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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.
Way number 28. 28 is the number of koach, but today is also Rosh Chodesh, so it should be a month that's filled with blessing, filled with success. It's the month of receiving the Torah. It should be packed with tremendous learning, with tremendous knowledge, wisdom, and growth. Way number 28 is the Ha'oseh Siag L'Dvarav. Ha'oseh Siag L'Dvarav. Siag means to make a fence. L'Dvarav is to your words. So there's a number of things to understand when we talk about
this way, this tool for maximizing life. Number one, that it's to your words. Be cautious with your words. Don't use words that you don't want to use. There are people that we all know that run their mouth, that speak in a way that's not refined, and if we don't make an intentional boundary between us and using those words, it's inevitable that we'll start talking like them. I've seen people go into the workforce, and within weeks or months, they start talking
with the same foul language as the people around them. Because that's what they hear all the time. You have to set a boundary for your words, but it's not only your words. It's also all of the things that go on around your life. If you want to maximize things, you have to create a boundary for them. Boundaries are the most important tool for maximizing pleasure. Someone who eats all day doesn't enjoy his food as much.
Someone who limits... You know that I just sat this week with a winemaker. So I asked him, do you like drinking wine? His answer was, I like tasting it. I like tasting wine. You know why? Why? Because if you drink too much wine, you get drunk, and then you don't taste anything. Do you know that the... Again, this is not a scientific study. The population with the least alcoholics on planet Earth are wine connoisseurs. You know why? Because they
want to taste the wine. They want to enjoy the wine. If they get drunk, they're not going to enjoy it. You have to have a balance. You have to have a boundary in order to maximize any pleasure. You go to the beach every day. Eventually, you don't enjoy it. How many times do you go visit your family in Miami? You're like, you can never get sick at this beach. It's just so beautiful. And they're like, oh, we haven't gone in three years.
Because if there isn't a balance in it, you lose value to it. The first time you drove a car, the first time you sent a text message. This is amazing. I remember the first time we sent a fax. Do you know what a fax is? Okay, good. So I remember the first time we got a fax in our home, and we sent a fax to my grandfather in Israel. And it was like the coolest thing on
Earth. It's like, what? You got it? It's printing it out now. I can't believe it. It was like all that excitement. Today, we have no excitement for nothing. Because it's been so regular that we stopped being in awe of things. There's no boundaries for anything. You look at the world today, the world is plagued because of a lack of boundaries in any area. Whether it be modesty, there's no boundary. There's no boundary in honesty. There's no boundary in anything.
So life is difficult. When you have tough work, you need tough tools. If you don't protect yourself, you'll lose self-confidence and give up on life. We need to always be protecting ourselves. Some people say, you know, Rabbi, don't you think that if you don't have a television, you're neglecting your responsibilities as a parent, exposing your children to real life? I ask you, looking today, May 31st, 2022, you open up the news. How many retarded things are out there in the news
that we should never expose our children to? Because this is craziness. And it's, I think, the best thing in the world to limit my children's exposure to it. It's bad influences. Whether it be Disney, Disney Plus, or any of those other crazy, woke, agenda media entities, it's craziness. We have to protect ourselves and we have to create boundaries. Wage war with strategy. Make a plan to know where you're going in life. We wage war against an enemy country. You know, we also have an internal enemy. It's called the
Yetzirah. And that Yetzirah, we have to wage war against them, but with smarts. Not to just shoot rockets, not to just send in tanks like Putin, but to be smart about it, to be strategic about it. We also need to not do it all alone. Enlist the help of others. You know, therapy. Therapy is a very powerful tool that assists people in organizing life. I'm not a therapist, I'm not trying to sell, you know, but I've sent many people to therapy. In fact, I have a new
policy now that anyone who asks me to officiate their wedding and they're over the age of 30, I make it mandatory that they see a therapist, a marriage counselor. Why? Because forget all the craziness of the world. They've been entrenched in such a lifestyle that has not required them to think of anyone else other than themselves for at least 10 years. Most kids leave home at 18 years old, so if he's 36 and she's 32, it's likely that he's been out of the house for
18 years already. He has a way in which he does his laundry, or doesn't do his laundry. He has a way in which he eats, and the way he cleans, and in the way he organizes. Now he's going to bring a woman into his life who might have completely different ideas of how you eat, and how you drink, and how you clean. And it could be, even from little things, big arguments. So that's where I recommend strongly that every couple go for therapy. There doesn't have to be
problems to go to therapy. Marriage therapy doesn't mean that there are problems. It means you want to improve it more. Make it better. So I'm not a prophet. I'm a non-prophet. But as a non-prophet, I can surmise that most relationships aren't always smooth sailing. Not always. Many times. But not always. There are many times that there are big challenges. Then, even more so, it's important to have someone to help with that guidance. That doesn't always need to be a therapist. It could be a mentor, a rabbi, someone. Have clarity
of what is good and what is bad. This is very important. We should talk to our children. We should talk to ourselves. What's my list of things that are good? And what's my list of things that are bad? What's bad? Today, it was very hard for people. It's a very difficult question. What's evil in your eyes? Who am I to say what's evil? Well, there is good and there's evil. What's evil? Do we all agree that murder is evil? Murder is evil, right? So let's call it evil.
So we have one thing on the evil list. What else is good? What else is evil? And put together a list so we can identify things. Now, that doesn't mean that there's a guy who killed someone who was about to kill other people. As I said, I didn't kill a human being. I killed evil. I eliminated evil. So we have to define what is good and what is evil. Protect your values from the onslaught of society. And again, this is something which in our generation, I think we can
all understand how challenging this is. Where today, I mean, quite literally, we don't know who's a man, who's a woman. We're dealing with a crazy world. It's a really crazy world. And it's it's something we need to be protecting ourselves and our families of, A, that exposure and that craziness of what's going on out there. Maintain high standards and implement a method to check yourself constantly. We know what good and evil is. Let's check ourselves regularly whether or
not we fall into that category of good or evil. Are we perhaps veering out of our lane? Given the opportunity to rationalize, will you distort reason to indulge desires? You ask someone, is it good or evil to steal? Stealing is terrible. Everyone will agree stealing is terrible. Yeah, but what's about if, and you give them a circumstance, well, you know, people can justify things. There's a story I'm reminded of. There's this young Jewish rabbi
in Connecticut who went on to Craigslist and found a beautiful desk that he wanted to buy. And he asked the lady who was selling it if it's still available. Yes, it's still available. How much does she want? She wants $300 for the desk. Great, when can I pick it up? They arrange a time. He comes to pick up the desk. He puts the desk in a truck, takes the desk back home. He gets home, sets up the desk, and he hears when he was organizing it, there's something in the back
of the desk. And sure enough, there was a bag in there with $98,000 that she had forgotten. And he went back to her house to return it to her. Went back to her house. Why? Because the Torah commands us that if you find a lost object, you're obligated to return it. So you go fulfill that mitzvah, even if that mitzvah is a $98,000 return. But that's a Mitzvah in the Torah. You find something, you return something. Things that are valuable,
you protect from all harm, right? We protect our jewelry, we protect our children. How about our innocence? I was once in Austin, Texas, and it's the first time I was in Austin. You know, you see those signs like, we buy houses. You know, you've seen those, right? We fix cars, right? We, whatever. I saw one of those handwritten signs in the grass, in the middle of the, in the boulevard, in the part in the middle of the road,
at a red light. And it said, in big letters, lost my innocence, if found, and a phone number. Huh? Lost my innocence. That's devastating. But every person should learn their limits, create barriers for yourself. We make fences around the nuclear plant. Why? Because it's dangerous. Shouldn't we protect our internet, our TV, our guns? Protect our guns, we put them in a safe. Our TV, and by the way, these devices have a very cool technology. You can set limits. If you find that there's a certain app that's distracting you,
on an Apple phone or an Android phone, you can set limits that turns off that app after a certain amount of time. So if you find yourself, I used to do that with Facebook. Now I don't have Facebook at all. But when I used to have it, I realized it was taking a lot of time. You know, because we used to post all the classes live on Facebook, and it was like the, that was the Yetzirah's
entryway. So what I eventually had to do is, before they had these timelines, I had to, I deleted the app. I deleted the app. But we have to create those boundaries. And it's okay putting that line in the sand, that I'm not willing to spend more than a half hour on an app, or 10 minutes, whatever it is. But there should be a limit. Why? That's your fence to protect yourself. From an explosion of a time waster. We distance our children from bad influences to protect them.
Why don't we give our children heroin? Let them try it. What's the big deal? Let them be exposed to life, you know? Let them learn on their own how to stay safe, right? It's not going to work. That's the answer I usually give to people say, why don't I let my kids just have television and learn? Because it's heroin, it's a form of heroin. Don't allow yourself to fall into a trap, right? We need to prioritize our dangers. The Talmud relates about someone who
could have found an alternative route to avoid seeing immodest women. What happened? The guy was walking along the beach. Walking along the beach. Now, the way it used to work back in the day, the people didn't have washing machines, and so the women would go. They'd go, all the women together, a group of women. They'd go to the beach, and they'd clean their garment. Garment, singular. They didn't have many options, right? Or garments. And while their clothes were undressed,
while they were undressed, you know, they would wash their clothes, hang up the clothes, hang up the clothes, wait for it to dry, and then they'd all get dressed again and go. So, today we have multiple pairs of shoes and multiple pairs of changes of clothes. So, this guy, the Talmud says, had the option to go around on a different block, one block off the beach. You know, beach, first beach. The first block off the beach. But he said, no, I'm going
to go on the beach, and I'm not going to look. I'm not going to look. You know what the Talmud says about such a guy? He's considered a sinner. Sinner? Why is he a sinner? He didn't look. He overcame his temptation. You put yourself into a place of danger. It's as if you've sinned. It's like someone saying, I'm going to go into the nightclub, but I'm only going for the food. Right? Or certain magazines, only for the articles. Says the Talmud. Says the Talmud,
you're considered a sinner. You know why? Because you put yourself in a place of danger. When someone sees that there's danger, it's one of the reasons why my wife and I have made a commitment that we will, God willing, never go to Las Vegas. I'm not a gambler. I have no desire to be in any of the things that Las Vegas offers to begin with. But a place that calls itself Sin
City is not a place I want to be in. That's not where I want to be. I don't know. I'll never know. You know the way it works. You fool me once, shame on you. You fool me twice, shame on me. Right? That's the way our Yetziharah works. He tries to fool us once, okay, so we got him. But if he fools us a second time, now it's our responsibility. My grandfather used to say, the second look is what costs. If someone sees something immodest,
looks away, you look back, now you're going to pay for it. So avoid falling into the same trap twice. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. What's the difference between a child and an adult? A child only knows now. An adult understands that he needs to apply the past and his goals for the future to the present. We're three dimension. A child is one dimension. My children, when they were little, little babies,
they didn't care that it was four in the morning. When they're hungry, they want to be fed right now because the only thing they think about is themselves now. And the more we mature, the more we hopefully, we start applying the three dimension. We think about the past, how that worked for us. We think about the future, what our hopes and our dreams are, and then we apply it to the present. Remember your mistakes only for one reason,
to improve for the future. You know, I'm not a fan of guilt. Guilt has only one purpose, to improve your future. Live without regrets. Do the right thing. You do the right thing, you won't be regretting anything. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong, unless you take precautions to avoid it. Know the keys and save yourself the trouble. So, this concludes way number 28, how to make a protective boundary around yourself.