ball if you don't do that. You can't sit on a beach chair and play basketball. It doesn't work. So it depends. So long as there's a ball on the court, then you don't feel the pain. So long as you keep your eye on the ball—the ball being the pleasure, the enjoyment of the game—if you keep your eye on the ball, you don't feel the pain. You're going through the same pain, but you don't feel it. That's why you can continue playing for hours at a time. Take the ball away, and you can't do it anymore.
That's the third rule for today. If you keep your eye on the pleasure, you won't feel the pain. So although we said, "No pain, no pleasure; no sacrifice, no pleasure," it's true. So I'm going to live now. So that means if I'm going to be a doctor, I'm going to suffer for 10 years? You're telling me till I become a doctor, till I become a scholar? Is that what you're telling me?
No, it depends. If you're going to medical school and you have your eye on the ball, you have your eye on the pleasure of being a doctor, if you're focused on the pleasure, you will not feel the pain. You will go through 10 years of school. You will go through residency, and you won't feel it. Yes, it would be considered a sacrifice, but you're loving it. The same way you're loving running on a basketball court 100 times, 500 times. There's a ball there. When the ball is there, all you see is the ball, and you don't feel the pain.
But imagine going to medical school and forgetting why you went there. Imagine you're there and you forgot. Then staying up at night is going to be very painful. How many times could you do that? How much could you sacrifice without feeling such a painful experience? Because your eye is not on the pleasure.
That's rule number 3. You got to know that rule. Even though rule number 2 says, "No pain, no pleasure," if you keep your eye on the pleasure, you won't feel the pain.
Now I know right now I'm talking in theory, and you guys are probably frustrated. What is this guy talking about? All I am doing is giving you rules, not talking to you practically. But we have to know the rules first. I can't go on. I told you, pleasure is a study. I can't just start giving you the pleasures on a silver platter. We have to know the rules. These are the rules.
So again, rule number 1: beware of the counterfeit. Rule number 2: any real pleasure in life requires pain, requires sacrifice. Rule number 3: keep your eye on the pleasure, and you won't feel the pain. You'll actually enjoy it.
So let's put some reality to this. Let's start with 5th class. What is the lowest class of pleasure? Remember, that's compared to flying off the wing of the airplane, holding onto a rope. You will enjoy life in this class of pleasures, and you will enjoy it if you do it the right way. Even 5th class pleasure. I don't know how fun it is on the airplane to hold onto the rope, but in life, even 5th class pleasure is actually enjoyable. But you got to do it right. Even 5th class has to be done right.
What is the category of pleasures? What are the pleasures in 5th class? The answer is that in 5th class over there, you'll find all physical pleasures, like eating, drinking, sleeping, resting, relationships, male, female—physical pleasures. All of us are very well accustomed to these pleasures. We know about them. Probably they are more familiar to us than any other pleasure.
If your life is full of physical pleasures, then you are living in 5th class. Again, it doesn't mean it's a bad thing. It's just the lowest level. There are much higher pleasures than that. But again, if done right, a person can actually enjoy 5th class. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the physical world. Hashem gave us this world to enjoy it. So many different types of foods. That's why he made so many different types of drinks. He gave us pleasures, and he gave us the ability to enjoy them. He didn't just make the food. He also gave us the mouth to be able to taste it and enjoy it. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the physical world, but you have to beware of the counterfeit.
Here is an example. Let's apply the rules. Okay, so now you know what I want to be able to enjoy: the physical world. I don't have very high aspirations, and I'm not looking for 1st class. I just want to live in 5th class, but I want to enjoy it. But you have to beware of the counterfeit, because if you are not aware of the counterfeit of this class, you may just go for the wrong thing, and it will end up destroying you.
Especially in 5th class. You know, in 4th class, in 3rd class, in an airplane, you do something wrong, nothing too dramatic is going to happen to you. But if you are hanging onto a rope while flying, one wrong move with that rope and you are done. When you live in 5th class, if you are not going to be aware of the counterfeit, the next stop—there is no 6th class. The next stop, you are done. It's over. For some, maybe it's called suicide, and other types of ways where a person can be done.
So, like what? What could be the counterfeit of physical pleasures? We know what they are. We know how to enjoy ourselves when it comes to dinner and lunch and other areas of the physical world. What do you mean, beware of the counterfeit?
So I'm going to say it in my own words. The counterfeit of the physical pleasures is that more is more. That's a counterfeit. More is more. That's fake. What do I mean, "more is more," and how could that be fake? More is more. It's obvious, because logic says that more is more, meaning if I enjoy something physically, if I enjoy it once a day, then if I do it twice a day, I'll enjoy it twice. It's the same body. It's the same item. And if I do it 3 times a day, I'll enjoy it 3 times. And if I have the ability to do it 100 times a day, then I'll enjoy it 100 times. That's the formula. Here's the body. Here's the pleasure. Put the pleasure with the body. If it works once and you enjoy it, why not a thousand times? More is more.
So here you have a person who's hardworking, not making too much money, loves, loves, loves to eat steak, but he can't have steak all the time. He can't afford it. Once a month, a nice juicy steak, and he looks forward once a month to having that barbecue. That's all he can afford. He loves it. He can't wait until the day when he's able to have steak more than once a month, because remember, more is more.
Now again, I give you steak as an example of any physical pleasure. I'm not going to go into detail of all the physical pleasures...