Good morning, everybody. We’re continuing our class. We’re back to Avraham Avinu, whom we discussed a few days ago. We spoke about how Hashem spoke to him at the age of 75. The question was: What did he do to reach the level at which Hashem spoke to him, especially when you consider that he had already understood at a younger age that there was a Creator?
We explained that there are different levels of knowing something. There’s a person who knows something intellectually, and a person who understands it emotionally, through the senses. These two types of knowledge are not comparable at all. One actually becomes part of the person. The other just stays in his mind and has almost no relevance to his daily life.
He gives an example: a child whose father warned him not to go near the fire. Imagine this child: he has never experienced what fire does to a person. He has no clue. His father told him, “Don’t go there.” Obviously, the child listens because it’s his father. But this is called intellectual knowledge, because the person believes his father. When he sees his brother, for example, put his finger in the fire and start screaming from the pain, then he has a greater understanding of fire. And if he puts his own finger in, then he has an even better understanding of fire.
So again, the more physically connected a person is to what they know, the more they will live with that knowledge. You can’t compare a child who has been told what fire does with a child who has seen what fire does, or one who has experienced what fire does. This is the difference between Yediat HaSechel (intellectual knowledge) and Yediat HaChush (sensory knowledge).
Now, how does this help us in our discussion? The answer is that Avraham Avinu certainly intellectually concluded and understood that there is a Creator of this world, but that was only intellectual, which is a great accomplishment. However, as we mentioned, knowing the truth, even if you have no doubt, doesn’t mean you will change. It doesn’t mean you’re going to change your life, or that it’s going to make a difference for you.
We see this all the time. How many times have you and I heard something very inspiring, believed it, and seen the truth in it, but continued our lives as if we had never heard it? We speak about it. We discuss it. But at the end of the day, we’re the same people we were before we heard it. We didn’t change at all. It happens all the time.
By the way, it’s very important to know this information, not only because we’re trying to follow in the footsteps of Avraham Avinu, but because it’s going to help you in life, help us in life in many ways. I’m going to give you an example of how understanding this concept can help.
Very often with our children, for example, we tell them to do something. Let’s say a child gets in trouble in school. The father gets very upset. The mother gets very upset. He’s kicked out of school. They beg their way back in. They figure out what the problem was. Then the father sits with his son and says, “Listen.” I’ll give you obviously one example of millions of examples. He sits with his son and says, “Son, this is what you did. You weren’t talking properly, you weren’t doing your homework—whatever the issue was. Commit to me that you’re not going to do that anymore. Do you understand why what you did was wrong?” “Yes.” “Will you do it again?” “No.” Done. You got your message across clearly. He understood it. He can repeat it back to you.
Then, only a short time later, the exact same thing happens. I’m sure this has happened to all of us. The person usually gets very disappointed, and sometimes upset or hurt. “I don’t understand. Didn’t we sit together in the room? Didn’t you tell me that you understood what I was saying? Didn’t you say that you wouldn’t do it anymore? But you did the same thing again. How could that be?” We become very frustrated, and we feel that our children or our students don’t respect us. What we told them was so clear, and they understood it so well, and yet they’re back doing the same thing again. What disrespect that is.
But when we know the concept we’re learning now, we learn how to deal with people much better, especially the people we love: our children, our students, and our friends. Just because we don’t respect them, we don’t respect them. We don’t respect them, because they’re going to go through the same thing again. But a person knows what you said is true. Just because they believe it’s true, it doesn’t mean they’ve changed who they are.
Your son clearly understood you and was probably honest when they told you they understood and weren’t going to do it anymore. They were honest. But that didn’t mean they had changed. They were still the same person they were 10 minutes ago. Just because you tell something to someone, or just because you learn something, that doesn’t mean you change who you are.
You could read a book on anger. In fact, forget reading a book: you could write a book on anger—a beautiful book, a bestseller, with all the strategies for how not to be angry, how to deal with anger, and how to deal with challenges. You could literally speak across the world about this subject, and people walk out in awe, inspired by your understanding of it. You have every good piece of advice to give others.
Now, does that mean you’re not an angry person? No. You could write a book on anger, know all its issues, and still be angry. How come? Because just because you know something, it doesn’t mean it has now become part of your heart.
A more practical way to say what we’re saying is that there is information in my mind, and there is information that reaches my heart. They say that the distance between the mind and the heart is extreme. It’s a very long way, miles away. Just because you know something, it doesn’t mean it has hit your heart. Until it hits your heart, it really hasn’t made a difference in your life.
Therefore, this teaches us how to deal with others patiently. I’m going to give you a personal example. Maybe I’ve shared this before, but it was a very good lesson for me, and I’m sure you would appreciate it as well. So I’ll share it with you.
About, I would say now, almost 15 years ago. I can’t believe it’s that long. But I began serving as the rabbi in Shaare Zion. One of my jobs is to speak every week. I spoke probably three times every Shabbat. Every week, I would pick different topics. Life has many facets to it. The Torah is huge. Every week, I would choose three topics that I thought would give another important angle on life. The next week, I’d pick another three topics. In an entire year, you would cover a hundred topics, maybe more, each one important; put together, they make an unbelievable person.
Week after week, I chose relevant topics. After maybe six months or so, I realized that one of the topics I hadn’t spoken about was modesty. A lot of women come to the class. A lot of men are there, too; they also have to learn about modesty. But the first thought I had was, “Really, I don’t want to discuss this subject. It’s too sensitive. It’s too personal. I don’t know how well it will be received.” So the first reaction is to shy away from that subject.
But then I challenged myself: maybe this was just a fear of being rejected, or a fear of not being liked, which really isn’t supposed to be my motivation. I’m not here to get more followers. My job is to give over the messages of the Torah, of course in a sensitive way so they’ll be received, and in a smart way so people can understand them. That’s obvious. But at the end of the day, I’m not here to develop a fan club.
So I suspected that I wasn’t doing it for pure reasons. So I challenged myself that I wouldn't have to do it because it is one of the important facets of a Jewish person. How can I speak every single week without discussing such an important subject? So I took it upon myself to discuss it one morning. I remember this class. I could probably repeat it to you, God bless your word, because I probably prepared for this class more than any class in my life. I know the subject pretty well now because of that. I must have spent 12-15 hours that week just understanding the subject well, so I could give it over in a way that would be accepted and understood. That was 12-15 hours for about a 20-minute class.
I came in nervous but ready. The synagogue was very packed that morning. I don’t think there was an open seat. There were men and ladies. It was around May. I started speaking about the subject, explaining what modesty is and what it’s not. How does it translate into our lives? Is it only for women? Is it for men too? Why do women speak about it more than men? How does it apply to dress? Is it only about dress? And all the different facets of modesty that needed to be understood and discussed.
I believe I went through the subject in probably one of my clearest classes, because I knew it so well. I can tell you that the way it was received was amazing. I don’t think I’ve had a class like that, in terms of the number of people and their positive reaction. Not that it should be measured that way, but the number of people and their reaction to that class was something I never even imagined. Men were there. I had ladies waiting for me when I walked out the door after Musaf (additional prayer service) to thank me, to tell me how I had opened their eyes and minds to a subject they had never understood, or perhaps misunderstood. It was something out of this world. I was so happy. I was satisfied. I felt like I did a great job. When you work for something, prepare, and see how it came out—sometimes you prepare and it doesn’t come out so well—but this one was, to me, a great success.
I was walking home and feeling very good. My wife asked me how it went. I told her it was unbelievable. It was... Today, there was a major, major change. I said I felt the people really connected to what I was saying. All types of people. All ages. All... It was just great.
That high continued to stay with me for a few days, until I think it was Tuesday night of that week. I had a wedding in the synagogue that night. I went and saw somebody standing with his wife. It was actually the same woman—one of them, at least—who had been waiting for me outside to tell me how thankful she was for what I said and how much it had reached her. But then I really wasn’t able to look at her. You could understand why.
I have to say, the high I was on—which was pretty high—went away just as quickly, and I went so far down. I was so disappointed. I said, “I can’t believe it. I couldn’t have spoken better than that. I couldn’t have been clearer. This woman herself told me how she understood what I was saying and appreciated what I was saying. And only two days later, there’s absolutely no change. Oh, my God. I have no idea what I was saying. I don’t know what to say. I understand it. Change.”
I said, “I’m living with people who are just fake. They’re just fake people. They’re not real. I mean, they come here, but maybe they just want to be entertained. They tell you, ‘Wow,’ but maybe it’s just that they have intellectual excitement, but no real interest.” The disappointment, I must tell you, was so great. I really felt like this job was not for me.
I made a decision a long time ago in my life that I would live a life that was honest and truthful. It doesn’t mean I’m always successful, but my commitment was that I would commit myself to what’s good and what’s right, no matter what the situation was. So if I was going to be a rabbi and teach people, it had to be done for the right reason and with the right purpose. At that point in my life, that Tuesday night was a very big turning point, because I felt like I really had no purpose in what I was doing. Maybe it’s hard for you to imagine this, but I’m telling you as it was.
But I made a very big mistake, and I’m learning from my mistakes. I made a very big mistake that night in judging that woman by saying, “Oh, she doesn’t really care about what I’m saying. She was just telling me ‘great’ to make me feel good, or she just wanted to be intellectually stimulated, but had no real interest in living according to the truth.” That was a very big mistake I made in judging her or other people.
Over the years, I’ve learned how this subject we’re talking about can be so powerful in my life, and I’m sure in yours, because all of us have situations like mine, maybe in different ways. Maybe it’s children, a wife, a friend, or a student. We deal with people all the time—our grandchildren, too—and we get disappointed. Maybe they’re not responsible. Maybe they’re lazy. Maybe they’re not respectful. Maybe they’re not observant. Maybe they’re not keeping Shabbat the way they should. Maybe they’re not dressing the way they should. Everybody has their own challenges with their own families and situations.
So this is not only about me. My experience over the last 15 years has proven to me that I was dead wrong. People aren’t fake. People aren’t just dishonest. My child is not telling me yes while really meaning no. That’s not what’s happening. When a person sits with me in a class and isn’t jumping the next minute to do what we learned, it doesn’t mean they’re dishonest. It doesn’t mean they’re not committed. If you go through your life feeling that way, you’re going to give up very quickly. You’re going to make the wrong decisions, and you’re going to accuse your children or your students of being dishonest or fake. That is the beginning of the end of your relationship with them, at least in a positive way.
When we understand the rule we’re learning now, it changes our whole outlook toward other people as well as ourselves. The real answer to the question about that woman on Tuesday night was that she heard me very well, and she understood me very well. But it hadn’t yet reached her heart. It reached her mind, but hadn’t gotten to her heart yet. It didn’t just stay in her mind. Maybe over time, it would slowly grow on her. When it reaches her heart, it becomes part of her life.
I say the last 15 years have proven me wrong, because I see it with my own eyes. I see it in myself. I see it in my family. I see it with the people I’m around. So many people, looking at the last 15 years, have literally changed their lives in so many ways. I’m sure many of you have changed your life in so many ways. If I asked you, “So what did it? Which speech was it? Which lecture was it? Which class did you go to? Which one changed your life?” could you tell me? You probably couldn’t tell me. You know why? Because it wasn’t one. It was hearing it once, hearing it twice, hearing it three times, experiencing it once, and keeping at it. What happens if you keep at something? It starts to grow on you, and it starts to become a part of you. All of a sudden, you look back 10 years later and say, “Wait, how did I get here? I wasn’t like this.”
You have people today who never learned in their lives. They never opened a book in their lives. And today they’re learning three hours, four hours a day, and they’re loving it. They could never have imagined doing that 15 years ago. So which, did that.
There's no one. It took time for things to go in. So never think that what you say to your children, your friends, your students, or yourself is being ignored. Remember the rule: there’s intellectual knowledge, and there is sensory knowledge. Sensory knowledge—and this is today’s Chiddush (new insight)—can come quickly if you experience something with your senses.
But let’s say it’s not something I experience with my senses. Can I still get it to my heart? Let me review the question again so I’m clear. When I learn something, it goes to my mind. Now I know it. It doesn’t mean that I’ve changed. I only change when that reaches my heart. How will that information reach my heart?
We said that if you have sensory knowledge of something, if you experience it—for example, going to a funeral and experiencing a person passing away, seeing a bomb go off, or going to a hospital and seeing what it means to be unhealthy—that’s called sensory knowledge, and then it hits my heart. But let’s say I don’t have sensory knowledge. Can it still get to my heart? Can information I learned from a book, or that I think about with my mind, also enter my heart? The answer is yes. If you keep working at it, thinking about it, reviewing it, and seeing different aspects of it.
Take anger as an example. If you hear one speech about it, it’ll excite you. It’ll make you want to change, but you’re still the same person. You haven’t changed. Hear about Shabbat. How many people didn’t grow up keeping Shabbat the right way? If someone got up and said, “Shabbat is the most beautiful day of the week,” we all know that. Anyone who is a Shomer Shabbat (one who observes Shabbat) knows there’s nothing like Shabbat. But if a person has never experienced it, hearing about it doesn’t mean they’re going to do it. So how will they come to do it? The answer is to learn more about it, to read more about anger, and to take a little piece of paper and start keeping a record of when you got angry.
If you put more investment into it, what you knew with 100 percent certainty—that you were going to get angry—may still be what you know on July 1st that you knew on March 1st. That knowledge didn’t change; you didn’t learn more. But by reviewing it, thinking about it, and putting it into practice in real life, you will start to feel it as part of your life.
And this is the answer about Avraham Avinu. What was Avraham Avinu doing? At 70, 50, and 60 years old, he already knew that there was a Creator in the world. So the truth is, that was only intellectual. A great accomplishment. Avraham Avinu did the math. Mathematical equations. He added up everything he saw in this world. He added up the planets, the stars, the grass, the trees, and the fruits. He added up the wind and the sun. He added up the oceans, the human being, his life, and his capabilities. He put a whole story together and saw, “Listen, this is one story.”
It’s like when you read a book. If you see a book and open it up, and the first chapter connects to the second, the second to the third, the third to the fourth, the fourth to the fifth, and then the end, you see one book that connects from beginning to end. Well, guess what? You know there’s one author of that book. If you open a book and see random stories or random paragraphs that have no connection to each other, that book may have been written by many people. But a book with one story from beginning to end is written by one author.
Avraham Avinu intellectually understood, when he saw this world—which we’ll go into next week—that there is a Creator of this world. But did that make a difference in his life yet? Did it make a difference? The answer is no. It was the beginning. It was the seed. It was the seed of Avraham Avinu. What made Avraham Avinu Abraham? When he took that seed of intellectual knowledge and made it part of himself. He put it in his heart. It took 70 years to take that and make it fully part of his life, of who he was. That’s a lifetime’s worth of work.
Therefore, when we hear something, we must always remember that now we have the seed. But the actual fruit and growth haven’t happened yet. It needs follow-up. Avraham did 70 years of follow-up. He took the information that was intellectual knowledge inside of him. How do we do that? How do we take any information and make it part of our lives? The answer is, we have to wait. Excuse me. We have to wait until next Monday. We will start on the path of Avraham Avinu: how a man took a piece of information, allowed it to penetrate him, and become the person he became.
We will continue next week on Monday. It’s good to see everybody. Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom.