Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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.
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.
And now we are on day 166 on page 882 in the Treasure for Life edition of the Yorha Sadiq and the Ways of the Righteous. And we are continuing in the third fence that a person needs protection in order to have pure repentance. And that is HaGeder HaMeula. The most effective fence is humbling the evil inclination in letting oneself go hungry, minimizing pleasures and enjoyments in eating and drinking.
So, one of the things that brings us to challenge in our generation, I was just at a wedding last night and the person sitting next to me at the wedding was very worried that I should eat. They were very worried because I was walking around meeting people. It was like my brother married off his daughter. It was a great celebration. There were so many people there. It was a really beautiful wedding.
Beautiful, beautiful wedding. I was meeting all of these relatives of mine that I haven't seen in a long time. Living in Houston doesn't have the luxury of having so many family members here. Thank God I have my brother here, but not many others that are from my family. I have a very big family. So, I was meeting all these relatives and friends. When I got back to the table, it was like, oh, you know, eat, eat, you have to make sure you eat.
I said, yeah, this generation, that's not one of our problems. Not eating is not one of our problems. Like you can miss 10 meals, you won't go hungry. I guarantee it. Anybody. Kids today eat enough. Adults today eat more than enough. So, this is perhaps not our challenge of eating. But when a person eats, what happens? What happens when a person eats? They eat sometimes too much. They get carried away. It's not healthy for our body physically. It's not healthy for our soul spiritually.
He says that a person should limit himself to deriving pleasure from fragrant aromas and from warm baths. For these are indeed pleasurable to him. And the little that he eats should be well seasoned and prepared so that he can enjoy it in order to partake and be content with just a little. So, if it has a lot of flavor, it fills you up more than if it's bland. Okay. So, a person also can enjoy a little bit of wine. But don't drink too much wine.
So, what we're seeing again is the same theme of balance. Balance is the key to Judaism. The key to Judaism is balance. And about this, our sages of blessed memory said, Leave over from eating a meal that you are enjoying. Meaning, leave something over. That's what our sages tell us. So, it's appropriate to leave a little bit of your plate so we don't fulfill our full desire for that food. Ah, I want more. I want more. There are two facets, two advantages to this.
Number one is that a person leaves over a little bit. You know, eating too much is more dangerous than eating bad food. Eating a volume, a quantity of food, even of healthy food, is worse than eating bad food. Okay. So, we all know there are foods which aren't good for you. That is still better to eat bad food than to eat too much of good food. So, even if you know what, I'm going to have salad. Just going to have salad. How much damage can salad have on you?
But you eat too much salad, it's worse than eating all the junk you could have eaten. Right. Don't eat too much. Okay. That's number one. Number two, and this halacha tells us this. Remember in the Everyday Judaism podcast, we talked about this. In the halacha, the halacha says that a person in their meal has to moderate, not eat too much. When you feel that you're full, that's it. Even one or two bites before that. Vashnia, the second advantage of limiting one's intake of food.
Is just humbling the evil inclination and breaking the desire, the urge to eat more. As I explained previously, says the author, referring to a meal. A person should not fulfill all of his desire from his food. And of course, a person should protect himself from food which is outright bad for you. Okay. For example, there are foods. Today it's hard to know because everything that they tell you today isn't good. Tomorrow they'll tell you is good. Fatty foods not good. Fatty foods is good.
This food has too much cholesterol. Cholesterol is good for you. Cholesterol is bad for you. It's amazing how the Food and Drug Administration continues to change their standards of what is healthy, what isn't healthy. That pyramid has changed a hundred times in the last hundred years. But the one thing I do know is that the things that Hashem gives us from the ground are always the healthiest. The produce that comes from the ground.
Now, if it has all the pesticides and it has all of that, you got to be careful. A person has to know what it is that they are eating from. A person should do some research to ensure that they're eating healthy food. But a person should also not make their food into idol, into idolatry. Don't make your food into an idolatry. There are people who everything about their life is about their food. That's also not good. A person has to be very careful.
A person has to be normal. I would say that at the very least to our listeners out there and to myself as well, I started being very, very cautious and staying away from processed foods. All of these things that you can buy in the store that are all, you have so many ingredients and so many preservatives and so much. It's like, again, I don't know that organic is healthier, but it's definitely healthier than ingredients you can't pronounce because they're made by some chemical.
So a person has to be careful about that. You know, just staying away from foods that are not healthy for you. So another tactic of the Yetzirah is to just give you bad food. Because what happens when you eat bad food? Your body dies and then you can't do any mitzvahs because you're not healthy. So he says, you know what, I'm not going to get him to do outright sin. I'm going to give him kosher food, but I'm going to give him a lot of kosher food.
I'm going to give him a lot of kosher food. And now he's just going to eat himself to bad health. And then he's not going to be able to perform mitzvahs. And that's the way I get rid of him. That's also a tactic of the Yetzirah. Every person who's able to speak. It means, we call that a human being. Anybody who is able to speak. Anybody who has a half a brain knows that the Yetzirah doesn't ever come to you and say,
Mark, go do that sin. He doesn't say that. The Yetzirah never does that. He doesn't say that because he knows. You're going to say, are you out of your mind? I'm not doing that sin. No, I'm not going to do it. But you know what he does say? He says, don't sin. Sin is a really bad thing. It's the Yetzirah. The Yetzirah is telling you this. And that could be the friend sitting at you at work. He says, why don't you come?
We're going to hang out at the bar tonight. You're like, no, I don't want to go to the bar. He's like, no, I'm not telling you to drink. Just come hang out with us. You don't have to drink. And once you're there already, he says, you know what? What's a little shot going to do? Me talk to the girls? That's not the way. No, I'm going to go through the shidduch. I'm going to do the proper way.
And they're going to say, just be nice. Again, it always starts with a little bit of mutter of what is permitted. And then he flips the script on us and pushes us to that which is not appropriate. And if a person is really, really cautious. If he's cautious and he realizes that the Yetzirah is only coming through methods of permitted. And then he goes to the prohibited. Ki derech ha-yo-etz ha-bli-al, mi-tchi-lo, me-si-so, le-mu-tor, le-ma-le, ta-vos-o. Ve-ach-ra she-her-gel, le-ma-le, ta-vos-o. Min-ah-het-ter, ve-hir-iv-naf-sho, li-yo-sho-kei-ko. Be-chol-etz, le-ma-los, ta-vos-o.
Oz, me-si-so, ele-is-ser, ha-kal, u-min-ah-kal, ele-chom-or. See, it is a process. First, he feeds you a lot. So now you're used to getting your custom to eating a lot. Now, he's going to put you in a situation where you don't have food. So now what do you do? I have to eat. I have to eat. There's nothing to eat that's kosher. So I'm going to have to go eat something that's not kosher or something that's not healthy.
And then, slowly, he gets you to do something which is a small prohibition. And then he goes to get you to do a big prohibition. Because there's no, you know, I'll give you an example here from Mr. Ponzi. Okay, Mr. Ponzi is also known as, what was the Jewish guy's name? Madoff. Madoff, Bernie Madoff. Bernie Madoff never, ever planned to make off with $60 billion of stolen money. He never set his sights on that. He never, ever set his sights on that.
I guarantee you, I promise you. He never thought of stealing that much money. Do you know what the Yetzirah did? Yetzirah said, let's start with $60. Let's see if the IRS picks up on it. $600. $6,000. $60,000. $600,000. You see, and then it became more and more and more and more. It starts with the mutter. Eh, I don't know. He sends him success. And then he says, okay, just a little bit of asar. Just a little bit of what's not permitted.
Just a little bit. And he says, you know what? It's not that bad after all. You know, it's a mitzvah because I had someone once tell me, he says, listen, I don't agree with anything the president does. Every dollar I don't give to taxes is not paying for his jet. Right? So he says, I don't want to contribute taxes. It's a mitzvah for me not to pay taxes. And that's not true, of course. Right? Because there are laws of the land.
And the laws of the land, one must fulfill and obey the laws of the land that you are part of. The country that you're part of. And if that's the law, a person needs to disclose every dollar that he earns. Az may siso ele iser akal. And the yetzirah takes us to an easy sin. And then min akal ele charmer, from the light prohibition to the more severe prohibition. Alkein hizir be'eter. Hizar be'eter. Therefore, the author tells us, be very careful with that that is permitted.
La'asos geder le'ma eta ta'va min amutan. Therefore, always be in control. Don't lust after your own desires of what is muter, of what is permitted. Ve'ozim ya le'aleb cholamalos bina'isur miyad ata nose kalvachomer ba'atzbochah. Be'muter li ne'esarti, be'oser li kol shekein, lo kol shekein. Right? He says like this, if I'm able to control myself with what I am permitted to, then I'll even more so be able to control myself for what I'm not permitted to.
And this is going to be a strong place for a person to really withstand things that are not good for you. Ve'kei van she'ata nose kalvachomer ze olecha. Now that you think about this, if I'm able to withstand from what is permitted, I don't eat my full meal. I'm learning to be stronger. I'm learning to limit my exposure. So now from what I am not permitted, I'll be even... You know, I'll give you a great example for this.
You know, one of the gifts of keeping kosher is that your children learn a very, very, very, very important lesson about life. And that is, there are certain things I just cannot do. I can't do it. I can't do it. Right? So if you notice, in the checkout counters of all supermarkets, they have these little chocolates and little candies and little gums. You know why they put them there? Because when your kid is in – your child is inside the wagon and you're about to check out,
then they're like, oh, mommy, daddy, can I have that chocolate? Can I have that candy? Can I have that mint? Right? And they want you to buy it. Then it's, of course, always overpriced over there. They have the smaller packages for more money. And what are you going to do? Your kid's going to throw a tantrum there in front of the whole store. I'm going to be so embarrassed. What am I going to say?
But if it's not kosher, your child won't ask a second time. Your child will not ask a second time. I'm telling you this. I've seen this with my own children where they come to that checkout counter and they say, oh, can we get that? I'm like, let's check. I look. It's not kosher. Not kosher? The question's over. They learn that there's a certain – this is untouchable. We don't touch – it's like, oh, so we'll get it anyway. No, that's not an option.
Okay? It's just like – it's just like – I'll give you another example of something which is not an option. Mark, you hear this? If someone came over to anybody in my community and said to them, someone who's Shomer Shabbos, okay? They said, I will give you $3 trillion. Get into your car and drive. I guarantee you there's not a single person in the community that will do it. No one. To forsake Shabbos? Like, are you crazy?
I don't care how much money you give me. Okay? But the Yetzirah will never come with such a challenge because he knows that you're out of your mind. Right? You're crazy. I will tell you, though, that even though I sometimes do have the mitzvah to drive on Shabbos because I'm a first responder and for all life matters, you have to desecrate the Shabbos in order to save a life. So because of that, I felt it appropriate for myself to restrict my Shabbos to the longest Shabbos possible.
So Rabbeinu Tam has a custom that he would take out Shabbos 72 minutes after sunset, which is the most stringent opinion. And that's what I follow just because I'm in Hazal and sometimes it would necessitate, because of a life matter, it would necessitate me driving on Shabbos, taking a patient to the hospital or the like. I want to add to the Shabbos and I want the Shabbos to be serious for me.
So I said, I need to find something that I can add to my Shabbos that adds that element of seriousness. And that is something that I found so that it doesn't become something which is light. Okay. He says over here, if you're cautious with what is permitted to you, you'll be cautious with what is forbidden to you. A person should not over-afflict himself with fasting. Lest his heart grow weak and his mind distracted and his loss be more than his gain.
If a person says, you know what, I'm going to start fasting. Not only am I going to limit the food that I eat, I'm going to start taking upon myself to fast. And that way I'll be in more of a spiritual state. I won't be connected to the physical world. I'm not going to be running after my food all day. I'm not going to be thinking about food. What am I eating for dinner? What am I eating for breakfast? What am I eating for lunch?
I'm just going to be focused on my service of Hashem. That's not either good. Because then a person won't be able to focus on his Torah study. He'll neglect his Torah study. And the person will neglect his prayer because his mind, he has a headache now because he's fasting. A person has to be normal. A person has to be healthy. A person has to be balanced. You're going to be so weak. You're not going to be able to function like a normal human being.
Because you're going to be so weak from your fasting, you're not going to be able to think straight in your Torah. Torah is only acquired through joy, through happiness, through delight. And a person should not limit himself from the joy of a mitzvah and from the pleasure of a mitzvah. A person should be fulfilling every mitzvah with joy. Just keep your eyes open and aware of your Yetzirah. And a person should also just keep in mind to not give in to your full desire.
So when you eat, leave a little bit. Leave a little bit. And this will teach you to abstain a little bit. And that restraint will help you when you get to bigger temptations. This is what, by the way, what we say about when a person wants to work on his traits. So if you remember, we talked about this a long time ago in our Muslim master class. My grandfather would always say that a person should overcome their impulse three times a day.
Okay, so let's say I've been wanting to drink my tea. I've been wanting to drink it. But to overcome it, say, you know, I'm not going to drink it right now. I'll drink it later. I'll drink it later. Hold it back. Why? What does it make a difference? Is it a sin to drink my tea? I made a bracha already. I made a blessing and it's not a sin to drink the tea. Because here's the thing.
What you learn by overcoming that impulse is that when you have an impulse to do something else, now who's in control? I'm in control. Because on what I'm allowed to drink, I was able to control. What I'm not allowed to do, hopefully I'll have the strength to control as well. It means you're building that muscle, what we call restraint or impulse, so that when you have an impulse to look at something, you don't need to because I'm in control.
This is something which is key in our service of Hashem. You know what else? When you have an impulse to get angry, you'll also overcome that impulse because you're in control. Not your impulse in control. If you see someone go crazy and get angry and mad and throw things, they're not in control. That's their problem. They don't have control. And that's a terrible thing, a terrible place for a person to be in. V'im yech lashli ba'al miyot achiloso, tov lo shi yochal shtey pa'amim,
v'yom me'at me'at v'lo yimala kreyso v'pa'amachas. It says it's best to have two meals a day that you eat a little bit less than to have one meal that you eat a lot. V'im lo yizdamen lo le'echol shtey pa'amim. And if a person isn't able to eat twice a day, yiye etz lo min ha'marakachas ha'mesamachas ha'leif. Then you should have a little bit of a snack so that you should be pleased, you should be satisfied. V'yochal mimenu me'at mat v'izchazik libo.
And a person should eat it slowly, slowly, take a little bite. You like a good chocolate chip cookie, right? Don't eat the whole cookie in one shot. Just take a little nibble at it slowly, slowly, enjoy it. It's also, by the way, when you eat pizza, you see people stuffing that pizza down their mouth, right? Take a little bite at a time, enjoy it, right? Salivate, salivate, okay, enjoy it. Gam im yireh be'atzmo b'tivoh she'yiyet tzorich li yis'anos yomo yomayim be'shavuah
yis'an alafi takonoso v'lo yushav b'taynis. Oh, sorry. Ki ha'yoshiv b'taynis v'hu tzorich lo nikra kodosh. If someone is fasting, so don't fast too much. If you need to fast for whatever reason, it's considered very holy. But if the fasting makes you weak and now you can't observe the Torah properly, that's really not good. So now he goes back to the thing he mentioned earlier, and that is every person needs to know himself. You have to know what your trappings are.
And the first and the most important, watch your eyes. Your eyes bring temptation. We're not talking about immoral or immodest temptations. We're talking about food temptations. You look at the food, you also desire that. We say this in our Shema. Be careful, your eyes bring temptation, bring desire, bring lust to the heart. Don't look at something that's not yours. It's not yours? Don't look at it. Because you're going to desire it. You go to someone else's house, like, ooh, where'd you get that?
Ooh, right? That desire is a prohibition of the Torah, of do not covet your neighbor's home. And if you limit your looking at only things that belong to you, that's considered someone who's modest. And what does it say? A person who protects himself from desire, a person who protects himself, he's protecting his heart as well. The heart is the action. The eyes bring the desire. That's why window shopping is a very bad idea. Because it only brings in, it feeds in,
desires into you. How many times do I see people, they tell me, oh, my goodness, did you see the latest fashion? It's just ugly. It's ugly. Like, what are people thinking? And then two months later, they're wearing that. Why? Why? Because it brought first, they looked at it, and then they desired it. They bring in, your eyes are the windows to the world. They see, they see, they take in information, and then the heart says, you know what? I want that.
I want that. I want that. All of those things that the eyes fed it. Now, if a person protects his eyes, then his heart, the rest of his body is protected even more so from all sin. Okay. How many more do we have here? Still got ways to go. Okay. We're going to stop here at 167. This concludes 166. My dear friends, I look forward to continuing more Torah study tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning, we're back at 11 o'clock.
We have parasha and prayer. I look forward to, oh, look, we have wonderful people here. Janet Mizrahi from Tennessee. Aaron Burickson, I don't know where you're from, but shalom to you as well. And to all of our friends online, thank you to our awesome crowd on YouTube, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Twitch. Thank you to all of our viewers. It is so wonderful to be here. To those of you on Zoom, thank you for being with us.
Please don't forget to subscribe if you're watching this online, to like, to share. We appreciate it so much. It helps more people hear and learn Torah with us. Thank you so much. Have a good evening. Okay. Any questions here? Thank you, Marilyn. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Any questions? What's that, Elisa? Oh, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that so much.
It's fantastic that I have so many wonderful people to learn with here in the classroom, online, over here, there. Together, we have, what, seven people here. We have over 30 people with the people online with over 30 people learning with us tonight. That's amazing. It's such a blessing. Such an incredible blessing. We have to thank Hashem every single day that we have the ability to learn Torah and to learn Torah with such beautiful people. I mean, look at Mark. This guy is amazing.
All right, my dear friends, any questions about what we discussed tonight? You want to hear a story about stealing the Torah? I'll tell you a story about stealing the Torah. So, this guy walks over to his friend and he says, did you hear the rabbi stole the Torah scroll from the synagogue? Like, what? Yeah, the rabbi stole the Torah. He says, where did you hear that from? He says, I heard that from Joe. He says, really? He says, I got to hear it from Joe.
He goes to Joe and he says, did you say that the rabbi stole the Torah scroll from the synagogue? He says, I never said such nonsense. I said he stole the book of the Torah, the book of the Torah from the synagogue. I didn't say he stole the big Torah scroll. He says, really? Who did you hear that from? He says, I heard that from Shmo. So, he goes to Shmo and he says, Shmo, did you say that the rabbi stole the book of the
Torah from the synagogue? He says, no, I never said such a thing. I said the rabbi's son stole the book from the synagogue. He says, really? Who did you hear that from? He says, I heard that from the other guy. So, he goes to the other guy. He says to him, did you say that the rabbi's son stole the book from the synagogue? He says, I never said that.
He said, I said the Devar Torah that he sheared, the idea that he sheared with us, he stole it from a book in the synagogue. That's the most you can steal of the Torah. You can steal an idea. You can steal, it's not stealing. It's shearing a concept. You know, there's an amazing thing. If I took a dollar and I gave it to you, Mark, okay? Who has the dollar, me or you? I gave, I had the dollar, I gave it to you.
Who has it now? You have it. You know how the Torah is different? It says, Torah is like light. What happens if you're holding a candle and I'm holding a candle? My candle is lit and your candle is not lit. I take my candle and I light yours. Who has light now? Both of us. That's why you can never steal Torah. Because when you shear Torah, both people have the Torah. The person who says it and the person who hears it. You understand?
So what you're doing is you're adding light to the world. Now everyone's candle is lit. And now we have to go shear that light with the rest of the world. Okay, we think physically, I give you this mouse. Who has the mouse? You have it. It's not the way it works with Torah. You know, I was sitting last week, how do I remember this? Because one of the D'var Torahs that I sheared last week, two of them actually,
was a D'var Torah that someone sheared with me randomly. I went to someone's house. He says, I got to tell you something. I got to tell you something. I saw in this week's Torah portion. I got to share this with you. It was such a brilliant idea. I said, you know what? Mental note. I'm going to have to remember that for class. This is on Shabbos he told to me. So I like to remember, right? And then I went to somebody else.
He says, I got to share with you something. An amazing idea on the parasha. Right? So what happens? Now that Torah that they randomly sheared with me, they don't know, but it was sheared here on a podcast. It's going to be heard by hopefully many, many, many people out there in the world. It's a beautiful sharing of light with the rest of the world. That's our job. Our job. You have light? Share it. Soon we're going to be upon the holiday of Hanukkah.
That's all about Hanukkah. It's an amazing thing. Where do we put the menorah? We don't put the menorah hidden in an inner room. We put it by the window. We put it by the front door. Why? So that it's visible out to the world. We shine the light out to the world. Don't keep the light for yourself. Give the light to others. If we have that ability, that privilege to share our light with the world, that's the greatest mitzvah. That's our charge.
That's right. That's why we're called the torch. We light. That's the goal. The goal is to light up the world.
You've been listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe on a podcast produced by TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. Please help sponsor an episode so we can continue to produce more quality Jewish content for our listeners around the globe. Please visit torchweb.org to donate and partner with us on this incredible endeavor.