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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.
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe, Director of TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.
And now, my dear friends, we resume with Day 109 in the Treasure for Life edition of the Orcha Tzadikim, the Ways of the Righteous, in the Gate of Remembrance. And only two more days until we conclude this gate. And what is it now? The 28th thing to remember on page 632. On top. A person must remember, says the author.
If given a house as an outright gift, someone gives a house to their friend. It's yours. Here's the deed. It's your house. Take it. And then the person, the recipient, wishes to tear it down and build it new. Can the giver stop him? No. He gave it out as a gift. You can't stop him any longer. He says, so too should one give his soul, his wife, his children, and all he owns to Hashem. What does that mean? Make an outright gift of it all.
My marriage, my children, I'm dedicating to you, Hashem. What does that mean, I'm dedicating it to you? To your service. I'm not taking it for my pleasure. I'm not taking it for my fulfillment. I'm here to serve you, Hashem. And all that he owns to give to Hashem, making an outright gift of it all, having placed himself from the beginning in Hashem's hands, he has put his trust in Hashem and resolved faithfully in his heart to accept with love whatever Hashem decrees upon him.
Hashem, everything I have is yours. I recognize that. Everything I have is yours. So you know what? Whatever you decide to do, I accept with love. With absolute love. And even if God did not send him any evil, not on his physical body, not on his money, no illness, nothing bad comes to his family, not to his children, not to his wife, not to him. He gets an unbelievable reward, notwithstanding, because he was ready to give up everything for God.
That has to be the way we live our lives. Live in a way that you're ready to give up everything for Hashem. I'm willing to do everything for Hashem. So a person needs to ensure that they're ready to commit themselves to the Almighty. I commit myself and everything that I have in my life to the service of Hashem. The biggest collection in our home should be our books. Just by the way, it's an important thing. But notwithstanding that, my grandfather, of blessed memory,
when he got married, he was probably 35 when he got married. He got married a little late because the Holocaust got in the way. So he got married. And he thought he was pretty wise. One of the rabbis came to him during Shavuot, during the seven days of celebration after the wedding. The rabbi says to him, oh, this is your house. He says, what's the holiest room in your house? My grandfather proudly said, what do you mean?
This room where I study Torah, where I sit here and learn Torah, that's the most important room. The rabbi said to him, no, that's incorrect. He said, your bedroom is the holiest room in the house. The way you treat your wife, how you treat her, that is the test of your holiness. Not how much you learn. Because if you are the holiest, righteous man learning Torah all day and you neglect your wife, it's worthless. You neglect your children, it's worthless. That's your number one responsibility.
Your number one responsibility is your wife. Number one. Numero uno. That's your primary responsibility. My grandfather even says that a man really doesn't need to learn how to educate his children. He only needs to know how to be a good husband. Because if there's a happy wife, you'll have happy, healthy children too. That's your job. Make your wife happy. Make sure you take care of her because if she's happy and she's taken care of, guaranteed your kids will be taken care of.
It's an amazing thing. Just as a side note, I said this recently in a class and the guys were going crazy. My grandfather says that the first half hour when you come home doesn't belong to you. It belongs to your wife. Imagine that. You walk into the house. Kids are hanging from the chandeliers. You have dinner on the table. You have kids running around. You have nap sacks and homework and this, everything. All hell is breaking loose.
Here comes Prince Charming, comes home, and he's hungry and he just wants to sit down and have a quiet dinner. No. First half hour doesn't belong to you. First half hour belongs to her. She's dealing with chaos. It started at 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock, whenever the kids got home. Now you walk in, Prince Charming, at 7 o'clock, you expect to have a hot dinner waiting for you. First thing you need to remember is the first half hour belongs to your wife.
Belongs to her. My rabbi would add to this. He says on your way home, have a fruit. Have something so that you don't come home starving because the problem is we're hangry, right? Hungry, angry. No. Don't come home hungry. Eat something on your way home. When you drive home, eat a little snack, eat an apple, eat a banana, eat something so you're not starving so that the first half hour you can focus on your spouse. I think it's a very fundamental principle
because if I realize that this is my service of Hashem, Hashem is, people don't understand how important marriage is in our service of Hashem because the relationship we have with our spouse is a reflection of our relationship with Hashem. So if the relationship we have with our spouse is superb, I guarantee you the relationship with Hashem is superb. And if the relationship with our spouse is rotten, I can guarantee you that the relationship with Hashem is rotten because they can't work.
Oh, here I'm righteous and over there I'm not. It doesn't work like that. Okay. And then we have the 29th thing to remember. And then we have the 29th thing to remember. He says an amazing thing. We mentioned this previously, but it's an amazing thing. This is the 29th thing to remember. Your value is not your external. Your value is your internal. You could be the most handsome, beautiful person in the world, but if you're empty inside, you're worthless.
And if you are an ugly person, Hashem didn't gift you with good looks. Hashem didn't gift you with wealth. Hashem didn't gift you with all the great gifts. But you've invested that internally. You're filled with spirituality, with holiness, with Torah. The greatness, the holiness goes beyond measure. We take, sadly, the world out there. It's very external. Everything is superficial. And sometimes the only thing you need, they say, people will think you're smart until you open your mouth. And then they know you're not.
It's like sometimes people, they're from the outside. They look like they're presentable. And then you just hear the silliness that comes from their mouth. There's no intellect. That's more important to invest in our wisdom, in our holiness, in our purity, in our spirituality, and in our knowledge to learn things. It's very easy. I was just talking to somebody today about this. We were talking about how there are certain social media apps we don't have on our phone. I don't have any now.
No social media on my phone. Why? Because Yetzirah is very smart. Yetzirah is very smart. The evil inclination makes it so that it's addictive. So you start seeing one short, and then another short, another short, and then you see Rabbi Walby's short. Swipe. Move it on to the next one. But you see these shorts, and one leads to the next, to the next, and there's this whole algorithm preparing the next one for you, and the next one, and the next one.
So you never stop. It becomes addictive. I don't want to be addicted to anything. Deleted the app. Finished. Goodbye. Deleted it. We have to recognize that it's very easy to get caught up in this world, but it's important not to. That's way number 29. Way number 30, the 30th thing to remember, and this is the final one. Imagine someone travels to a foreign land, doesn't speak the language, doesn't know anybody. Nobody acknowledges him.
Nobody pays attention to him, except the minister of the country says, come, we're going to give you a home. We're going to give you food. We're going to take care of you. And he warns him. He says, I'm going to give you this, but if you rebel against me, you do some trend day Aragua on me. He says, he warns him not to rebel against him and transgress his commands and informs him of good rewards for his service and exhorts him concerning his inevitable exit
without specifying the time. In truth, you have to let me know. Don't just disappear on me. Such a servant would have to humble himself and abandon pride and give thought to the king's service to see how he could do the king's will so that the king would love him even though he is a stranger. Do whatever you find. Curry favor. Follow the law. And he'll exert himself to increase his service of the ruler of the land.
Having no one else merciful to intercede on his behalf. I don't have any lawyers. I'm not going to give me due process. No one's going to give me due process. I'm an alien here. I don't have any rights. Okay. He says, same is exactly the case in this world. When a person comes to this world, he says the truth is that a man comes into this world as a stranger and his arrival time into this world comes
and if the entire world tried to advance it or delay it by one moment or to bind one of his limbs, they wouldn't be able to. And likewise, once he is born, no one but Hashem can sustain him. Living in a miracle, in a total miracle. I can tell you this. Knowing how Tino Ben Meira right now is sustained on what? Doctors? No. No. It's the hand of Hashem. We have to recognize this. Every single moment of our lives,
we're just as vulnerable as that 1.8 pound baby. We're just as vulnerable. But we get confidence. We get cocky and we're like, oh, me, I'm strong and I got muscles and I have, you know. No. Nothing. We're just as vulnerable as that little baby. You have to know that the only one who is totally there with us at all times, 100% of the time, is the almighty creator of heaven and earth. Hashem is there with us all the time.
Hashem is there with us through thick and thin. Hashem is there with us through ups and downs. Hashem is there with us through happy and sad. Hashem is there with us through healthy and sick. Hashem is there with us every moment of our lives. The only one who can bring us success. The only one who can bring us salvation. The only one who can give us joy and take it away is the almighty. Very important thing.
And this concludes the list, the magnificent list of 30 things that the author of the Orchas Tzadikim tells us to always remember. So this concludes day number 109.
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.