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The Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection is the one-stop shop for the Torah inspiration shared by Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe in one simple feed. The Jewish Inspiration Podcast, Parsha Review Podcast, Thinking Talmudist Podcast, Living Jewishly Podcast and Unboxing Judaism Podcast all in one convenient place. Enjoy!
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.
Welcome back everybody. Welcome back my dear beautiful friends to the Mussar Masterclass. Today we're going to resume the Gate of Truth, Part 2, from the Oruch Hasidicim and the Treasure for Life edition of the Ways of the Righteous. We're on page 711 in the middle of the page. Amar HaChocham. Whenever it says the wise one said, it's always referring to King Solomon, the wise one, the wisest of all men.
Todir tasim ha'emes l'um ha'asecha. Always put the truth in front of you. Ratzolam, or what does that mean? What did he mean to say? She yaseh simonim la'atzmim b'vo la'asos ma'asom matan she yiskor v'lo yishakir. That is, that one should make signs for himself when doing business to remember not to lie. She yiskor v'lo yishakir. V'yichtov b'chtav. And a person should write down things. V'yav yetzlo oso ksav. And he should bring with him
what he has written. And glance at it before he enters into his transactions. V'yir abo kodem ma'asom matno. V'chein yichtov b'ves midrasho v'al shulchano. So too, a person should write when he's in the study hall, and he should write when he's sitting at his table, that he remember and not speak falsely. She yiskor v'lo yishakir. A person should always remember what he said. A person should always remember. Maybe that's why all of our broadcasts here are published online and multiple platforms,
so that we remember what we say and hopefully don't contradict ourselves. V'k'desh v'lo yishkach l'dabeho emes. And a person should never forget to speak the truth. You say, you ask my son, you ask, I know. You ask, what are you talking about Rabbi? What are you talking about? I know what's the truth. So my answer to you is, great question. Have you ever seen a politician? One day they say, this is terrible. The next day they're like, look at him. He's so terrible.
That's what he wants to do, right? It's like, it's amazing. If you go back just 20 years and you see the people who wanted to close down the border, and today are yelling when someone else is closing down the border. Oh, he's just a hater. Oh, he's just a... And when you have people who say you shouldn't, you should do business with this nation, or you shouldn't do business with this nation, the same thing they said, the exact opposite. And it is documented, but yet
truth is not of essence to them. Truth. And that's why we know that it's not the most uplifted of trades for one to be a politician. So we talk about a general, in general, a person. I mean, that doesn't mean that all politicians are evil, and it doesn't mean all politicians are dishonest. But there's a certain, there's a certain way in which people act when they are in certain trades. It happens to be that in most countries the politicians are the most corrupt.
And they don't forget what they say. They promise you one thing, which the Mishnah says, the Mishnah says, be very careful about the politicians. Because they're going to be your friend when they need your vote. And as soon as they get your vote, they don't remember who you are. You're who? What? Where? What? You ran a campaign thing for me. You gave me money. Don't remember. But it's nice to meet you, and vote for me again.
And, as we know, there was a certain person in the Talmud that wrote on the walls of his house and on the wall of his study hall, Remember the day of death and do not sin. Why? Because one who only speaks the truth, such a person who only speaks truth, will live a very long life and will be saved from all misery. Where do we know this from? What's this idea supported by? The verse tells us in Jeremiah,
And Hashem, God, is truth. He is the living God and the eternal God. We see from here that if someone is God-like in the way they act, in observing truthfulness, making sure that everything they do is truth, that they speak truth, they act truth. You know, it's very easy for people to talk one way and to act a different way. We say, yeah, you have to be honest. We say, yeah, we have to be truthful.
How many prosecutors wrote, no one is above the law, and then that same thing is flipped on them because they cheated on mortgage applications, etc., etc. This is, by the way, you should just know all of these stories is just to teach us what we're learning here. You know why these stories are happening in the news? For us to learn what we are learning here in this book so that we can understand and have a real life example of what it means when our sages tell us truthfulness is key.
Truthfulness is key. On top of page 713. And if a person speaks only the truth, a person will be saved all the days of his life. What does it mean he'll be saved? He'll be protected from evil. He'll be protected from harm. He'll be protected from confusion, from discord. We see, as the Torah says, This is written about Malachi, by Malachi.
He says, the Torah of truth was in his mouth and wrong was not found in his lips, for he is an angel of Hashem, of hosts. OK, so someone who's very, very cautious to only speak the truth. One hundred percent to be accurate in every word. I just shared with you the story for sure. I think it was after the recording I added this story. So I'm going to share it now in the recording.
Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetzky, of blessed memory, the father of the saintly Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetzky, who is now about 102 years old and he lives in Philadelphia. He's the Rosh Hashiva, the head of the yeshiva of Philadelphia. What an amazing man. He happens to be my cousin. My grandmother's first cousin is Shmuel Kamenetzky and. Actually, there's a very beautiful letter that we found that my grandmother wrote to Shmuel Kamenetzky, her first cousin, during or after the war, just inquiring in how he's doing and how is he learning and how things going.
It's like it's almost today something that would be in the, you know, in the religious world is such a separation between boys and girls till they're married, obviously. That for a first cousin to write a letter to the, you know, female of the other gender is almost unheard of. But you see this letter that my grandmother wrote to her first cousin and it's so beautiful, so warm and so loving. It's absolutely incredible. Either way, so if you want, I can show you a copy of it and translate it here.
It's magnificent. It's heartwarming. But his father, Rabbi Shmuel, Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetzky, was interviewing for a job back in Europe for it to be a rabbi of a synagogue. And before he got up to say his sermon on his probe for the position that they were interviewing him. So before he did that, he spoke to the rabbi and he told the rabbi what he was going to say. The rabbi said, you say this, this sermon, you got the job in a second. It's yours.
Sure enough, Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetzky gets up the next day at the sermon and he says a totally different thing. And it was a total flop. And they said no to him. He did not get the job. So the rabbi calls him and he says to him, he says, what's wrong with you? I literally told you you had it in the bag. Like, why did you have to be a wise guy and give a different drosh, a different speech, a different sermon? You should have just said that one.
He said, because it wouldn't be honest. He says, these people want to hear a speech that I can deliver every week, not one that I prepared for six months. He says, the one that I told you is one that was prepackaged. It is. I had every I dotted, every T crossed. I had every, you know, he was, it was a perfect, but that's not something I can deliver for them every single week. They want to hear something that can have only a minimal amount of time of preparation.
Clearly it wasn't good enough for them. So he was a man of total truth. Where every word, by the way, when he lived in Muncie, New York, the bank teller had heard that Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetzky was a great saintly rabbi. So she decided she was going to test him. So when he came to withdraw cash from the bank, she slipped in an extra $5 bill. And sure enough, when he got home, he counted the money. He saw that she gave him an extra five.
He went back to the bank and returned it. She says, ah, now I see that you're an honest man. Now I see that, you know, you're indeed. Yeah. Okay. I don't know what anybody else would do. Maybe most of us would go back. Maybe not. But here's a person who's like, he doesn't want anything. That's not exactly what the Almighty wanted him to have. I know plenty of people who would say it's their mistake. Too bad. All right.
But the truth is, is that this is our responsibility as a Jewish people. Our responsibility is not to just say, okay, I got away with it. No, our responsibility as a chosen people is to demonstrate what it means to be God's people and to be at the highest level of scrupulous behavior where every single thing is perfect. That's our responsibility. And if we fall short of that, we're held accountable more than the nations of the world.
You know, it's like most people who are, you know, found to, I don't Mr. Ponzi, I have no idea what religion he was, right? Nobody really cares unless you're Jewish. Why? Why is there such an obsession when it's a Jew? Everybody needs to know he's a Jew. In every article written about Bernie Madoff, it said that he was Jewish. Why? Because that's the obligation. The Torah obligates us to be an example for the nations.
And when we fall short of that, they're going to hold that against us. We can only say, oh, I'm the chosen nation, I'm the chosen nation, but not demonstrate how we're going to be different and obligate ourselves more. And if we don't do that, then we're falling short of our responsibilities. He says, the celestial angels are are disembodied forms of truth, and souls are generated by them, as by the sun. The souls are embodied, and therefore hidden matters are slightly known to them.
And in the visions of the night, when the souls are not occupied with the affairs of the body, as can be testified to by those knowledgeable of the ways of the soul." So what he's saying is, is that when someone is dealing with truth, it doesn't raise any radars of the heavenly angels. But when someone has the blemish of falsehood, then suddenly it's a big bright red light that everybody sees. Certainly the angels see it. V'achalomos me'ein ha'machshavos, this is an important thing to remember.
Dreams are of the nature of one's thoughts, as it is written in Daniel. Your thoughts, your dreams, arose upon your bed. It says, ra'ayonecha almishkavecha seliku. Your thoughts, your dreams, arose upon your bed. V'achalomos me'ein alidei malach ha'malav al'adam. Dreams come through the angel that accompanies man, and because not all thoughts are true, not all dreams are true. B'lafi she'in kol ha'machshavos emes, al'kein ein kol ha'chalomos emes, u'mi she'margel atzmo sheyu kol ha'machshavos emes, and one who is of the habit that all his thoughts
are true, then at night too, all of his visions will be true as well. Gam yira balayla maros emes, ve'yeda ha'sidos k'ma ha'malachim, such a person will know the future just as the angels do. So we know that the Talmud says that the dreams are a 60th of prophecy. Well if a person is a person of absolute truth, their thoughts are truth, their actions are truth, whatever goes through their mind is truth, then also their dreams are true, and then they're able to see the future in a way.
By the way, it's very interesting, we learned this in the Rambam, Maimonides tells us that how do you know the true Messiah? How do you know the true Messiah? The Rambam says that how do you know a true prophet? What's a true prophet? What's a true prophet? A true prophet is someone who says, imagine, today it was just pouring rain here in Houston, Texas, and imagine the prophet comes into this room and he says, it's going to rain,
lightning, thunder, even the roads are going to have big pools of water, a little flooding, like we have here in Houston, and then there's going to come a lightning bolt right here in the middle of the table, and after the lightning bolt it's going to split the table in half and there's going to be a big bottle of Coke Zero that will appear right in the crack of the table. That's what the, you could use a Coke Zero right now, you could use a cold one, a really
cold one, a beer, a beer is better for you. So what happens, so it's lightning, it's thundering, there is the flooding, and there is the lightning bolt that hits the table, it cracks it in half, and where did we say the Coke Zero is going to be? Right in the middle. Yeah, but it was on the side. It was on the side. He got 99% correct, says the Rambam, that's a false prophet. Every single detail needs to be accurate. Truth is not a negotiable trait.
It's not, well, it's mostly true. That doesn't work in the realm of the heavenly world. In the world of God, it needs to be 100% true, 100% true. As it states, and because not all the thoughts are truth, and or words are true, therefore not all the dreams are true. And anyone who puts himself into a habit of speaking truth, thinking truth, then even the visions he has at night, the dreams will also be truth.
There's nothing more perfect, there's no greater quality than one who speaks the truth. So it says in Psalms 119, verse 160, the first of your words is truth, Rosh Tovar Ha'Hemes. The Torah already tells us, keep yourself far from falsehood. This is in Exodus 23, verse 7. And just by the way, not everyone likes the truth. Not everyone likes the truth. You know, we say every morning, this is my rabbi of blessed memory, Rabbi Beryl Eisenstein, used to say this idea.
You know, we say in the morning prayer, right after the Shema, we say 15 praises of Hashem. Emes, ve-yatze, ve-nachon, ve-kayim, ve-yasha, ve-nemon, ve-ov, ve-chavit, ve-nechmod, ve-noim, ve-noyer, ve-yadir, um-sukon, um-kubal, ve-tov, ve-yofe. 15, can you pass me the English citter, the art scroll, please? Oh, thank you, thank you Mark, appreciate it. This is every morning, right after we recite the Shema, we say these 15 attributes of Hashem. What are they? And truth, Hashem is true, and certain, established, enduring, fear, faithful, beloved, cherished,
delightful, pleasant, awesome, powerful, correct, accepted, good, and beautiful. Rabbi asks a question, he says, what's the first quality, the first praise of Hashem? It's truth, Hashem is true. What's the last? Beautiful. He says, I don't understand, shouldn't true and beautiful be one right next to the other? Shouldn't they be right next to each other? He says, no, he says, usually what's true, usually what's true is not beautiful, and what's beautiful is usually not true.
You know, we've had, you can, again, we go back to our politicians, people are in the eye, in the public limelight, they, you can see there are people who speak the truth, but they're not, nobody likes what they say, because it's in your face and it's not pleasant. Then you have people who say beautiful things, and it's not true. So they're usually a contradiction. If someone is speaking beautiful words, you have to be cautious whether or not it's true.
If someone is speaking truthful words, it may not be so pretty. It may not be so pleasant to hear them. So not everyone likes the truth. You know, you ask someone, do you like this jacket? And they're a real person of truth. They can say, no, it's an ugly jacket. And you're like, oh, why are you hurting my feelings? You asked me, you want me to lie, right? Okay, there's a way to say it, that's true. But at least you know exactly what the person thinks.
My father's like that. My father is truth, truth, truth. He doesn't know how to say something which isn't true. So it's not going to be so pleasant always. It's not always going to be pleasant. If he likes it, he's going to say, if you ask him, he'll tell you like it. If he doesn't like it, he'll say he doesn't like it. But he's definitely not going to lie to you, right? You know exactly where you stand. Not everyone likes that.
He says, gam haramizos shel adam yu emes. He says, also when a person insinuates something, you should make sure that it's truthful. Ki schar ha-emes gadol miyod. Because the reward for truth is very, very great. L'cheim yar gal atzmo leylekh be-emes. A person should accustom himself to walk in truth at all times. V'yilmar ha-Torah leydah ha-emes. And why should a person learn Torah? To know the truth. I was just sitting with someone today. I said, you have to always ask for the source.
If you realize here, the author of the Orcha Tzadikim, the Ways of the Righteous, every line he's bringing a verse to back up what he's saying. Because just to say nice things without verification of the truth, of the authenticity, you have to have proof for it. Not just anonymous sources. That doesn't go in the Torah. In the words of our sages, there's no anonymous sources. K'dei sh'yu chalasos ha-Mitzvot ha-Alami tasan u'kel chasan. In order to be able to perform the mitzvot truthfully according to halacha.
U'la olam yod ha-Alami emes. A person should also always acknowledge the truth. Admit to the truth. Afilu b'divrei ha-Hagadosh she'ein behem ki'u mitzvot yilmad. K'dei she'ya min ha-Leiv d'var emes. So there's what we study on Fridays in our Thinking Talmudist series. We study Talmud. We study ideas in the Talmud, but it's called Agadek. Because it's stories that you can learn things from. So why do we learn that? We said we learn Torah to know the truth. To know what God wants from us.
And even study matters of Agadek which do not involve the fulfillment of mitzvot so that the heart will believe truthful things. Because in every one of those stories, it always is backed up by a verse. A verse, a God-given verse in the Torah that backs it up. Al teivosh le'kabel ha-emes me'eza adam she'yeh. Don't be embarrassed of accepting the truth from any person. From any person. A person has to be very, very careful to always, always accept the truth.
Even if it's from someone who's younger than you. Afilu mikotan she'bektan ha-bevinivzeh. Even someone who is a young person, a small child. You know, you may look down upon them. What intelligence do they have? If it's truth, accept it. Afilu hochi te'gabel ha-emes minu. Accept the truth. Because it's true. Ki margalis tova she'hi biyad kotan v'nivzeh. Why? Because even a precious pearl, even in the hands of the small and despised, le'olam hi chashuv ha-margalis. It's still a very precious pearl.
It doesn't make a difference who's holding it. We understand that it's a pearl. The emes, the truth that we seek in our lives. You know, we talked about in one of our classes recently, when we spoke about the beginning of the book of Deuteronomy. We started, we talked about Moshe, how Moshe gives critique to the Jewish people. And how did he do it? He did it in the most gentle, most beautiful way. He did it in a very soft way. Not harsh.
Not reprimanding them to their face. Rather, very, very gently. Our sages tell us we learn from Moshe how to give critique. How to give proper criticism. We talked a lot about that it is a special virtue, a special quality for a person to be able to always accept. To be able to accept from another person, oh, if it was my zaydi, if it was my grandfather, I'd listen to him. But you, little guy, who are you to tell me?
Do you have the college degree that I have? Are you a doctor? Are you, you know? So people sometimes have a hard time accepting the truth because it hasn't been delivered the right way by the right person. Our sages tell us if you criticize a wise person, he will love you for it. Because you just gave him a free self-tune-up kit. You gave him an insight. You gave him a way to look at himself with truth that otherwise he wouldn't have had an understanding on.
This is the key. When we talk about truth, it doesn't make a difference if it's packaged in the nicest way. A gem is still a gem. Even if it's not with the nicest setting. Even if it's not delivered with the nicest box. That concludes day number 125.
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