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This Jewish Inspiration Podcast is dedicated to learning, understanding and enhancing our relationship with Hashem by working on improving our G-d given soul traits and aspiring to reflect His holy name each and every day. The goal is for each listener to hear something inspirational with each episode that will enhance their life.
Welcome back, everybody. It is way number 22, Erech Apayim, control your anger. Accept frustration. Accept that things don't need to be your way. We have to accept differences. You know, the biggest problem with our generation is that everything is I, iPhone, iPad, it's me, me, me. You know, it used to be that we had Kreplach, Knedalach. You know what that means? That's for us. Knedalach, for us. Kreplach, for us. Now it's Bisli, Tenli, right? Everything is for me.
It's an I generation. It's a self-centered culture. It's a big problem. That means if I don't like your opinion, I can hurt you. If I don't like your opinion, I can damage you. It's a terrible thing. Well, we need to be a light unto the nations. We need to show the whole world how to do it properly. Accept differences, it's fine. We can live closely, warmly, friendly with people who have completely different views on everything, whether it be religious, whether it be political,
whether it be philosophical, it's okay. Appreciate an opinion that's not like yours. We're not cultured to do that. We have this society of it's my way or the highway and the most successful people threw away that my way or the highway attitude and accepted others. Learn to appreciate every step forward, no matter how small. That's also sometimes we don't have patience with ourselves. We feel like it's gotta go faster. You have to make slow adjustments. In life, that's the way it works.
A beautiful parable to this. My father was a pilot for many years and he had this little hobby airplane that he would fly. A Cessna, a small Cessna, it was a four seater and one of the things that my father would be busy while he was flying was spinning a little wheel. It's called a trim. What do you use that trim for? So you're flying in a certain direction but now you start getting winds from the southeast or the southwest or from the northeast.
You get different winds. Make those little adjustments, little small adjustments so that you can fly in the right direction. So that's what you use a trim for. And I say a trim is our personal growth. We're always facing different winds that are coming to us. There's a challenge coming from here, a challenge coming from there, little small things that we need to adjust. Use your trim properly to adjust it in the right direction. But we can't do that if we're not willing
to accept frustration, if we're not willing to accept those challenges that don't go our way. Anger is considered idol worship. When you get impatient and you get frustrated, you know the next step? You're getting angry. That's a terrible thing. Our Talmud tells us anger is like idolatry. Anger is like idolatry. Why? Because you have another power taking over you, another power taking over you. Anger is probably one of, we're going to talk about it soon in our Muslim Mondays series.
Anger is probably one of the worst traits a person can have. The terrible destruction happens around people who get angry, or at least people who have the propensity towards anger. Anger is considered idol worship because we're taking orders from a different boss. Anger may come also from a lack of faith. If we don't realize that everything comes from Hashem so that we get angry, that we get frustrated and we get upset that things aren't going my way, well, guess what?
There's a big creator, he manages the world, and the deal that you were supposed to get, you'll get, and the deal you weren't supposed to get, your friend stole from you, quote unquote, it's okay. People get frustrated. Hashem knows what's best for you and the right deal falls into the right hands. It actually says, by the way, that not only someone's betrothed, someone's spouse is predestined for them, it also, there's a heavenly voice that says, by His ploni liploni, this house to this individual,
not only this woman to this individual, but also this house to this individual. And I will tell you, I said this previously, when I bought my current home, there were bids that were higher than us, there were bids that were probably more attractive to the seller than us, but Hashem didn't want it. Hashem wanted us to have this house. And for whatever reason, all those other bids fell through and ours was accepted. And not only that, every single door
that could have been closed was wide open. You know, you have the approvals from this and the approvals from that and all of the financing, all, everything needs to happen. Every door that could have been closed was open. Why? Hashem wanted it. If Hashem doesn't want it, we just like, we keep trying and we try to push those doors open and they're locked and it's not gonna work. And we've all had those experiences too.
If Hashem wants it to happen, those doors will be open. If He doesn't want it to happen, those doors will be closed. And we have to realize that, that there's a big picture going on in this world. When we realize that Hashem designs our challenges, we know that it's within our ability to accomplish. It's within our ability to overcome. A person should always say the world was created for me. You know who says this? The Talmud in Sanhedrin.
A person should be in the habit of always saying, bishvili nivraha olam, the world was created for me. You know why? Because if you keep on saying the world was created for me, you'll realize that your challenges were created perfectly for you. Because only you can manage your challenges. Nobody else can. Nobody else has the ability, not the mental, not the physical, not the emotional ability to handle your challenges. It's a fascinating thing.
A person should always say the world was created for me. It says about anger that if someone was smart, their wisdom leaves them from anger. You'll forget your Torah when you get angry. It says about Rav Prada that he had a student who couldn't understand the teachings unless it was explained to him 400 times. And then one time he explained it to him 400 times and he asked the student, and he didn't understand it properly.
So Rav Prada said, why, you always get it by 400 times. Why did you not get it this time? He says, because you were called to do a mitzvah as we were beginning and I thought the whole time I was concerned whether or not you needed to leave right now so I wasn't focused. He said, fine, we're gonna learn it another 400 times. You know how much patience that takes? I don't know. If you had to count 400 times, just count. We'd go crazy.
You had to explain it to, that's patience because he realizes this is my purpose. This is my world that God gave me right now is to teach this student 400 times so that he understand this. That's my job now. You know, it's an amazing thing that many times people have an image in their mind of what their marriage is going to look like or what their business is going to look like or what their friendships are going to look like
and we imagine we have this certain picture and sometimes we want everything to blend in to our imagination of what it should be like. But in marriage, as most of you will identify, I'm sure, many things don't go your way and they don't fit into your picture. You have to realize that if God forbid, God forbid someone gets married and they have a traumatic experience for one of the couple, right? I know a couple where about a month or two
after the couple got married, the husband was diagnosed with that illness. Their whole life turned over. One second, this is not what I signed up for. This is not the romantic marriage I was imagining I would have. Going in and out of clinics, going in and out of hospitals, in and out of treatments. But guess what? That's your life that God gave you now. That's the challenge that you didn't sign up for but God signed you up for it
and says this is the challenge that only you can handle which is why God gives us the challenge uniquely tailored for us. My grandparents, all survivors, yeah, you're right, they have a right to be angry but they chose not to be angry. They chose to connect to Hashem on a higher level and to say Hashem is in charge. He was in charge and they lost their families. They lost their parents. I just was talking to my mother. Three of my grandparents' parents,
means my great-grandparents, were murdered and actually all four of my grandparents had at least one parent who was murdered in the Holocaust and siblings have every right to be angry. What's anger gonna help you? Anger is gonna help you be a better parent. Anger is gonna help you be a better Jew. Anger is gonna help you be a better member of society, a productive person. Probably not. So there's a difference between accepting that this was God's judgment, that's one.
The second thing is we have to realize that in a way we need to be proactive in our self-defense. We have to be proactive in not falling into situations where we can be taken like sheep to the slaughter in the future and it's called Heshtadlut. We have to make an effort. That doesn't mean anything. We're gonna try our best that if God forbid someone walks into a Jewish facility, whether it be a JCC or a, God forbid, or a synagogue or a torch center, right,
that we have what it takes to protect the people that are here. So it's not saying that, oh, never again, as in God doesn't have the ability to overcome our preparation. Of course he does. But we have to understand that this is not, let me tell you, okay, so I was just visiting someone at a shiva and he's of a certain Hasidic sect that over COVID was the most strict, the most strict Hasidus in any, any Hasidic. I mean, they were masked.
They were every, you name it. Not a single one of their followers died from COVID. Mehron last year, if you remember, at the Mount Mehron, 45 people died. None of their Hasidim died, not one, because they don't go to Mehron. They do their own thing. Okay, they have a different custom about it. A few days later, they had a tragedy in their facility where the bleachers collapsed and sadly, many people died. And the Rebbe said, you know what? We can be safe about COVID.
We can be safe about Mehron, but God, when he has judgment, he gets you his way. And we have to realize that, that yes, although we can have safer cars, so then less people die by cars, but they have other ways. We have to understand we can't outsmart the Almighty. And the Almighty is here to guide us and for us to be connected with him. Getting angry is losing control of the situation. It never, ever is beneficial, except I'll say one story.
Rebbe Moshe Feinstein was once overheard from the waiting room in his house and he was yelling and screaming at a student. That student eventually left and the next student comes in through the other door and he sees Rebbe Moshe is smiling and he's calm and he's like, weren't you just yelling and angry? He says, angry? No. He said, this person needed to hear something stern about his situation. He needed to hear firm words.
So I played the game as if I was upset and angry. See, he take it seriously. But me get angry, me lose my cool. That's losing everything. So be very careful about it. There's a difference between, yeah, sometimes the children, children, a child runs into the street, God forbid. A parent needs to not say, oh, be careful, be careful. The street is dangerous. There are cars there. You have to be stern. You have to be strong about it.
That doesn't mean you're angry. That means the child needs to understand this is something serious. Anger, a person loses themselves. Sheva yipol tzaddik v'kam. Every person who's righteous falls seven times and gets back up. Our sages tell us the number seven is the number of the natural state of something. Meaning to tell us that the righteous, their natural state of existence is that they fall and get back up and fall and get back up and fall and get back up.
That's the way we are. You want to always be up? You're probably not growing. You know, the heart is really amazing. The heart goes up and down and up and down and up and down. What happens if the heart just goes streamlined, just give it to me without the ups and downs? You're flatlined, you're dead. Healthy human beings have ups and downs and that's the way life is supposed to be. Take the down because the down helps you have a big up.
The next down leads to a big up. That's the way a healthy life functions. That's the way a healthy life is lived. My dear friends, let's take every opportunity that comes our way, the good, the bad, the ugly, and make it fantastic. Make it brilliant, as mentioned earlier. That concludes way 22. I look forward, next way is way 23, which is b'tov lev, which is with a good heart. Because if you don't get angry, you're able to open up your heart
and have all the goodness flow from it.